Building work starts on 31 August 2021 on a long-awaited scheme to bring additional space to Newton Place Surgery in Faversham.
The practice employs a total of 72 staff and has 19,425 registered patients, who will all benefit from seven rooms provided within a new extension.
Lead GP Dr Alastair Gould said: “The practice has grown rapidly during the past five years and will continue to do so as the population of Faversham is expected to continue to grow in line with new housing that is being built.
“So, we are very pleased work is finally beginning to give us more space. This will make a huge difference not only to the doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals working in the practice, but also to the patients when they come in for care.
"The new rooms will enable us to work with greater flexibility and will support us in delivering our health care services more efficiently.”
Building work is expected to last for 32 weeks, until spring 2022. All GP services will continue as usual.
People are being encouraged to walk or cycle to visit the surgery as parking will be very restricted; there are also health benefits from active travel. There will be a drop-off point for patients who need to travel by car to visit the practice.
There won't be any parking available at the site during the work, other than six spaces for patients who are disabled and who should display their permit for disabled parking, and for staff, who may need to do a home visit at short notice.
Chair of the Patient Participation Group Gill Wagstaff said: “We have been kept fully informed from the start of this project. The aim is to improve facilities for both patients and staff and we wholeheartedly support the practice with this.
"Inevitably, there will be some disruption while the building work is completed, so please be patient and don’t get angry with the surgery staff. We look forward to the extension being completed in spring 2022.”
The £1.16million project is being funded through the NHS England Estates and Technology Transformation Fund (ETTF) and the GP partners. The ETTF is a national funding programme to support GP practices to make improvements to services for local patients, including more modern, expanded facilities and use of new technologies.
Deputy Director of Primary Care for NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group, Alison Burchell said: “We were delighted to be able to secure ETTF funding towards this much-needed extension.
"We are all very pleased to see this project commence as it will offer an improved facility and experience for patients and staff.”
