Thorney Medical Practice (Laurel Farm Medical Centre in Eye is a branch practice of Thorney) aims to merge with several other practices in the Peterborough area from July 2018 and form a new group named Octagon Medical Practice. The practice will be writing to patients and holding patient open evenings.
Thorney Medical Practice has over 8100 registered patients. Around 35 per cent are ‘registered’ at the Thorney surgery and 65 per cent at the Eye surgery. At launch, all premises will remain as they are now but the main address for the new practice will be the current location of Minster Medical Practice in Princes St, Peterborough. Eye is already a branch surgery but all other practices with the exception of the main practice on Princes Street will become branch practices of Octagon Medical Practice.
What are the benefits?
At first, patients will see little change, but once practices have fully merged there could be a range of benefits including:
- Additional services for patients in-house.
- Patients having a choice of location for appointments, especially useful for patients who may live or work nearer to an alternative Octagon Practice.
- Clinical staff focusing on specialist areas instead of having to refer patients to secondary care.
- Properties across Octagon can be better utilised, and this will allow the practice to adapt and create more clinical space.
- Reduction in duplication of clinics that are currently being run separately at each site, freeing up clinical staff to provide alternative appointments and improve access.
Practices involved
- Practice name – address – (no. registered patients*)
- Hampton Health – 6B Serpentine Green Shopping Centre, Hampton, Peterborough, PE7 8DR (9,311)**
- Hodgson Centre – Hodgson Avenue, Peterborough PE4 5EG (5,006)
- Huntly Grove Medical Practice – 89 Princes Street, Peterborough, PE1 2QP (1,912)
- Jenner Health Centre – Turners Lane, Whittlesey PE7 1EJ (7,600)
- Minster Medical Practice – 87 – 89 Princes St, Peterborough, PE1 2QP (4,146)
- Nene Valley Medical Practice – Clayton, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, PE2 5GP (13,120)
- Park Medical Centre – 164 Park Road, Peterborough, PE1 2UF (9,281)**
- Thorney and Eye Medical Practice – Wisbech Road, Thorney, Peterborough, PE6 0SD (8,143)
- Westgate Medical Practice – Queensgate Centre, PE1 1NW (13,957)
Public meetings
The first two meeting dates have been confirmed:
- Friday 8 June 2018, 7 pm
Manor Farm Community Centre, 70 High Street, Eye, PE6 7UY.
Doors will open at 6:30 pm for a 7 pm start and the meeting will run until 8 pm.
- Friday 15 June 2018, 6 pm
The Allia Future Business Centre, Peterborough United Football Club, London Rd, Peterborough, PE2 8AN
Doors will open at 5.30pm for a 6 pm start and the meeting will run until 7 pm.
Doctors will be at the meetings to explain what the merger will mean and patients will have the opportunity to ask any questions. You can read more about Octagon Medical Practice on the website – www.octagonmedicalpractice.co.uk or, email any questions to – enquiries@octagonmedicalpractice.co.uk.
Additional information
Currently, the largest practice in the Peterborough area is currently Boroughbury with 25,241 patients. The largest in Cambridgeshire is Granta with 33,552 patients and the largest in England is the Nexus Health Group in London with over 73,000 registered patients.
The NHS England report Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View says: “Most GP surgeries will increasingly work together in primary care networks or hubs. This is because a combined patient population of at least 30,000 – 50,000 allows practices to share community nursing, mental health, and clinical pharmacy teams, expand diagnostic facilities, and pool responsibility for urgent care and extended access. They also involve working more closely with community pharmacists, to make fuller use of the contribution they make.
This can be as relevant for practices in rural areas as in towns or cities since the model does not require practice mergers or closures and does not necessarily depend on physical co-location of services. There are various routes to achieving this that are now in hand covering a majority of practices across England, including federations, ‘super-surgeries’, primary care homes, and ‘multispecialty community providers’. Most local Sustainability and Transformation Plans are intending to accelerate this move, so as to enable more proactive or ‘extensivist’ primary care. Nationally we will also use funding incentives – including for extra staff and premises investments – to support this process.”
Next Steps on the Five Year Forward View, reviews the progress made since the launch of the Five Year Forward View in October 2014, which laid out how NHS England can continue to deliver health and high-quality care.
* Population data supplied by NHS Digital (May 2018).
** Not yet approved by NHS England/CCG