COUNCILLORS will urge their officers and bus operators to try to find a solution for elderly patients, who face crossing a busy dual carriageway to get to their doctors' surgery.

Unity Health, which runs the Hull Road Surgery on the outskirts of Osbaldwick, plans to close it on March 17 next year before opening its new surgery on Kimbolton Hill surgery next to Heslington East university campus on March 20.

Elderly people living in Osbaldwick say they will have difficulty getting to the new surgery, because they will have to cross the busy fast dual carriageway of Hull Road which has only one pedestrian crossing in the area.

Osbaldwick parish councillor Laurie Pye, aged 80, told city councillors: "There are a considerable number of old people who are very, very worried and they are looking to you to try and give them some reassurance."

Members of the city's health and adult social care policy and scrutiny committee decided to urge the council's planning and transport sections and First York bus company to work with the doctors' practice to try and improve access for elderly Osbaldwick patients to the new surgery.

They will also write to the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) which submitted the planning application for the new surgery about their concerns.

They heard that though a bus service does connect Osbaldwick with the new campus, it doesn't serve the same streets on the outward and inward journeys.

Chair Cllr Paul Doughty said after listening to representatives from the practice and the CCG he wasn't reassured that none of its patients would be disadvantaged by the move.

Unity Health practice has 24,000 patients on its list of all ages with surgeries on Hull Road, Wenlock Terrace and York Campus. Dr John Lethem, of Osbaldwick, said it had extended the Hull Road premises as much as it could and wanted to provide quality care to all patients. It covers an area from Stockton Lane to Fulford.

"We take all our residents' comments and concerns into account," he said. The practice has met Osbaldwick Parish Council and held a public consultation meeting over the issue.

Practice managing partner Louise Johnston said it was willing to support patient moves to improve access across Hull Road but as a doctors' practice couldn't do it itself.

Osbaldwick ward councillor Mark Warters said: "It is pointless having new state of the art facilities if a large number of people cannot access them."