Opening of New Clinical Rooms
The Partners of Arthur Medical Centre would like to thank all who joined us on Wednesday 20th November 2024 to celebrate the opening of our new clinical rooms. Mr Martin Allsopp, Chair of the Patient Participation Group, was asked to cut the ribbon to officially open the new rooms. We are delighted to see the vision that we had for this ambitious project becoming a reality!
It is no exaggeration to say that a great deal of work, time, commitment and effort has gone into bringing the extension build project to this point of fruition. We have been working very hard over recent weeks to finalise this and other projects which will make significant, tangible improvements to patients’ ability to access to our services, and their experience when doing so.
The new extension provides:
- 5 new consultation rooms
- A new downstairs multifunctional Reception/Office area
- A new downstairs patient waiting room
- Improved patient access to the lower ground floor level via the rear of the building
Committing to this extension has been a brave step for the practice at a time of a great deal of uncertainty. We have done this because we believe in the importance of general practice and see it as essential in:
- Providing holistic care
- Supporting patients living with long term conditions
- Helping people to live well for longer
- Prioritising prevention & wellbeing
- Being a cost effective backbone of the NHS
We have extended our practice for several practical reasons.
- Our patient list size has been growing each year. We currently serve 9,107 patients.
- We were already beyond the room capacity of the building as it was, prior to the start of the build and subsequently had difficulties in accommodating people.
The model of primary care has been changing over recent years as GP practices have continued to face significant levels of patient demand, whilst funding has not increased to match rising costs and inflation. A major part of the Government’s strategy for GP practices since the Pandemic, has been to introduce provision of capacity in the form of Allied Health Professionals, which are intended to complement and support the services offered by your GP. New practice roles such as Nurse Associates, Clinical Pharmacists, Social Prescribers, Mental Health Practitioners, Physiotherapists, Care Co-ordinators and GP Assistants have been introduced via Primary Care Networks to provide valuable resources and capacity to GP surgeries. - We will be able to consider hosting other community services – for example, we hope to be able to support phlebotomy services from the practice once again in the near future
- Improve capacity to accommodate trainee GPs and nurses
- To be able to plan for and accommodate future services
We would like to express our sincere gratitude and thanks to those who have supported us through this challenging period of the build.
- Firstly, to the patients who have been supportive and understanding whilst we have needed to use our building differently through the construction phase. Thank you for your understanding and support.
Particular thanks to our Patient Participation Group who act as ‘critical friends’ to the practice and who are a source of feedback and support. We hope that we have reflected that we are very patient-focussed by asking the Chair of the PPG to open the new extension, rather than asking a local celebrity who may have nothing to do with the practice! - To Derby and Derbyshire Integrated Care Board – particularly their Estates team who have been very supportive, in terms of financial grants and practical help and guidance.
- To Bailey Construction who have completed work promptly and provided frankly an excellent service to the practice, and other contractors such as Carter Electrical and Cresco Heating Services.
- Finally, we would like to thank our Practice team who have been very flexible and have worked very hard, over and above their normal duties to support this vision towards the reality we are now able to see. The Care Navigation Team, Admin, GPs and ACPs, Nursing team, Clinical Pharmacy team, and the practice management team – particularly Jayne and Aimee who have worked over and above over recent weeks to bring us to this point.
We are not finished by any means! But this month we have delivered
- New clinical rooms
- A new telephony system
- A new website
- New appointments system
All of which will make tangible improvements to the patient experience and the care that we provide.
We are delighted to present these new improvements to you and look forward to the future of Arthur Medical Centre!