Shipston GP surgery plans to expand into new Ellen Badger Hospital

DOCTORS working at Shipston Medical Centre are expecting to take over part of the rebuilt Ellen Badger Hospital in the next few months.

In a statement posted on their website, the GPs said they were planning to start renting 11 additional consulting rooms on the first floor of the building “later this autumn”.

The whole issue of the former community Ellen Badger Hospital and medical facilities generally has been a running issue in Shipston for some years.

Local residents were outraged to discover that the rebuilt premises would be “a hospital with no beds” and local GPs, meanwhile, were struggling to expand local health provision to meet demand because of rising costs.

Originally the Ellen Badger site was intended to accommodate a new GPs’ surgery, but this had to be put on hold because of financial constraints.

In their statement the doctors say: “We continue to face a very volatile construction market, with building costs rising significantly. Unfortunately, primary care estate funding has not kept pace with these increases, making it highly unlikely that we will be able to build a brand-new GP surgery in the foreseeable future.”

They say their current premises are under “significant pressure”. They are operating beyond capacity and “urgently need a solution”.

The doctors point out that 18 years ago they purchased the house opposite the surgery (No. 8) as a temporary measure. “Despite its poor accessibility and unsuitability for modern care, we have continued to use it,” they say. “Even with this additional space, we still do not have enough consultation rooms to accommodate all our clinicians and staff on a daily basis.”

But after working closely with the South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) and the Integrated Care Board (ICB), to find an alternative solution to meet the needs of their growing patient population, the GPs say they’re very close to finalising an exciting development that they believe will benefit both their patients and the wider community.

They add: “The contractors have now been instructed to begin the final fit-out of this space, and we are in the process of completing the legal work to finalise the lease. We are aiming to move in later this autumn.

“The expansion will relieve some of the pressure on our current premises and enable us to carry out much-needed renovations to make the existing building more functional and fit for purpose.

“Once operational, we will deliver services from both sites and will begin the process of disposing of No. 8, which is no longer viable due to accessibility and suitability issues.”

The GPs say they’re working through the logistics of running services across two sites, ensuring their service remains seamless, efficient and patient-focused.

“This is a very exciting opportunity,” they say. “Co-locating with secondary care, community services and voluntary sector partners will foster more integrated working, supporting prevention initiatives and helping tackle social isolation as part of the Wellbeing Partnership’s wider objectives.

“Additionally, the move will ease some of the ongoing parking challenges we currently face.”

SWFT is describing the redeveloped Ellen Badger Hospital as a “new state of the art building”.

It has three floors. On the ground floor is a dedicated wellbeing space of community partners to deliver services and activities aligned to supporting the prevention agenda.

The first floor will contain an outpatients’ suite and treatment rooms for clinical activities. SWFT says the services running from Ellen Badger will grow, but from June this year the following clinics will be running – heart failure, specialist Parkinson’s clinics, physiotherapy, bowel and bladder specialist services, dementia nurses, community midwifery, speech and language therapy, catheter clinics, health visitor clinic and self-weighing baby clinic and eye-screening.

SWFT confirmed that it is continuing to work with Shipston Medical Centre with a shared ambition of bringing the centre on site, with consulting rooms for the practice available in this space.

The second floor provides share spaces for community nursing teams, alongside Shipston Home Nursing personnel.

There are 35 car parking spaces on the site, with two drop-off points.