Reconfiguration of health centre to accommodate new GP practice

Customers: MCLO, Fox, Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group and Manchester Local Care Organisation

Newton Heath Health Centre forms an important part of the local health estate, but it is a site that lacks enough clinical space for the growing service requirements.

We have been working with Manchester Local Care Organisation and Manchester Health and Care Commissioning for over a year to identify potential solutions to address the demand for additional space. The need for additional space at the Health Centre was made more urgent when a local GP practice moved to the site after vacating its nearby premises earlier in the year and had to occupy the sessional spaces which displaces other services.

We quickly established potential reconfiguration options that would provide the additional accommodation to house the new GP Practice.

From the outset, we have worked with the MHCC and MLCO to produce feasibility studies and design options that illustrate the potential space options at the site. Once the short term need for additional clinical space for the new GP practice was required, we produced several design options to create the clinical space, tendered the project and managed its onsite delivery.

The project required a number of walls to be removed, which can be extremely noisy and disruptive to services on site. However, by scheduling all works to be out of hours we ensured that services could continue as normal on site with no disruption, despite the extensive work that was required.

We also worked with the stakeholders to assist with moving the new practice into the building, thereby ensuring as little disruption to the existing services as possible.

Our NHSPS Property Management team worked with MHCC to put in place a lease for the new GP practice.

We funded the £162k works which started in August 2020 and completed in November 2020.

We have created more efficient use of the existing space at the site by removing small and unusable rooms, to create larger and more flexible clinical spaces.

In delivering this additional capacity, two additional clinical rooms were created, existing clinical rooms were refurbished for improved staff and patient experience and a reception area for the new GP tenant was constructed. We also refurbished the first floor administration rooms for clinical staff to have a more modern, fit for purpose office space.

By reconfiguring the site to create additional capacity, we have ensured that the new GP practice was able to move into the site and continue to deliver services to their patients with minimal disruption.

In particular, by enabling the new GP practice to relocate a short distance to Newton Heath, any inconvenience to patients was dramatically reduced given that they do not have to travel any further to receive health care.