Festival Place will be hosting a pop-up clinic for a Basingstoke health centre to carry out its annual flu clinics safely.

Crown Heights Medical Centre in the town was struggling to provide the necessary social distancing needed for the clinic because a lack of space and contacted the shopping centre to see if it could help.

The idea came from medical centre operations manager Jan Gower and Festival Place's marketing manager Emily Palmer.

Jan said: “We knew we would struggle for space to run our annual flu clinics safely and tried to think of a way around it. We thought about tents in car parks but that’s not practical in the autumn and winter.

“I had seen lots of innovative ways that Festival Place sometimes use their unoccupied units and contacted them to see if perhaps there was something they could do for us. Emily jumped at the idea and straightaway offered us a unit on the upper level which really has saved the day. Their support is absolutely fantastic.”

Emily said: “We love to be able to support our Basingstoke community, we have all done so well at pulling together during this extremely difficult time."

“We understand that patients need to be vaccinated, even more so now, but having the space to do that safely can be very challenging for surgeries. We were delighted to be able to help and to offer such a service in an accessible location like Festival Place. It makes complete sense and will further support those who may find it challenging to visit a more traditional surgery setting.”

The flu clinic is expected to run from mid-September to November for around 8,500 patients from the Crown Heights practice. It is not a public drop-in clinic and patients will be invited to attend in advance.

For the latest information on Festival Place please visit: https://www.festivalplace.co.uk/welcomeback.