Investment in primary healthcare: a case study

Developing new primary care facilities can be complex, and lack of funding can leave medical practices housed in property that’s not fit for purpose. Public-private partnerships can be a way for GP practices to get the modern premises they deserve.

Middleton and Dinsdale Medical Practice had been housed in a ‘temporary’ building for seven years. Having explored various funding sources to develop a new building, they were finally able to construct a bespoke new medical centre after partnering with Sewell Investments.

Sewell Investments provided the £2.2m needed to construct a new surgery building, with their consultancy arm Community Ventures project managing the planning, design and build.

The practice staff were involved throughout the design, development and delivery of the new building, ensuring the finished premises had a layout suited to their way of working and patient/staff flow.

The practice will rent the building for 25 years, meaning they were able to develop a new medical centre with no capital investment requirement from them.

Community Ventures also handled all the complexities of the development, ensuring the building was compliant with all technical requirements of health buildings, for example health technical memoranda, health building notes etc.

Dave Leedham, Sewell Investments Director, said:

“When people think about public private partnerships in health, they often assume projects have to be on a huge scale, such as the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) scheme. Yet this partnership with Middleton and Dinsdale Medical Practice shows that partnerships work on all scales, and can have a huge impact on day-to-day staff and patient experiences.”

Liz Stewart, Practice Manager of Middleton and Dinsdale Medical Practice, said:

“Without private investment, we would still have been trapped in an old temporary building, yet now we’re delivering our services from a bespoke, new-build centre which has been designed around the way we work. Staff and patients at the practice can see a tangible difference every day, and we’re now able to take on new patients and offer more services.”