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Weston GPs take over services at the Locality Health Centre

by mikebell on 15 October, 2018

Primary care services at the Locality Health Centre GP practice in Weston-super-Mare will be delivered by local GPs from next month, NHS commissioners have confirmed.

The agreement secures the future of GP services at the Centre after the current provider’s contract expires on 31 October.

The new provider, Pier Health, will begin on 1 November and patients will not be required to re-register.

Dr Kevin Haggerty, a GP at Longton Grove Surgery in Weston-super-Mare, said: “Local primary care services are most people’s first point of contact with the NHS and a vital focus for local health and care provision so I’m really pleased that by working together we’ve been able to safeguard services at the Locality.

“Partnership working between GPs, in order to strengthen and enhance local primary care provision in the Weston area, is one of the key principles of the local Healthy Weston programme and this announcement demonstrates how this collective approach can really deliver results for local people.

“We look forward to meeting staff and patients in the coming days and weeks.”

The announcement was welcomed by the Chair of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire clinical commissioning group Dr Jonathan Hayes. “This is an excellent outcome and I am sure patients and staff will be reassured to know that the future of the service has been resolved following some uncertainty in recent weeks.

“Our ambition has always been to retain primary care services at the Locality Health Centre following the expiry of the current contract, and we have been working very hard to identify a new provider following the reprocurement exercise we ran in the summer.

“I’m particularly pleased that local GPs have come together as a group to secure the future of the practice.”

NHS commissioners are writing to all patients and staff to confirm the new management arrangements and staff will be transferred to the new provider from the start of November.

   1 Comment

One Response

  1. Joan Darby says:

    This does appear to be very good news, and I am pleased that the Healthy Living Centre will be able to continue to give care to the people living in that area. However, I would like to ask if this new contract is being taken up by local GP’s working together to provide this service how is this going to affect their already stretched surgeries? It is becoming very much the norm not to be able to make an appointment to see your Doctor for sometimes more than a week, so one has to ask how are the Doctors going to provide this without consequences to their own already busy surgeries.

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