GP surgery’s lockdown move into Suffolk hospital in million-pound scheme Wednesday, 23rd September 2020

Ingleton Wood is marking the completion of a million-pound project to move a 7000 patient GP surgery into a modern purpose-built surgery which forms an extension to a community hospital in the East of England. 

The nine-month relocation of Oakfields Surgery to Newmarket Community Hospital in Suffolk finished during the Covid-19 lockdown, with the new surgery providing improved treatment and consultation facilities with associated ancillary spaces and a new dispensary. The facility will secure the Practice for the future as housing developments in Newmarket are expected to increase the Patient List size of the Practice to 12,000.

We provided full multi-disciplinary design services for the project including architecture, building services engineering and civil and structural engineering, with construction being carried out by CPS Building Services.

During the design process, we worked with West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group, Suffolk Primary Care and NHS Property Services. User group meetings were held with surgery staff, hospital staff and patient groups to incorporate their feedback into the design which informed the development of a layout to suit their needs.

One of the main drivers of the scheme was for the new building to blend in with the rest of the hospital site, which has been successfully achieved. The addition of plants and trees were also introduced to the hospital site to increase biodiversity and habitat potential.

Anni Folan-White, Partner at Ingleton Wood’s Cambridge office, said: “The building was designed to respond to the desires of the surgery and to comply with the current healthcare and British standards, whilst providing up-to-date clinical facilities for patients.

“The extension is linked to the main hospital via a new link corridor, which extended one of the existing access routes within the main hospital building, leading patients and visitors to the new surgery sub-reception from the existing main hospital reception.

“Consideration of the existing hospital site, budget and best provision of space was at the forefront of the design. However, the insulation and thermal performance of the building construction and the connection to existing hospital systems ensured future energy costs are low and with minimum plant installed, ongoing maintenance costs are greatly reduced.

“By sharing adjacent buildings and improving parking, this has provided real value to the hospital and surgery reducing space and overall costs of the project.”

The building was constructed on a live hospital site which needed to remain fully operational throughout.

The building is used by several NHS bodies which worked with our design team to provide insight into daily operations of the clinics and hospital use.

The layout consists of a central spine corridor, in which all the main clinical rooms and ancillary spaces are located.

Julia Hiley, Estates Development Manager, NHS West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “We are really pleased that Oakfield Surgery has a fantastic new home as part of the Newmarket Community Hospital. Having a modern, well equipped hub offering a wide range of primary and community health services will certainly benefit the local community and best support people’s physical and mental wellbeing.”

Image Copyright: Graham Beck Photography Ltd