HARTLEY WINTNEY doctors’ surgery is now a “hot site” for Covid-19 cases.

It comes as GP surgeries across Hampshire are to change the way they work in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

The NHS have announced that surgeries will be working together to limit the spread of Covid-19, ensuring that one surgery remains virus-free whilst another deals with suspected and confirmed cases.

Whitewater Health, who run GP services in the village as well as Hook, announced on their website that all patients with suspected coronavirus will be sent to Hartley Wintney, should it be deemed clinically necessary to see them.

All patients phoning the surgery, which is now triage-only, for an appointment that they believe don’t have Covid-19 will be sent to Hook.

This was an instruction sent to them by North Hampshire CCG, and came into effect on Monday.

It comes after the Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Local Resilience Forum (HIOW LRF) declared the outbreak as a major incident.

You should not attempt to collect or drop prescriptions off at the Hartley Wintney practice, the partnership say.

A spokesperson for the NHS said: “Changes in the way GP surgeries are run are being rolled out across Hampshire. Some groups of surgeries are working together and splitting patient care across different sites, meaning some will see patients with suspected or confirmed Covid-19, and other sites will aim to remain virus-free.

“To limit the spread of Covid-19, we need to reduce the number of people who need to visit their practice by using telephone appointments and video consultations. That helps us to give people the care they need, safely.

“When people contact their surgery for an appointment they will receive an initial assessment through e-consult or by telephone, by a trained clinician. Any patient assessed as requiring a face-to-face appointment, will be seen at an appropriate surgery, which has been set up to meet their needs.

“Whilst we realise such arrangements may be inconvenient, we think it is important to keep people safe, reduce the spread of Covid-19 and get the maximum benefit from the healthcare resources which will be available.”