Closed doctor’s surgery could be used again
REPORT SAYS BUILDING UP FOR RENT COULD REMAIN A MEDICAL FACILITY
A FORMER doctor’s surgery which closed down more than a year ago could be used again.
Overseal Surgery, in Hallcroft Avenue, Overseal, is now up for rent more than a year after it closed in January 2020 after struggling to find a second doctor to help run the practice.
When it shut it left its 2,100 patients scrambling to find alternative practices.
It is on the market for rent with report saying the building could be used as a medical facility again.
However, just months later in May, when the country was in the grip of Covid lockdowns and the NHS was dealing with thousands of seriously ill coronavirus patients, the surgery was reopened in a venture by five surgeries in the area as a venue to treat their own vulnerable shielding patients who were not suffering with the virus.
People told to shield at home and not mix with others outside their own home were those with serious health conditions who risked becoming seriously ill had they caught Covid.
Newhall Surgery in High Street, Newhall; Swadlincote Surgery, in Darklands Road, Swadlincote; Heartwood Medical Practice, in Civic Way, Swadlincote; Gresleydale Healthcare Centre, in Glamorgan Way, Church Gresley; and Woodville Surgery, in Burton Road, Woodville; all operated from the surgery one day a week each to see their shielded patients.
It was chosen as it still had all its IT in place and even though it had been decommissioned it still had everything needed inside, such as the GP consultation rooms.
Now, the building could be leased out again and is being marketed by commercial estate agents Rushton Hickman.
The building, which measures 976sq ft, can be rented out at £13,500 a year.
The marketing report says it could be used as a medical facility again.
It said: “The property comprises the ground floor of a former GP surgery, which means that it would lend itself to medical and non-medical healthcare services or alternatively be used as an office.
“Externally, the property provides a patio/garden area as well as seven to eight car parking spaces.”
The decision to close the surgery was revealed in November 2019 with its latest inspection by health watchdogs deeming it “inadequate”.
The surgery initially closed when a bid to recruit a new doctor to become a partner in the practice following the retirement of Dr Vishnu Parmar failed.
A spokesman for the surgery said at the time that recruitment problems in general practice, and the added pressures placed on a single-handed GP, “result in a small practice being a less attractive prospect for a younger doctor”.