Practice Update

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Surgery expansion, modernisation and refurbishment works

Over the past 18 months, the partners have embarked upon an ambitious transformative project which included extending and modernizing the surgery premises. This was undertaken at a great personal financial, physical, and emotional cost. 

Through this project, we have:

• Increased the number of consulting rooms from 5 to 10. With the extra rooms we have now employed one additional doctor and two practice nurses. We also have 2 GP trainees. Furthermore the increased capacity has made it possible for us to accommodate additional Primary Care Network staff including a clinical pharmacist, physiotherapist, mental health practitioner, social prescriber and care co-ordinators.
• The benefit to our patients is that they have more appointment slots available to them.
• Undertaken a comprehensive facelift of all the consulting rooms in keeping with CQC guidance and requirements. 
• Created an additional Health Care Assistant room, so that patients can have more privacy when using the health screening machine (this was in response to feedback from patients requesting a more private area to access this machine).
• Upgraded our telephone facility incorporating cloud-based telephony. 75% of our patients have reported satisfaction with this new service. With the new service you can avoid staying on the phone queue, as you can now request a call back at a more convenient time for you. In addition we have upgraded the phone message to help direct you to the most appropriate way to address your queries, this also helps you avoid phone queues. 
• Used technology to help serve our patients better. Now patients can request routine appointments and make administrative queries via our online platform Klinik. 95% of patients who request appointments via Klinik will get an appointment within 2 weeks of submitting their request.
• Upgraded our toilet facilities to include access to a disabled toilet facility. 
• Provided a baby changing area and nappy disposal bin for mothers and babies.
• Undertaken a facelift to the front of the building which has included improving disabled access to the building, provision of a buggy park and provision of cycle parking facilities. We have also increased the car parking spaces for the staff, and this has helped with staff recruitment. 
• Undertaken a facelift to the rear of the surgery. The garden landscape has been upgraded to make it more accessible to all our patients, in support of the creation of productive green space. We aim to reinstate the gardening club in the spring. In the past gardening club provided a valued resource for our local community of patients during the COVID pandemic. 
• We have created a purpose-built conference and training room. This is in keeping with our status as a training practice to further support the training of GPs. This is a very welcome development, given the current national shortage of GPS. Furthermore training future trainees will in the longer term address the difficulties in recruitment and through it we can improve access to more GP appointments. 

Our vision to provide quality health service within a modern facility to our community has finally been realized.

The partners and all the GPs and staff would like to thank you for your patience and cooperation during this challenging period.

Published: Feb 21, 2025