Labour and Conservative members argued over why a sexual health clinic came under threat of closure before later being saved, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

The Town Clinic with (inset left) Alev Cazimoglu and (inset right) Alessandro Georgiou

Councillors have clashed over the future of Enfield’s sexual health services.

Last autumn it was revealed the council’s contract with North Middlesex University Hospital to run Enfield Clinics Health Organisation (Echo), which itself runs the borough’s only dedicated sexual health clinic – The Town Clinic in Burleigh Way – was under threat.

A petition was started by a senior staff nurse at Echo and was backed by opposition councillors who called for a halt to the decommissioning of sexual health services.

But earlier this month the council announced the The Town Clinic was now set to stay open.

This week Conservative councillors used their opposition paper to prompt a debate on the issue.

Sparks flew at Enfield Civic Centre on Wednesday night (22nd) as Enfield Council’s cabinet member for health and social care, Alev Cazimoglu, told opposition councillors: “Critically central to the failure of this opposition paper is an amateurish lack of understanding of the prudent rules which exist to ensure fairness, transparency, and competition in the merging of contracts.”

At the time the petition was launched in November leader Ergin Erbil said the council was in “extensive negotiations” on its “current service offer” as it needed to make changes due to “financial pressures”. He did not deny the clinic was under threat of closure.

The petition attracted 3,512 signatures.

Cllr Cazimoglu said: “The existing clinic site will remain open, and continue to provide sexual health services to our community, there will be no change.”

White Lodge Medial Practice in Chase Side, a second site where Echo operates, will be retained as well.

The cabinet member put the confusion over the service’s future down to the need for the civic centre to carry out “delicate negotiation” which she said was undermined by the opposition “spreading misinformation”.

In response opposition leader Alessandro Georgiou accused the Labour group of not knowing “what they’re talking about”.

He said: “I know they haven’t read the opposition priority business [the paper listing the group’s recommendations] because frankly it wasn’t political, we didn’t criticise or say anything bad. We said we welcome retention, this is what we think should continue, this is what we think should improve the service.

“The renegotiation should have happened earlier, if it was never going to shut down then why were people handed redundancy notices? If you were going to keep it open, why announce the closure?”

The Labour group said they didn’t announce any closure.

Conservative councillor Emma Supple gestured to nursing staff from the clinics affected, who were present in the audience, and who were being “redeployed” and said their experience had not been “pleasant”.

Cllr Supple said: “Regardless of where you stand on social issues this is public health and we as a local government have a role in it. The petition didn’t meet the standard [reach its target] but it did create engagement, the newspapers are engaged, young people are engaged and that’s important.”

In response to the staffing concerns, Cllr Cazimoglu said they were not local authority employees but North Mid’s, and to approach the trust on its staffing plans.

Ruby Sampson, who had proposed the opposition paper, added: “I am disappointed at the disrespect shown from the administration
to the nurses here tonight. It was their jobs in jeopardy, it was their jobs on the line, it was their place of work which had the contract threatened with termination until the decision was reversed so recently.

“By denying the extent of the previous decision the administration is doing the nurses a disservice […] Let it be clear: in November the clinic was given a termination date, 12th February 2025. Just before Christmas we received information that the closure date would be revised to 31st March simply for a more effective decommissioning process. A revised date is evidence there had been one in the first place!

“Nurses started the Christmas period with potential redundancy looming over them.”

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