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Brough Surgery Closure Posted or Updated on 25 May 2023

Dear Patients

You will all be aware that the Practice has seen a number of retirements over the last 12 months and consequently we have been working very hard to try and recruit more GP’s. Over the last 4 years we have conducted an extensive recruitment campaign to try and attract more GP’s to our area. We also became a training practice in the hope that our GP trainees would stay with the practice once they qualified. 

Unfortunately due to our rurality and a national shortage of GP’s, this has seriously affected our ability to recruit any replacements for our retiring doctor’s. This has had a chronic effect on our capacity to operate safely and effectively and regrettably we are now having to consider closing our branch surgery at Brough in order to centralise more of our remaining resources at our main surgery in Kirkby Stephen.

We would be very grateful if you could let us know your thoughts & offer feedback about the proposed closure by completing a short survey via the link below:

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7YJRQX8

The survey offers a free text option to provide your feedback and thoughts and therefore we would be very grateful if you did not contact the practice directly about the proposed closure.

Paper copies of the survey will also be available to collect from our main surgery in Kirkby Stephen and our branch surgeries at Brough and Tebay, for your convenience. Completed hand written surveys can be returned to any of our practices.

We appreciate that this will have a huge impact on our community and please rest assured that we would not be considering this if we had any other option. We will collate all your feedback over the next 4 weeks and provide it for the CCG, who will ultimately decide how we move forward.

General Practice has seen many changes over the last few years and in light of the ongoing GP recruitment crisis, all the practices in Eden have been working together in conjunction with Eden PCN (Primary Care Network), to expand our collective workforce with additional roles. Consequently GP Practices now include a wider range of healthcare professionals (e.g. paramedics, nurse practitioners, physiotherapists and pharmacists). They are all trained in clinical assessment, diagnosis and treatment and they work with and on behalf of your GP to ensure you receive the best care from the most appropriate healthcare professional.

Therefore please be advised that our reception team may offer you an appointment with one of our other healthcare professionals if they believe it will provide you with the best treatment in the shortest possible time.

Finally, to compound our current staffing issues, we are also sorry to announce that Dr Galea and Dr Tooze have had to leave the practice with immediate effect due to personal reasons. This, combined with a considerable rise in Covid-19 infections amongst the clinicians and support staff has resulted in us only being able to provide urgent appointments this week.  

We sincerely apologise for the impact on our services and we would be very grateful for your consideration and understanding at this difficult time.

Thank you

The GP Partners and Team at Upper Eden Medical Practice

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