Is there a doctor in the housing estate?
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have traded blows over the lack of a GP surgery at Didcot's Great Western Park – in a case that demonstrates the challenges that come with new housing.
This 3,300-home development includes four new schools, community facilities, parks, playgrounds and football pitches – but no doctors’ surgery. Labour candidate for Didcot West, Laura Greatrex, says that promises of action have been unfulfilled:
Despite being talked about for well over a decade, a much-needed GP surgery for Didcot’s Great Western Park remains a dream for local residents. Didcot Labour has been trying to get to the bottom of this mess, but all we’ve found is a litany of patronising statements, failed promises, and buck-passing. We’ve heard countless stories from residents who are forced to go to distant A&E departments instead.
Before the general election, Olly Glover MP pledged to thrash things out, agree timelines for progress, and determine how to communicate with residents. There’s no evidence of any of that so far, and he has failed to mention that it is his fellow LibDems at the Vale of White Horse District Council who are responsible for the sorry current situation.
Council communication with residents is non-existent. The district council has merely said, “There are many different crossover elements between the workstreams which are complex and make it challenging to accurately establish a timescale for completion.”
Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover was robust in his response:
A GP surgery on Great Western Park is a clear priority for people in Didcot, and for me. One of my first actions as an MP back in the summer was to meet with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) and the district councils to fully understand the situation and push for a clear timetable. As a result, the ICB published their timetable in which shows building work should start next year. I continue to liaise with the ICB and the councils to press for progress.
Perhaps the local Labour Party would like to join me in challenging the government’s massive hikes on employer National Insurance contributions in the Budget. GP practices and dentists are considering hiring fewer staff or even laying people off, putting even more pressure on the NHS services in Didcot and beyond.
Labour’s long-term Didcot councillor Mocky Khan, who faced Olly Glover in the General Election, retorted: “The LibDems run the town, district and county councils, and Didcot and Wantage constituency has a Lib Dem MP. Yet they can’t make the slightest progress on the GWP surgery development.”
Who is actually responsible? Regular readers of the Clarion will know that our mantra is “Is it for a leaflet?”, and certainly this makes for knockabout political copy in the run-up to next May’s county council elections. The responsibility for creating GP surgeries in Oxfordshire ultimately lies with the catchily named Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire & Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (BOB ICB), a non-political organisation broadly reporting in to central Government.
There is a funding agreement in place between the Vale of White Horse District Council and the BOB ICB. The next step is the planning application, which is currently being prepared by Assura (the specialist medical developer for the building) and the BOB ICB, for submission to the council later this year. The BBC shared a timetable in September forecasting the building work starting by the end of 2025, a year from now – nearly 15 years after the building work first started in Great Western Park.
Since originally publishing this article, we have received the following statement from the Vale of White Horse District Council:
"The NHS is responsible for the delivery of healthcare, including GP Practices. It is also responsible for communicating on the provision of healthcare locally. We share the local NHS’s updates on our website as and when they're provided.
Our NHS partners regularly update information about the progress of the new GWP surgery premises on the BOB ICB website here: The Council’s Property team continue to liaise with Taylor Wimpey on the transfer of the site into Council ownership. Once the site is transferred to Vale of White Horse, the Council will grant a long lease to Assura as Woodland Medical Centre’s appointed developer. Assura will need to secure planning consent (from Vale of White Horse as the planning authority) to build the GP surgery on the site which Woodlands Medical Centre can run as the branch surgery. This planning application does not need to wait for the site to be transferred but we have not yet received such an application."
No one, least of all Didcot residents, would dispute that this has taken too long. But given the scale of development being planned across Oxfordshire, people elsewhere in the county are bound to worry whether the saga will be repeated – and whether the number of actors (housing developers, councils, ICB, surgeries, and medical developers) is burdening the NHS with an over-complex system.
A lack of GP capacity doesn’t just affect residents of new homes, but also those in longer-established areas whose surgery becomes overloaded. We reported last week on the situation in Woodstock, where the existing surgery is too small to cope with demand in an expanding town. Where will be next?
