Empingham Medical Centre pursuing new site after surge in patients

A busy medical centre says it is ‘actively pursuing’ funding for a new purpose built site and has found a ‘promising piece of land’.

A planning application to keep its temporary portable building for a further three years has revealed that Empingham Medical Centre is looking for funding for a new building on an identified but unnamed new site.

Three years ago the surgery was given permission to locate the temporary structure on its car park after it received emergency funding from the health board and council to purchase the portable building following an influx of patients after closure of the Ketton branch surgery and the population growth in Stamford.

Now the centre in Main Street, which says its patient list surged by 2,000 in the two years to March 2023 and it was processing 100 daily registrations at the height of the surge, wants to extend the permission for the portable building, while it pursues a new site. Poor CQC ratings of neighbouring practices are cited in the report as the reason for the patient surge.

The application says: “Unfortunately, the current site is not feasible for further development. The planning constraints of developing this site while continuing to provide uninterrupted services to our patients would be near on impossible and highly disruptive and there is not enough land to extend the current parking provision since the growth of the practice

“We have recently identified a promising piece of land and have been in discussions with the landowner. This land is well-located within the required mile radius due to the complexities of the dispensing license we hold; it is imperative that we stay within a mile radius of our current site and the new site offers sufficient space to accommodate our practice's requirements.

“We are currently conducting a detailed feasibility study to assess the cost, planning permissions, and time required for construction. Initial assessments are promising, and this could potentially be a suitable long-term solution. Given the constraints of budget, location, the necessity to remain within a mile radius due to our dispensing license, and the impracticality of developing our current site while maintaining patient care services, our current site with the addition of the portable building remains the most viable option for meeting the practice's space requirements at this moment.

"However, we are optimistic about the potential of the newly found land and are pursuing this option actively.

It continues: “The funding envelope for primary care, within the wider NHS budget, remains very tight. This makes it extremely challenging for small practices like Empingham, which are in effect small businesses, to access sufficient funds for infrastructure projects.

"Whilst there have been suggestions in the past that the practice should purchase land nearby to allow for the development of a car park off-site, this is simply not an affordable solution, given this is something that would not attract external investment.

"Therefore, the only viable long-term solution to the parking problems is the relocation of the practice to a new purpose-built site. This is something we are actively pursuing, but again, this will be dependent on securing external investment for what will inevitably be a high-cost development.”

The surgery says that to address the patient surge it worked with the health board to revise its boundary, which meant Stamford and Oakham town were removed from the catchment. It says it is legally obliged to take on any patients who live in the catchment area and cannot reduce numbers. It states it has not actively tried to recruit patients, as it places additional demand on resources and says 'extra funding rarely equates to the amount needed for an additional GP'.

The application will be considered by Rutland County Council’s planning committee on Tuesday (April 15) and officers are recommending councillors approve it.

They report says: “It is considered that there is an essential short term need to retain the prefabricated building on site and that the proposed development would not have a significant adverse impact upon the character and appearance of the Empingham Conservation Area, setting of the neighbouring listed building and amenities of nearby residential properties due to the development been for a temporary period of time to meet an essential service use.”