Building 'does not fulfil right criteria'
THE boss of a doctors surgery due to be shut says it is not closing because of a lack of commitment to the community, but because of problems with the building.
The London Road surgery in Davenham, a branch of Watling Street Medical Practice, will close in January and patients have been asked to use the Northwich town centre practice - two miles away - instead.
Practice manager Mandy Wright said: 'This closure is not because we don't have a commitment to the community at Davenham but due to various reasons, the most important being that the building we are using does not fulfil the criteria required for disabled access and health and safety procedures, and it is not possible to bring it up to this standard.
'We do not own the building and the lease expires in February 2004. Therefore, a decision had to be made as to the viability of renewing the lease for a further period.'
She added: 'We moved into new custom-build premises in Watling Street earlier this year and from these premises we are providing excellent facilities for our patients and our service has been considerably enhanced.
'We intend to continue this provision and will be able to provide an even better service for our patients here at Watling Street who presently visit the Davenham branch surgery. We will not be cutting any surgeries and we will be able to offer further nurse-led service.
'We do realise that this will cause inconvenience to some of our older patients, but every effort will be made to accommodate these valued patients here at Watling Street.'
Speaking on behalf of the family which owns the building that houses the Davenham surgery, Peter Robinson told the Chronicle: 'We were told on October 20 that the practice was not renewing the lease. It came as a bit of a shock to us, because we had been negotiating with the surgery for 12 months to renew it.
'We feel sorry for the people on Davenham because it looks like they are going to lose another surgery on Hartford Road as well.
'From what we gather, it is to do with a new GPs contract, which says the building has to be kept up to a certain standard. No one has been in touch with us, though, to discuss this issue, we just were told the surgery was not renewing the lease.
'Davenham looks like it is going to lose two surgeries and surely the pharmacy will also lose a lot of trade. It is an erosion of services.'