Doctors set to sign £1m North Bersted surgery deal

The deal to build the 1m-plus scheme at Bersted Green Surgery is being finalised. Some changes are necessary because the recession has hit the original plans.

The new premises at the Durlston Drive site are likely to be smaller than originally intended because of the difficulty of funding any project in the current tough financial climate.

Practice manager Peter Jones: "We are having to revise what we want to do but that should not delay anything.

"The doctors are still determined to build the surgery, but it might be marginally smaller than we planned. The facilities, though, will stay the same.

"We hope to sign the final contracts soon. We are just finalising the details. We still hope building work will start in 2009 and that we will move into the new surgery in the next 12-14 months."

Planning permission for the new surgery was given by Arun councillors last March. At the time, the new premises were set to measure 1,640sq m to be almost three times the 630sq m size of the current buildings.

The improvements will see three portable buildings used by the surgery's secretarial staff for the past five years removed in the most ambitious changes to the site since the present surgery was opened 22 years ago.

When planning approval was given, Dr Matt Bradstock-Smith, the surgery's senior partner for the redevelopment, said the scheme would make a huge difference.

"At the moment, because we are using 20-year-old premises, we have only about half the floorspace which a practice of our size should have.

"We are all room-hopping and we are not able to provide the service we would like.

"There is not enough consulting space, treatment rooms, office space or even cupboards and storage space," he said at the time.

The practice has eight GPs, four nurses and two health care assistants among about 30 staff serving just over 10,000 patients.

That number is expected to rise to between 12,000 and 13,000 when the site six development of 650 homes in North Bersted is eventually completed.

The new health centre will be built over two floors to replace the existing single-storey building.

Most of the consulting and treatment rooms will be on the ground floor with a pharmacy. Space for a separate health service user, such as a chiropodist, will be provided on the first floor.

The new building will be put up in an L-shape mainly on the south of the site around the current premises.

These will then be knocked down to form a new car park with 32 spaces.

The expansion will see the surgery encroach on the adjoining Laburnum Grove recreation ground. A chunk of about 700sq m will be lost to the new building.

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