12 November 2014
New GP provider for Circuit Lane Surgery

Alok Sharma, the Member of Parliament for Reading West, has welcomed the news that a new provider has been secured to take over the running of GP services at Circuit Lane Surgery in Southcote.

NHS England has announced today that Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust will take over the running of GP services at the Circuit Lane Surgery from 1 February 2015 on an interim basis. Earlier in the week NHS England wrote to patients at Circuit Lane Surgery informing them about the new interim provider.

NHS England will continue to work to secure a long term provider. Any new provider will be “tested” to ensure it is able to provide continuity of care for patients and safe, accessible high quality services will be NHS England’s top priority.

At Alok’s request, NHS England will hold a public information meeting on Friday 5th December 2014, during which NHS England and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust will present an update of their plans. The meeting will be held at Southcote Primary School at 7pm.

Following the announcement that five GPs had tendered their resignation at Circuit Lane Surgery, Alok proposed that a Working Group should meet to provide regular feedback to NHS England on local patients’ views and priorities and allow all key stakeholders to be kept informed of progress on finding a new provider. The group, which along with Alok, includes representatives from NHS England, the local Clinical Commissioning Group, the Circuit Lane Patient Participation Group, the local Health & Well Being Board and Healthwatch Reading, has been meeting fortnightly since Friday 26 September.

Alok Sharma said: “I am extremely pleased that we have a new interim provider of GP services at Circuit Lane in place and well done to NHS England and others who have worked hard to ensure the timetable for securing a new provider has not slipped. The Working Group I initiated has worked very effectively and meant that the views of patients and local people have been considered at every step.”

Alok continued: “There will now be an opportunity at the public meeting on 5th December for local people to receive further updates from NHS England and Berkshire Healthcare and I continue to hope there will be scope for some of the current doctors at the Circuit Lane surgery to continue as GPs locally and hopefully we will have a further update on this soon.”