Long-awaited Brownsover Surgery faces further delay

Brownsover has been waiting more than two years for a new surgery after the one on Bow Fell closed in April, 2015.It is hoped to place the new building on the empty, green space on Bow Fell, next to the old Brownsover Surgery.

The Brownsover Patient Action Group (BPAG) say they requested an update on the progress on the replacement surgery this week, and were informed that the timetable the NHS committed to back in January 2017 has been abandoned, and a new timetable implemented.

The replacement building was granted planning permission back in June this year. At the time a spokesman for NHS Property Services said works were set to commence on site in autumn 2017 and be complete late summer 2018.

A BPAG spokesman said: "BPAG were informed that the much heralded, and generous timetable, committed to by David Williams on behalf of NHS England in January 2017, has now been abandoned and another, new timetable of completion was being implemented! BPAG are unsurprisingly outraged at this further delay."

Adding: "BPAG have requested an urgent meeting with Mark Pawsey and NHS representatives, and further requested that Mark Pawsey seeks a meeting on our behalf with the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Public Health and Primary Care new Minister for Social Care), Mr Steve Brine. Ironically he is the third such Minister since Brownsover lost its GP Services!

"BPAG are no more confident now that this new timetable will lead to the conclusion of the new build than the previous two."