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Aylesbury surgery moves 100 metres down the road at a cost of £200,000
NHS bosses are spending £200,000 to move a GP surgery 100 metres – as a temporary measure.
The medical centre, which is currently based in Buckingham Park, will move to a permanent home on Berryfields in five years’ time when more families move onto the estate.
Until then it will remain at Buckingham Park – but this month it has to move 100 metres, because it currently sits on land that will be used by a primary school which opens in September.
The move equates to £2,000 per metre.
The medical centre opened in 2007 and was expected to move to Berryfields in 2009 – but the financial downturn delayed the move.
Alison Looker, chairman of Buckingham Park Parish Council, has campaigned to keep the temporary centre on the estate. She said: “Buckingham Park is very pleased to retain its medical facility. If a solution wasn’t found we would have lost it and we have 2,600 patients enrolled that live on Buckingham Park.”
She pledged to continue lobbying the NHS for a permanent facility on the estate.
Fellow parish councillor Steven Lambert praised Ms Looker for ‘investigating all the options’ to see where the centre could be relocated.
After lots of discussions, it was agreed that the best option would be to move it 100 metres onto land owned by Aylesbury Vale District Council.
The centre will be enlarged so that it offers an extra two clinical rooms and will employ a third GP – a second nurse will also be recruited later this year.
The £200,000 moving cost will pay for a new car park, new water and power connections and the security system to be installed at the new site.
The move is being funded by Bucks and Oxon Primary Care Trust, which expects to end this financial year with a £100,000 surplus.
Berryfields currently has 300 patients registered at the practice; Buckingham Park has more than 2,000.
Katherine Wooley, assistant director of strategy at the NHS trust, said: “There would be no point moving to Berryfields now.
“There is not enough people at the moment and it would be in the middle of a building site.”
She pledged that the new permanent building in Berryfields will be built near the planned new link road to make it easier for residents who will have to travel there from Buckingham Park.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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