{"id":487387,"date":"2026-03-21T09:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/487387\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:29:10","slug":"how-102m-is-helping-to-improve-16-somerset-gp-surgeries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/487387\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u00a3102m is helping to improve 16 Somerset GP surgeries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced in early-May 2025 that 16 surgeries across Somerset would share \u00a3102m for refurbishing or expanding their premises<\/a>, allowing more patients to be treated as part of the NHS ten-year plan.\n<\/p>\n

\n Since the funding was announced, the NHS Somerset integrated care board (ICB) has been working with the short-listed\u00a0practices, finalising business cases and allowing the funding to be drawn down so that work can begin.\n<\/p>\n

\n NHS Somerset has now provided a breakdown of the improvements, which will see at least 25 new clinical rooms offered across the 16 sites, allowing each site to offer more appointments and a wider range of services to local patients.\n<\/p>\n

\n The \u00a3102m is capital funding, meaning it has to be spent on extending or reconfiguring the physical surgeries; it cannot be spent on the salaries or other day-to-day running costs of each practice.\n<\/p>\n

\n A spokesperson for NHS Somerset said: “We were awarded around \u00a31.14m, from Somerset’s \u00a3102m share of the national utilisation and modernisation fund, to support a number of GP premises projects.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We are supporting GPs who have submitted bids to carry out modernisation work at their practices.\n<\/p>\n

\n “These projects are small in scale and have centred around internal reconfiguration and adaptation\u00a0of existing accommodation to create additional clinical areas for the treatment of patients, rather than the physical expansion or extension of GP practice accommodation.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Building works are at a variety of stages – some have been completed and other are ongoing.”\n<\/p>\n

\n NHS Somerset was unable to share how much of the \u00a3102m was allocated to each project, citing commercial sensitivity – but it has provided a breakdown of the improvements being delivered at each site.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"WedmoreWedmore Surgery on St Medard Road in Wedmore (Image: Google Maps)\n<\/p>\n

\n At Axbridge Surgery, located on Houlgate Way near the Lavender Rise housing development<\/a>, will create five new clinical rooms by reconfiguring its internal layout.\n<\/p>\n

\n Its sister surgery on St Medard Road in Wedmore (near the busy B3139) will gain one new clinical room as well as a replacement toilet.\n<\/p>\n

\n Axbridge & Wedmore Medical Practice (which manages both sites) confirmed in early-January that work at the Axbridge site would begin in early-February<\/a> and be completed by mid-May – with the surgery remaining open throughout.\n<\/p>\n

\n The dates for the necessary building work at the Wedmore site have not yet been confirmed – but the practice confirmed this site will have to close for up to eight weeks to allow the work to take place.\n<\/p>\n

\n Beckington Family Practice, located on St. Luke’s Road at the eastern end of the village, will gain one new clinical room and additional office space for its staff.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"BeckingtonBeckington Family Practice on St Luke’s Road in Beckington (Image: Google Maps)\n<\/p>\n

\n The internal building work to deliver these improvements began in late-November 2025 and were due to be finished on Friday (March 20).\n<\/p>\n

\n A spokesperson for the practice said: “We apologise for any inconvenience during this time and we look forward to increasing our clinical room, dispensary and reception capacity for the benefit of our patients.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Both Church Street Surgery in Martock and Crewkerne Health Centre will gain additional consulting space – with the premises being among seven GP surgeries which will shortly merge in a bid to offer a wider range of services to patients<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n At East Quay Medical Centre in Bridgwater, two new clinical rooms will be created through an extensive internal reconfiguration of the site.\n<\/p>\n

\n Both Glastonbury Surgery, located on Feversham Lane, and Highbridge Medical Centre, on Alfred Close, will see similar changes, resulting in two new clinical rooms in each location.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"HighbridgeHighbridge Medical Centre on Alfred Court in Highbridge (Image: Daniel Mumby)\n<\/p>\n

\n At Lister House Surgery on the B3227 Croft Way in Wiveliscombe<\/a>, building work began in mid-November 2025 and concluded before Christmas on a new clinical room and a phlebotomy room (allowing blood samples to be obtained and processed for testing).\n<\/p>\n

\n Millbrook Surgery, located on Millbrook Gardens in Castle Cary, used its share to complete building work which had commenced in the previous financial year, creating a new clinical room out of a former storage area.\n<\/p>\n

\n Polden Medical Practice will be creating two “good sized clinical rooms” within its Edington surgery on Broadway, near the village hall – though the dates for any necessary building work have not been confirmed on the practice’s official website.\n<\/p>\n

\n At Vine Surgery on Hindhayes Lane in Street, three new clinical rooms will open above the dental practice from April 1, after work to modify existing administration space was completed.\n<\/p>\n

\n A spokesperson for the Vine Surgery Partnership said: “This is an exciting new chapter for us.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"VineVine Surgery on Hindhayes Lane in Street (Image: Google Maps)\n<\/p>\n

\n “The additional space will allow us to grow, enhance our patient experience, and introduce new services to better support our community\u2019s health and well-being.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We\u2019re incredibly proud of how far we\u2019ve come and can\u2019t wait to welcome you into this new and improved space.\n<\/p>\n

\n At Warwick House Medical Centre, on Upper Holway Road in Taunton, work was completed in January on a new clinical room, with changes also being made to the main waiting area.\n<\/p>\n

\n A spokesperson for Symphony Healthcare Services said: “The new room replaces a secondary waiting area, meaning all patients now wait in the main reception area, and will provide extra space to see and treat patients at the practice.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Finally, at Wincanton Health Centre (located on Dyke’s Way), work began in late-February to convert office accommodation into three new clinical rooms.\n<\/p>\n

\n The work is expected to conclude by late-March, with the new rooms being fully operational by mid-April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced in early-May 2025 that 16 surgeries across Somerset would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-487387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}