Maria Miller, Basingstoke’s MP held a meeting with patients of Beggarwood surgery on Saturday 13 July to discuss their concerns over the continuing uncertain future of this GP Surgery. The meeting was attended by local Councillors, the NHS people who commission local GP services along with more than 70 local residents. The NHS contract with the current operator of the Beggarwood and Rooksdown GP Surgeries was terminated in March shortly before a CQC inspection found the Beggarwood Surgery to be inadequate in every category. A new operator has been identified for the Rooksdown surgery, but no announcement has yet been made on a future Beggarwood operator, leaving the default being closure in early September. As well as providing primary care for 5000 local residents the surgery is located next to two proposed major house building sites and in June was referenced by the NHS as being able to provide primary care for those new residents despite the lack of an operator from September.
The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) representative Zara Hyde Peters told patients and residents at the meeting that there is only one plan, to keep the Beggarwood Surgery open. The CCG is confident that the surgery will remain open with a sustainable solution delivering improved GP surgery services for patients. She gave assurances that an announcement of the new operator will be made before the end of July.
Maria said following the meeting, “I am delighted at the NHS’s announcement that Beggarwood Surgery will remain open with a new operator delivering an improved service for local people. There has been considerable concern and uncertainty for local residents and patients. It would have been better to have a new operator in place prior to terminating the existing contract, the extended period of uncertainty has been extremely worrying for local residents.“
“The meeting was unanimous in wanting to welcome the new operator who will be announced in the coming fortnight and that residents will want to work with them to get their local GP surgery back on track.”
The new operators have not yet been announced but at the meeting we were told that they have an excellent track record of delivering primary care services.”