New GP surgery approved for Newbury

The new GP surgery near to Newbury College has been approved.

Eastfield House surgery in St Johns Road in Newbury say they need the new location because their current practice is overcrowded.

The Eastfield House surgery managers have been jumping through complex administrative hoops to solve the problem.

They have not been able to submit a funding case for the surgery to the NHS – it is an NHS practice – because in order to do so, they have to have full planning permission.

Doctors from Eastfield House said the new site had been designed to accommodate a doubling in the local catchment population in the next decade.

The current site was designed for 8,000 patients and four GPs, but has double the number of patients and 10 GPs.

But despite the approval, they are only through the first hurdle to get the new place built as now they have to ask the NHS for the cash.

The doctors said that the funding and then subsequent procurement process would take another year. And construction another year on from that.

But the surgery still needs to prove that surface water drainage can be adequately managed, so the road ahead is still not clear.

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