The picture

Most of you will have noticed the above picture.  It was a gift from the artist, Helen Davies to Dr McFarlane on her retirement in 2005.  It has hung in the waiting room ever since.  Sadly there will not be space in the new building to accommodate such a large work of art so we have had to find a new home for it.  The new owner has made a donation to Woking Hospice in return for the picture.

Admin offices moved

We have now vacated the upstairs admin offices.  Most of our admin staff and the district nurses are now settled into their temporary home in the car park! Everyone seems very pleased with the cabins and they might even be better than the existing office space!

We now just have some surplus office furniture to move and some rubbish for the tip.  We need to thank Lightwater Removals, they did a great job moving and then moving again until everything fitted.

We now have a definite date for the work to commence of 6th June.  This is 2 weeks later than we had hoped but gives us a bit move time to sort out our temporary timetables for appointments.

We expect the contractors to be on site slightly earlier to set up their site offices and remove the substantial undergrowth and hedges.  I understand from a number of patients that the hedge on our boundary with Christie Close has quite a following, and is enjoyed by local residents.  Sadly the hedge does need to go to allow the foundations to be dug.  We will avoid nesting birds most of which seem to have left already.  The hedge is over 2 metres wide in places and well over 3 metres in height.  I conceals a lot of land that we are going to utilise with the extension.  There will be planting to replace the hedge, this will be completed next spring once the building is finished.  It won't be as large but hopefully will help blend the new building in.

Car park closed

We have had two portable office cabins delivered today.  We have positioned these at the bottom of the car park.  They will be used to accommodate the district nurses and most of our administrative staff, that is 14 staff in total.  They might be our "backroom" staff but they are crucial to the smooth running of the practice. If they can not work then the whole practice grinds to a halt!

Tomorrow the cabins will be wired for electricity and phone lines.  The computer cabling will go in on Thursday. The furniture and computers can then be moved in on Thursday.

During this busy week we will need to close the car park.  This is for safety reasons whilst electrical cables are laid and to allow the removals men to work unhindered.  Can we ask patients to park in the car park to the rear of the church on Broadway Road or on All Saints Road.  Please take care not to obstruct our neighbour's driveways

New reception area

The work to build a new temporary reception area is complete.  We have moved two of our admin desks down from the first floor and blocked up the doorway to the former kitchen area.

The former kitchen area will be converted into a nurse treatment room next week.

Our portable office accommodation will be delivered on Tuesday and this will be located towards the bottom of the car park.  This will mean closing the car park on Tuesday to allow access for the delivery trucks and crane.  The cabins will then we wired up and our staff can move into them on Thursday.  We will be using Lightwater Removals once again.  The district nurses will also be moving into the cabins so there may be a change in their contact telephone details.  if in doubt please call the surgery.

Tesco & Lightwater Surgery

In response to a number of enquires at the practice, I can confirm that we have not received any funding from Tesco or any other private organisation.

The re-development is being funded by a mortgage from Lloyds TSB and a small grant from NHS Surrey.

Moving out

We had a very constructive meeting with PD Harris on Tuesday, they are very keen to start as soon as possible.  After relatively slow progress in the last year we now seem have moved into top gear!

Lightwater Removals are coming on Wednesday to move some of our furniture out of the building to temporary storage.  This will enable us to make a temporary nurse treatment room next to reception and bring some of our administrative staff downstairs.  Later this week, my consulting room and both of the nurse treatment rooms will be emptied. 

Most appointments will remain at Lightwater during the first phase of the work but some will need to take place at our Windlesham branch surgery.

Once the spare furniture has been removed, the temporary office accommodation can be delivered.  We anticipate this will occur on Tuesday 10th May, this is subject to a road movement application to the Highways Agency.  We hope to have the builders on site and working the week commencing 16th or 23rd May.

The start is in sight

After almost two years of planning, designing, negotiations and applications we are now ready to start building! At the end of March the district valuer finally agreed the value of the proposed new premises.  This allowed Lloyds TSB to make a decision to lend the funds to the practice and for building to begin.

On Tuesday 26th the main contractors, PD Harris will be on site to confirm the last few details and to set a start date.

We  intend to use this blog to keep our patients, neighbours and anyone else who may be interested up to date with what is happening.  We appreciate that not everyone will have access to the internet so updates will be available in both surgeries and from our reception staff.

The surgery premises have remained largely unchanged since the extension in the mid 1980s provided what is now the nurse treatment rooms and the flat which houses the district nurses. Since that time the practice population has almost doubled.  I think most patients would agree the current building is inadequate in many ways.  We are investing £1.2m as a practice in the new premises.

The key improvements are as follows

• Disabled access from All Saints Road and the car park, disabled and wheelchair access to every room in the building
• Sound proofed consulting rooms
• Brand new waiting area separate from the new reception area for enhanced privacy
• Relaid and leveled car park with 4 additional parking spaces and a cycle shelter
• 9 completely new consulting rooms, a net increase of three
• Dedicated treatment and procedures room
• Lift to access the first floor
• New education and training room on the first floor
• Enhanced facilities for district and community nurses

The building work is expected to take 30 weeks and be completed by Christmas.