ONLY five of Wokingham’s 14 GP surgeries currently offer cardiovascular disease health checks.

The council plans to undertake health checks in the borough’s leisure centres as a result of the NHS charging too much for the service.

Labour councillor Andy Croy said the revelation was “shocking”.

He added: “There is a problem in the provision of our health system.

“What is happening at the moment is we seem to be too reliant on the leisure centres providing health checks, but that provision isn’t even in place yet.

“Leisure centres aren’t as accessible – if you don’t live near a centre and your GP is no longer offering that service – how do you get there?

“Poorer people in particular are much less likely to access these services.

“The whole thing smacks of healthcare on the cheap.”

The news comes after responsibility for health checks was transferred from the NHS to local authorities in April 2018.

Healthwatch Wokingham representative Nicola Strudley told the News: "The NHS health check programme has high potential to reduce the burden of diseases.

"Wokingham Borough Council has this year got a focus on wellbeing and prevention so I can't understand why it is not empowering residents to lead healthier lives.

"It doesn't make sense to me.

"I say to people we put our cars into the garage for an MOT every year and we should do that to our bodies as well."

Before the switch, all fourteen of the practices in the borough offered cardiovascular disease health checks.

But now the checks are only available at Burma Hill Practice, Loddon Vale Practice, Shinfield Group Medical Practice, Twyford Surgery and Woosehill Practice.

A Public Health representative for the council told the News that the checks are only available in five of the borough’s practices because the NHS wanted “considerably more” money from the council per health check than the previous amount.

When asked by the News if the representative thought cardiovascular diseases could be better prevented by having more practices that offer health checks, they said: “Yes, undoubtedly.”

As an alternative to funding health checks at local practices, the services are set to be made available at Loddon Valley and St Crispins leisure centres by early next year.

The representative added: “We are working towards trying to get it (the health checks) up again.

“We are not being slow, there are just a lot of steps you have to go through because there is a new leisure provider (Places Leisure).

“Although we are not providing the full service now, in any case it is a health check that people are eligible for once in every five year period.”

The revelation came at a meeting of the council’s health overview and scrutiny committee meeting on Monday, November 19.

At the meeting, Cllr Croy said: “The last place people who are overweight and struggling are going to want to go for a health check to is a leisure centre.”

A report produced for the committee read: “Currently in Wokingham a number of general practices are no longer providing NHS Health Checks, and the new leisure provider, Places Leisure will be offering Health Checks to eligible people once data transfer and clinical governance arrangements have been sorted out.”