Dear patients of Cobbs Garden Surgery
The last few months has been a difficult time for our surgery and I wanted to update you on what has happened and the efforts we are making to secure our long term future and growth.
Over the last six months we have been in discussion with two larger GP practices in Milton Keynes who either wanted to take over our practice or merge with us. Neither approach was successful however for a variety of reasons and I have decided that Cobbs Garden will now remain independent.
I also wanted to let you know that Dr Winter has retired and both Dr Lasocki and Dr Godagama have left the practice to pursue their careers elsewhere. They have all contributed greatly to our surgery and we wanted to acknowledge this and wish them the very best for the future.
I have been working hard to recruit additional clinical staff and I am pleased to announce that Dr Brady (specialist interest in menopause) and Dr Sood will be joining us in September. We are continuing our recruitment program but in the meantime there will also be some locum doctors (Dr Ali, Dr Matthews and Dr Thomas) starting with us. In addition a full time paramedic, Pete, a minor illness nurse, Donna, woman’s health nurse, Caroline and practice nurse, Stephanie are joining us. The net effect of this is that we will be able to offer more clinical appointments than we have been able to provide for a number of years. By the end of this year we hope to reopen our list to the residents of Olney.
I am also pleased to inform you that my father, Dr Chris Herman has agreed to join us as the managing partner in order to bring some stability to the practice but also to oversee our future development. He was a GP partner at Newport Pagnell Medical Centre for many years and will be joining in a managerial role rather than clinically.
Another positive development is that we have secured the option to buy a plot of land near the centre of the town on which we hope to build a new medical centre. This will be dependent on NHS funding which is not yet agreed.
Throughout this difficult period we have been working closely with our Integrated Care Board and Patients Participation Group.
Now that we are moving ahead in the right direction we will provide regular updates on how are plans are progressing. If you have any further thoughts or concerns about any of the above please email my father on chris.herman@nhs.net.
With many thanks for your support now and in the future.
Kind regards
Dr Katie Herman
GP partner
Cobbs Garden Surgery