A CORONAVIRUS assessment centre has been set up in the car park of a Bournemouth medical centre.

Doctors at the Westbourne Medical Centre in Milburn Road are so concerned about the spread of the disease among patients that they have decided to separate people.

They are keen to stress it is not a testing centre but a means to keep people suspected of having coronavirus away from patients with other medical needs.

Such patients will be urged to stay in their cars when they arrive at the centre until they are approached by clinical staff wearing appropriate protective equipment.

Practice business manager Ian Gray told the Daily Echo that GP practices were having to change the way they work due to the pandemic.

He said: “GP practices and the wider NHS will continue to be under ever-increasing pressure over the coming weeks, including through Easter.

“In common with other GP practices across the country, Westbourne Medical Centre is looking at making changes to the way we work over the coming weeks in order to enable us to provide primary care services for our registered patients.”

Mr Gray said the new facility is only for patients registered with Westbourne Medical Centre who are displaying symptoms consistent with Covid-19.

They must also have already been in contact with the NHS 111 service and should initially contact the practice online or by phone.

“If they do require an appointment, our assessment centre will enable us to see those people displaying symptoms of coronavirus away from the main building, reducing the potential opportunity for the virus to spread” he added.

“As a precautionary measure, we are asking patients who arrive by car to remain in their vehicles and clinicians will be wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment.

“We would like to be clear that the assessment centre at Westbourne Medical Centre is not a coronavirus testing centre and would re-iterate that people should contact 111 before contacting their GP practice either online or over the phone.”

Yesterday the Department for Health revealed that nationally another 569 people with coronavirus have died in hospitals in the UK.

That brings the total number of people to have died to 2,921.

As of 9am yesterday a total of 163,194 people had been tested, of whom 33,718 tested positive, according to the figures,