Barnhorn Green Medical Centre
We have been working hard at the Surgery for several years to try to expand our current facilities. Rother District Council is planning to build a brand new medical facility to give us enough space to continue our current work, but also to expand upon the services we offer to our patients.
The new site will have more consulting rooms, parking and disabled access, and will be a short distance from our current Little Common site at the entrance to the Rosewood Park development along Barnhorn Road.
The Old Town Surgery site will continue to be fully operational long-term and the Little Common site will be used for a period of overlap, although may not be operational in the long-term.
Patient Engagement Events
Thank you to everyone who attended the Patient Engagement Events at St Mark’s Hall at the beginning of October, it was excellent to see so many of you attended!
Following on from the event, Dr Stocks has kindly answered some of the frequent questions asked below;
FAQ’s from the Patient Consultation:
Why is the new medical centre needed?
- The population of Bexhill is rising. Our patient population has risen by 40% in the last ten years. We have increased the numbers of doctors, nurses and other clinicians as best we can and have increased the number of consulting rooms too. However, we have run out of space and the current premises struggle to remain usable for what we currently offer.
- It remains our priority to provide high quality care to our patients and to improve health outcomes, and we need space to do this.
- Our current sites have very poor access for patients with mobility difficulties. The new site will be purpose built and fully accessible.
How many more GPs will there be and what other medical procedures / scans will be done?
- We are continually expanding our clinical team, with increasing numbers in our Nursing team, Doctors and Paramedic Practitioners. We need to do this to keep up with the increasing population we serve as well as looking to expand the services we offer.
- The new centre will allow us to continue this expansion and we will offer a wife variety of locally commissioned services from our sites.
- We have previously offered rooms for other external providers to use for hearing assessments, echo scans, physio and mental health and counselling. However these have had to be curtailed due to lack of space.
- There is a new ‘diagnostic centre’ being built in Beeching Road – we will be able to refer patients for more locally accessible scans and x-rays there when it is up and running.
- The new building will be designed to help promote self-care as there will be space to provide group education, leaflets and patient information areas including a television with notices about self-care and long term conditions.
- Additional staff will support patients with long term conditions and support the practice to tackle health inequalities.
- Planned group activities and health support work (once Covid allows) are already in progress to address health inequalities.
- All of this will help to reduce pressure on hospital services and allow you to receive more care locally within Bexhill.
Will there be a pharmacy on-site?
- We looked in detail at the space we needed within the building and we will be using all the space provided for running clinical services, so no there will not be a pharmacy on-site.
- There are also strict regulations relating to running a pharmacy, and as a Practice we are not able to dispense medication to you.
- Pharmacies are critical to the community, and we want to continue supporting all the local pharmacies. A lot of pharmacies locally deliver prescriptions to housebound patients and we send our prescriptions electronically now. We always encourage you to allow some time between issuing and collecting your prescription.
- We have a prescribing team, lead by a Clinical Pharmacist on-site and they are available to answer medication queries as well as our Clinical Pharmacist undertaking structured medication reviews.
- Prescription requests will continue to be taken electronically via our dedicated email address, on our website, through the NHS App, and via paper repeat requests dropped in to our surgeries or via the post. Some of the pharmacies do also allow you to request through them directly.
Can there be an NHS Dentist?
- No, this will be a new Doctors Surgery.
- There are 6 NHS Dentists available within 2 miles.
- You can find them using this search; https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-dentist
Will minor medical procedures be performed?
- We carry out some minor surgical procedures already, and plan to expand this to provide more. The new site will have rooms much better equipped for expansion of these services.
Will I have to travel to the centre to put a repeat prescription in?
- Prescription requests will continue to be taken electronically via our dedicated email address, on our website, through the NHS App and via paper repeat requests dropped in to our surgeries or via the post. Some of the pharmacies allow you to request through them directly.
Will there be an x-ray machine?
- There is a community diagnostics hub being built in Beeching Road which will be available for more local x-rays and scans. X-rays and scans all need specialist Radiographers to take them and Radiologists to read and report on them. This will be available through the diagnostics hub.
Will there be any specialist Dementia / Mental Health services within the new site?
- We work with Partners within Bexhill and provide clinics presently for the Dementia diagnostic service. With more space we will be able to expand this further so these and other specialist clinics will be more accessible to you within Bexhill.
Will any services be transferred from Old Town Surgery in the future?
- Old Town Surgery will not be closing.
- It will remain open and fully utilised long-term.
- You will be able to access normal nursing, phlebotomy and GP services from both sites though.
- The new site is purpose-built with rooms better suited to provision of certain services, so we do anticipate offering more from the new site then we can presently offer at either Little Common or Old Town.
What are the opening times? Are later and weekend appointments going to be offered?
- We remain open from 8am – 6.30pm Monday to Friday.
- We also offer evening and weekend appointments through our Partnership with Bexhill Primary Care Network – these appointments are available by asking reception.
- They are provided from a variety of premises within Bexhill as well as remotely.
I’ve heard you’ll be charging for parking?
- No, we will not be charging for parking provision for patients or staff and this has never been considered.
- There will be a number of parking bays designated for disabled badge holders as well as drop-off and pick-up areas.
- There will also be electric vehicle charging stations (the use of which will be payable).
