Bishop's Stortford GPs' efforts to build better surgeries stall

Doctors' efforts to build better GP services for Bishop's Stortford's growing population have hit a brick wall.

Progress on plans by the Church Street and South Street practices to expand their care with new facilities has been frustrated, despite years of work and substantial investment by their partners.

In March 2021, Frontier Estates won planning permission for a surgery as part of a "western neighbourhood centre" to serve the Stortford Fields estate.

Representatives of the developer touted provision of a medical centre as a major benefit for the community when they presented the plans to the town council at the end of 2019 and South Street practice was earmarked as the occupier.

However, Dr Sarah Dixon said that Frontier Estates and the NHS, which determines reasonable premises costs for practices, had been unable to reach an agreement, leaving the project in limbo.

She and the other South Street GPs are desperate to move from their cramped and aging premises and did not renew the lease on part of them in anticipation of the new clinical and administration space at Stortford Fields.

Dr Dixon was blunt: "Unless we can sort out the funding, it's not going to happen. We're very keen for the development to go ahead."

She stressed the scheme was part of a wider partnership by the town's GPs to improve medical care as quickly as possible. "What we offer across all the practices is incredible, but we don't have the facilities between us to deliver what we need," she said.

The Indie asked Frontier Estates to justify its stance but received no response. However, Cllr Shane Manning, chairman of Bishop's Stortford Town Council's planning committee, intervened and asked for an explanation.

He told the developer: "One of the major selling points of the proposals was the inclusion of a medical centre with the tacit understanding that it had been earmarked as a base for South Street Surgery. A new surgery was also listed as a key benefit when you launched a public consultation on the scheme."

Sam Rous, Frontier Estates' development director and head of healthcare, told him: "Unfortunately, we have been hit by record build cost inflation in the last few years... This has had a significant impact on our ability to deliver the surgery.

"The other component of viability is of course the rent that the NHS is prepared to pay for the building. This, unfortunately, has not moved much at all and certainly not anywhere near inflation, meaning that the project is currently under severe pressure."

At Church Street practice, Dr Sian Stanley and the other partners have been trying to broker a deal with East Herts Council to build extra consulting and treatment rooms next to the surgery's satellite at Thorley Park's neighbourhood centre as a quick and easy answer to increased demand.

The sticking point is an unused strip of land controlled by the council that is critical to the development.

The GPs' financial backers wanted a 125-year lease on the plot to make the project viable and compromised on a 100-year commitment, but the council will offer only 85 in line with other leases on the site, including Sainsbury's supermarket.

Dr Stanley said: "The bottom line is that if the council will not back down, this opportunity will go."

She said all the town's doctors wanted to concentrate on providing the best patient care – not on planning matters.

She said: "I think it's a scandal that this town could have great healthcare facilities if only we could overcome these problems."

A spokeswoman for East Herts Council said: "We are acutely aware of the urgent need for new medical facilities to support the growth of our town.

"Granting a lease term longer than all the other occupiers would seriously compromise the future use of the whole centre and the community that relies upon it. That is why we have also approached the anchor tenant to discuss varying their lease terms – changes they were not in a position to accommodate."

She added that the "door remained open" and that the council had suggested other options.

But Dr Stanley was clear that fast solutions needed to be found to the problems faced by surgeries, their staff and a growing patient list today and that other sites, such as St James' Park, would take too long to come to fruition.

Church Street and South Street practices are part of a partnership of five surgeries in the Stort Valley and Villages Primary Care Network caring for more than 60,000 patients that also includes Helix Medical Centre (formerly Parsonage Surgery) at Herts and Essex Hospital, Bell Street surgery in Sawbridgeworth and Much Hadham Health Centre. Ultimately they expect to care for 100,000 people.