Work gets underway at Stroud’s new £6.5m medical centre
25 October 2021
Construction work is now underway on Stroud’s brand-new medical centre
which will deliver GP services to more than 15,000 patients in the heart of the
town.
The team from the main contractors PDR Construction have moved on site
to start work on the refurbishment and partial rebuild of a retail unit on King
Street, ready for the new Five Valleys Medical Practice to open in autumn 2022.
The project is creating a new £6.5m town centre facility for two of the town’s established GP
practices, Locking Hill Surgery and Stroud Valleys Family Practice, as well as a pharmacy and additional space for a range of other
complementary health and service providers.
Both practices
have outgrown their current surgery buildings, and with the local population
set to increase over the next 15 years, the GP partners and NHS Gloucestershire
Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) identified the need to move to more modern
premises.
The much-needed
extra space in the new building will enable the two practices to extend the
range of services they provide, expand training opportunities and support
patients with complex needs who require more specialist treatment, as well as
being a hub for the local community.
Dr Ewart Lewis,
GP Partner at Locking Hill Surgery, said:
“For many years, lack of space has hindered the services we can
offer. Having additional consulting and treatment rooms will allow us to expand
our teams, train more GPs and offer a greater range of services to our
patients, for example diagnostics, minor surgery, contraception, mental health
support, physiotherapy and social prescribing.”
Dr Anne Hampton, GP Partner at Stroud Valleys Family
Practice said:
“This development is great news for both our patients and staff.
It has been carefully designed to support our more vulnerable
patients and will be a much more attractive and modern environment for both
patients and staff.
We are also looking forward to being part of the up and coming
Five Valleys Centre.”
Both practices recently applied to NHS England with a request to merge, and this application was approved in late August. The merger will help the practices to realise the full range of additional services that the new premises can support, as well as build on the strengths of the two well-established practice teams as they continue to care for their patients. The new practice will be called the Five Valleys Medical practice.
Site preparation and stripping out work has now started, and later this
month scaffolding will go up around the building for the first phase of the
redevelopment work to begin.
The development is an integral part of the regeneration of the
centre of Stroud being delivered by Dransfield Properties.
The new location is very accessible and visible, with 360 parking
spaces available in the adjacent Five Valleys Shopping Centre, which will be
free of charge to anyone who has an appointment at the surgery. It’s also close
to public transport, a taxi rank and other amenities in the town, including
pharmacies.
Director of
Primary Care at NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, Helen Goodey,
said:
“This is an exciting development for Stroud, and
following the additional investment made by the CCG, we are very pleased to see
work getting underway.”
Patients will really benefit from a modern,
spacious and environmentally-friendly new health centre which has good access
for people with disabilities and better facilities for children and families.”
The construction team will be working closely with the Five Valleys
Centre management team to minimise disruption to businesses and shoppers
throughout the building work. The new facility is scheduled to be handed over
in August 2022, ready for opening in the autumn.
Managing Director of Dransfield Properties, Mark Dransfield, said:
“We are extremely proud of our work in Stroud, and it is great to see
work now starting on this fantastic new facility for the community in the heart
of the town.
“The new centre will cater for the town’s growing population and have
space to offer many more additional services to the patients it will serve.”
Image 1: In order from the left, Mark Dransfield (Managing Director at Dransfield Properties), Stuart Sedgwick-Taylor (Business and CQC Registered Manager at Locking Hill Surgery), Andrew Hughes (Associate Director at Gloucestershire Commissioning group), Dr Ewart Lewis (GP Partner at Locking Hill Surgery), Dr Anne Hampton (GP Partner at Stroud Valleys Practise) , Declan McLaughlin (Senior Primary Care Project Manager at NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group), and Andrew Malley (Retail Property Director at Dransfield Properties) .
To keep up to date with progress on site as well as all the news and
events at Five Valleys visit www.fivevalleysstroud.co.uk
For further information, contact:
Public Relations Department, Dransfield Properties Ltd
Tel: 01226 360644
Email: admin@dransfield.co.uk