SHOUTS were heard from the public gallery as civic chiefs accepted a decision to close a "much-loved" health service this evening.
At a highly-charged meeting, councillors were forced to abruptly end a debate over the closure of Bitterne walk-in centre after a member of the public refused to keep quiet.
Members of Southampton City Council's health overview and scrutiny committee met to scrutinise the decision made yesterday by Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group to close Bitterne walk-in centre.
After an 90-minute debate the committee agreed to approve the decision by Southampton City CCG but wanted to see greater scrutiny over access to other services and to transport and increased awareness of other services.
They also wanted a review of these changes in April next year.
But the committee chairman, Sarah Bogle, was forced to bring the debate to a halt after Nick Chaffey, of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, interrupted proceedings.
He demanded that committee members answer questions posed by him about their own opinions surrounding the closure of the Commercial Road centre.
She said: "We've made a response as a panel. None of us are saying that this is a brilliant outcome."
Mr Chaffey shouted back: "You're supposed to be repressing members of the public, you're failing to do that."
Another member of the public shouted "This isn't democracy".
After a few exchanges the Labour councillor for Bargate was defended by Conservative MP, Royston Smith, who sits on the committee.
The Southampton Itchen MP struggled to make his voice heard as Mr Chaffey continued to berate the committee members.
Mr Smith said: "I'm not happy that we have to sit here and not change this decision. If it was up to me it wouldn't happen.
"I'm as frustrated as anyone."
After telling Mr Chaffey to be quiet he added: "We don't get to make the decision we get to scrutinise it."
Questions were fired to the CCG Chief John Richards, the Clinical Chief Dr Sue 
Robinson and to the Peter Horne, director of system delivery for the CCG who championed the proposal to close the walk-in centre over their decision to close it.
They said the centre duplicated other services in the area, including GP surgeries, pharmacies, out of hours services, and the NHS 111 phone service.
They admitted that more needed to be done to improve access for patients to GP surgeries and to raise awareness of other services available.
During the debate one member of the public, Claire Simmonds, challenged CCG board members about how good the 111 phone service is.
The 42-year old health care assistant from Sholing said: "I have used it several times. It's not an instant answer. Yes, you will get s medical practitioner to call you back but it's not immediate.
"I had to wait six hours for a GP to visit when one of my patients was in pain. That's not good enough."
Mr Horne praised the staff working on the service and added that in the three years since the 111 service had been introduced he said, "it's a service that we're very proud of."