Stone’s Mansion House Surgery is drawing up plans for a major expansion after securing funding from NHS England towards the costs of the project.
The NHS grant will cover two-thirds of the £1 million cost of the expansion, which will deliver six new clinical rooms and an additional treatment room. The remainder of the cost will be met by the practice.
Practice manager Carol Rodgers said the surgery is struggling to meet current demand and needed to act now to make sure it can accommodate the extra people who will be moving into the town in new housing developments.
The practice, in Abbey Street, currently has nine GP partners, three salaried GPs and three registrars. More GPs may be recruited as part of the expansion, but Carol said they were looking to be more creative, with more use of advanced nurse practitioners and pharmacists.
She said: “Stone’s growing population means that we have to expand the surgery and the range of services that we provide. We’re struggling, with the number of clinical rooms we have now, to accommodate our GPs and other health professionals. It’s quite a juggling act. The new housing that’s coming in Stone will only increase the pressure, so we have to increase our capacity to be ready for the extra demand.”
A planning application will be submitted to Stafford Borough Council soon and, to receive the NHS grant, the building project has to be completed in 2016. The surgery will remain open throughout the building works.
