Soho Walk in Centre to open as booked appointment clinic at weekends

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the NHS in North West London had to take the difficult decision to temporarily close a number of services, including Soho Walk- in- Centre. To support the NHS response to the pandemic, the space used by the Walk-in-Centre became an escalation hot hub used by Covid positive patients that still needed care from the NHS and WIC staff were redeployed to support other essential services.

The hot hub moved out of the space that had been occupied by the Walk-in-Centre in November 2021. This, together with the success of the vaccination programme, has allowed us to review the status of the service and we are pleased to advise that we re-opened Soho on 27 November 2021 as a pre-booked weekend clinic in the first instance. Patients in North West London (registered and unregistered) will be able to access the service via a referral from 111 or via self-referral by telephone on 020 7534 6500. The clinic will offer booked face-to-face and virtual appointments and will operate its service on Saturday and Sunday, 10.00am - 4.00pm.

The restoration of the service will be a phased approach. We will be developing a plan to restore a seven-day service in the next phase. Following this, we will explore opportunities to expand access via other routes and to a wider patient cohort outside of North West London. 

The CCG and its partners within the North West London Integrated Care System have concluded that it is still not possible to re-open the WIC to provide an open-access walk-in service, as we still need to maintain robust infection prevention and control arrangements at all times and ensure the safety of patients and staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. We believe the pre-booked service will meet the health needs of residents and keep both patients and staff safe from Covid-19.

This is a temporary arrangement, in line with Covid-19 restoration plans. The service change is not considered permanent and is subject to continuous review. The CCG remains committed to keeping local people and the wider stakeholder network informed of this temporary change and as we move forward.