Developers will help foot the bill for new Westwood Cross GP ‘super-surgery’

A new GP surgery is planned for Westwood

Developers planning construction in and around Westwood Cross will help foot the bill for a new GP super-surgery.

Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group will request ‘106’ payments from applicants submitting plans for the area towards the £15million surgery -a rise in cost on the original £10million estimate.

Thanet CCG says the 3,500 – 4,000 sqm new build would provide  GPs and a range of other health and care services for up to 60,000 people.

Broadstairs will be working together with the villages as a PCH (Primary Care House) offering mutual support but Thanet CCG say this is not a structural or physical move.

‘No longer fit for purpose’

Thanet CCG’s estate manager says: “The CCG Primary Care Home and Estate strategies support the construction of a purpose built facility at Westwood Cross.

“The strategies identify that the practices in the vicinity of the Westwood development are no longer fit for purpose for the long term provision of primary care services to the local population, are significantly undersized compared to NHS England guidance and are indeed not able to increase clinical capacity within their existing premises to take on additional patients as a result of the development of the wider Westwood Cross area.

“The CCG has identified a need for approx. 3,500 – 4,000 sqm of accommodation to provide the required primary care services to the existing population coupled with the increase in population expected as a result of the Westwood Cross development.

“The development cost of the scheme is estimated at circa. £15m. The CCG would therefore request a capital contribution from each housing development in order to contribute towards the build cost of the facility on the understanding that the existing primary care infrastructure cannot accommodate any additional patients in its current state.”

An application for 100 houses at St Stephens, Haine Road, will need to pay £720 per 2- bed unit, £1,008 per 3-bed unit, and £1,260 per 4-bed unit. The contribution is sought as a lump sum as opposed to being a phased payment.

The Haine Road application is outline and does not yet specify the exact mix of properties.

Practice groupings

The Westwood Cross surgery is part of proposals for three GP ‘practice groupings’ in Thanet, each serving between 30,000 and 60,000 patients.

The initiative is part of the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), created by Kent and Medway health trusts, the NHS, Kent County Council and Medway Council, which sets out proposals to overhaul the health system, including changes to GP surgeries and hospitals.

The STP says extended GP practices will provide enhanced in-hours primary care and enable more evening and weekend appointments and hubs – with an even greater patient capacity – will offer multi-disciplinary teams delivering physical and mental health services locally at greater scale and seven day integrated health and social care.

Original proposals were for four GP groupings – dubbed Primary Care Houses (PCHs) – made up of Quex, Broadstairs; Margate and Ramsgate.

New proposals reduce that to three by combining the villages (Birchington/Westgate) and Broadstairs.

Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group, which plans and buys healthcare services for the residents on the isle, says some £16.5 million will be spent creating the PCH services.

Currently there are 14 GP practices on the isle, Thanet CCG says there are no plans to reduce those surgeries.

Find more on the proposals here

16 Comments

  1. Whereas that sounds really good, I wonder how many people will actually be able to attend this super surgery unless they also do something about the existing traffic gridlock for that area.

  2. Ann is spot on! Today Saturday, Westwood is gridlocked from every direction, drivers getting very impatient…
    A huge Doctors Surgery , whilst needed, will only add to the traffic problems that have existed for many many years…..KCC Traffic Managers / Planners need to do a very rapid rethink…..

  3. I have one question we already have a shortage of GPs in the South East and intact the Country were are the Doctors going to come from.
    Also other Larger builds Locally have promised this type of thing only to build slightly less houses and getting away with building the services promised.

  4. The doctors will come from the other surgeries that will close as we don’t have enough now and they will try to hid that fact by putting them all in one so they can justify building more houses wait till the new one opens on the airfield with no medical staff to man it. I would rather have noise from aroplanes then more houses !!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. My current surgery is in St. Peters. I’m 72 now and don’t relish taking 45 minutes by bus to get to my GP if I can no longer drive – and that’s if the bus turns up and isn’t late!

  6. We need to close the borders and pull the dependency on the EU which just sucks the UK dry. Without having to pay billions to keep other Countries going we can have a better NHS and services we are watching go down the drain. We should not have to join up our services into huge conglomerates in places that are hard to reach.
    Westwood Cross is hard to reach from parts of Thanet and as already said the roads are not suitable in their present format. The New Haine Road for instance has a bottle-neck at both ends. A new dual carriageway is needed right through that place to take all the traffic away from the area at the first opportunity. With new homes and Surgery hub planned it can only get worse than it already is. Roads need building before anything else.

  7. I have been asked by Quex Park Estates to clarify the issue of a proposed “Quex Surgery referred to in recent articles. Quex Park Estates have received enquiries about the proposal and we just wish to explain that we do not have any knowledge of a scheme beyond initial discussion explained below.

    As part of the Thanet Local Plan proposals land in the control of the executors of the Powell Cotton estate has been identified as a potential housing site. Large housing sites proposals are required to be supported by master plans which show what infrastructure is required to support these developments.

    As part of the master plan work a meeting was held with the Health Authority representatives. At that meeting they indicated their wish to provide a surgery on part of the housing site identified. There has been no further discussion with the Health Authority as yet because the Local Plan has not yet progressed to a stage where detailed proposals are being prepared for the site. Rather than referring to the site as the Quex site it may be more appropriate to describe it as a potential Westgate Surgery Site, those with an interest can then contact the Health authority as we don’t have any knowledge of their detailed proposals.

    Thanks
    Doug Brown

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