GPs invest in their new £5.5m health centre (From Oxford Mail)

GPs invest in their new £5.5m health centre

12:30pm Wednesday 15th February 2012 in Witney By Tom Jennings

Doctors Stephen Smith, left, and Paul Watson admire the new Windrush Health Centre

DOCTORS in Witney have pumped £5.5m into their brand new health centre.

The Windrush Health Centre, in Welch Way, will open on March 5, replacing the current 1970s building.

It will treble the floor space, increase the number of consulting rooms from 11 to 26 and allow an increase in patients registered with the practice from 13,000 to 18,000.

The new building was funded by seven of the centre’s GPs, some of whom personally took out £1m mortgages.

Partner Dr Paul Watson said: “We were really stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“We still had patients wanting to register, and you can’t just shut a surgery to them, but we couldn’t find another way of funding the project.

“In the end, the best thing to do was for some of the doctors to personally take out mortgages to pay for it.”

He said he had had many sleepless nights since planning for the new building started in 2002. Construction work began in April last year.

Dr Watson added: “The existing building has become more and more cramped.

“It’s a very poorly-designed building and sometimes it reaches over 30C (86F) inside.”

The building is so cramped that in 2004 a former broom cupboard was converted into a room for taking blood samples.

He said: “This building will safeguard the future of general practice in Witney.”

GPs are not employed by the NHS but work as independent contractors.

The doctors will rent out the ground floor of the new building to NHS Oxfordshire, to hold endoscopy and podiatry clinics, and also provide space for a new pharmacy.

Work will be complete by the middle of May.