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Banbury GP Surgeries to merge
06/05/2020
Horsefair Surgery name to disappear
Two of Banbury’s main GP surgeries are set to merge at the end of the month. Banbury Cross Health Centre and the Horsefair Surgery will begin operating as Banbury Cross Health Centre from 26th May.
Banbury Cross Health Centre was formed in September last year following the merger of the West Bar Surgery and Banbury Health Centre.
The Horsefair Surgery name will disappear as part of the change. The practise has struggled in recent years with a number of changes of medical staff and poor service ratings given by patients.
A statement issued today says, “the merger will make us stronger and more able to cope with the pressures of delivering services during the pandemic”. The date for the change follows discussions with the Clinical Commissioning Group.
Both Practices are run by Principal Medical Limited (PML), a not-for-profit organisation owned by local GPs. PML also provides other services to support primary care, including a home visiting service, Hospital at Home and ‘GP Hub’ appointments in the evenings and weekends.
The statement from Banbury Cross Health Centre says, “The pressures on primary care have been increasing for a number of years and we believe that by bringing together our services into a single practice under the management of PML we will be able to offer a better, more sustainable service for all patients. For example, larger practices can provide improved access to a range of specialists in the practice such as pharmacists, physiotherapists, mental health nurses and advanced nurse practitioners”.
Reassurance is given that the staff patients see on a day-to-day basis will remain the same but does advise that changes to services will be gradual as the current restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic are lifted.
The merged operation will continue to be run across both the 1st and 2nd floors of South Bar House.
Currently the Horsefair surgery has 14,037 registered patients. In the national patient survey only 21.2% of patients reported it was easy to get through to the practice on the phone and just over half felt that their overall experience of the practice was fairly good or very good.
Banbury Cross Health Centre currently has 25,958 registered patients. In the national patient survey 74.8% of patients reported it was easy to get through to the practice on the phone and 79.5% of patients felt that their overall experience of the practice was fairly good or very good.
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam