Plan to rename Colston Health Centre angers patients

Aug 17 2009 by Gregg Evans, Birmingham Mail

ENRAGED patients at the Colston Heath Centre have branded NHS plans to re-name the proposed new building as an ‘insult’ to the pioneering doctor it is currently named after.

The centre on Bath Row honours MBE-winning Dr Brian Colston who campaigned for more than 30 years to get purpose-built premises introduced at the site in Birmingham.

Subject to planning approval, a new building will be built just yards down the road on the Crest Nicholson Marketing Suite site, which will include an NHS dentist and on-site pharmacy.

But a leaflet offering nearby residents the chance to win £100 worth of retail vouchers for coming up with a unique name for the new building has infuriated the patients.

“To give Dr Colston this honour and then whip it away for £100 is a disgrace,” said long-serving patient Bridget Pearce, who lives nearby in Edgbaston. “What a tacky, nasty thing to do. We just feel this is an insult to him and he must feel as though he has been smacked in the face with a wet kipper.

“We’re not prepared to sit back and let this happen.”

The retired GP began working in Birmingham in 1956 when the city didn’t have a single health centre.

He believed quality health care in the community could not develop until a number of services and personnel could be housed under one roof.

Dr Colston’s efforts were crucial to the development of baby, asthma and diabetes clinics, antenatal services, and a Citizens’ Advice Bureau.

A spokesman for the Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust said if the building was to be re-named they would look at alternative ways of recognising Dr Colston’s “significant contribution.”