GREENFIELD’S GP surgery has been saved from the threat of closure after new funding was agreed.
Pennine Medical Centre, on Chew Vale – just off Chew Valley Road – may have been shut this year had a new agreement not been reached.
But after talks between the landlord, integrated care board and NHS Estates, with the help of the surgery, an agreement and a new five-year contract for the building have been settled, with funding provided locally by the NHS team in Oldham.
GP Bal Duper spoke of the threat following a district meeting about health issues.
Now it has been saved, it may become even better for the 4,500 registered patients.
He said: “We’re now going to work with the landlord to improve the facilities that are there for our patients.”
It quickly became clear that without an urgent intervention, the practice was likely to close in the next few months.
But now a resolution has been reached – and it will remain open – Cllr Helen Bishop spoke of her relief.
She said: “The problem was that responsibility for the practice staying open lay with so many different people that Greenfield surgery was in danger of falling through the cracks.
“We had to get everyone together fast, confirm the importance of the surgery staying open, seek agreement on a contract with the landlord and identify where the funding was coming from.
“The threat of closure – the legal process of removing the surgery as a tenant had already started – certainly sharpened people’s minds.
“Prior to this intervention, it had been drifting for months. In just a few weeks, we got agreement.”
Well done everyone involved; we recently had our own GP’s surgery, (of many years,) closed from under our feet, so to speak and it’s caused us considerable practical difficulties and much distress and particularly for my wife who is disabled.
So a good and positive result.