Where is our GP surgery?, councillors ask NHS

NHS bosses must explain what happened to a £500,000 contribution towards a new GP surgery in Warwickshire that has never opened, councillors say.

It comes after Stratford-on-Avon Council issued £518,200 in 2023 to plug a funding gap to enable the surgery to open at Shipston-on-Stour's Ellen Badger Hospital.

Disagreements over cash also include the hospital's League of Friends branch, which is unhappy donations have been used for changes on the hospital estate that have not included in-patient beds.

Council leader Lib Dem Susan Juned has now suggested inviting NHS officials to answer questions in front of the authority's overview and scrutiny committee.

Green group leader Dave Passingham said it was his belief the money has been spent and there was now a "Mexican stand-off" between the practice and SWFT.

The money the council put into the GP surgery scheme came from community infrastructure levy cash - contributions the authority gets from housing developers.

In the meantime, the Shipston Medical Centre - which is very close to the hospital - remains in use.

When South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) applied for the council money, it had said the current practice was "too small".

"Services provided from the medical centre have already had to be rationed due to lack of space," it's bid for the cash detailed.

It made clear SWFT would be responsible for delivering the new surgery and the fact this has not taken place was picked up as part of monitoring of the council's capital budgets this week.

Reform UK councillor Sarah Whalley-Hoggins said money had been allocated to enable the GP practice to open.

"[But what residents] are getting is an overspill for the existing practice while that practice modifies its own building to make that fit for purpose.

"What is going to happen to this £500,000 for the residents of Shipston and those wider communities... [the practice] serves?"

It was "unacceptable that this has been earmarked and not used for the purpose", Whalley-Hoggins said.

Conservative group leader Daren Pemberton, who acknowledged the funding had been passed during his group's time in office, said his "observation would be that the NHS has not particularly covered itself in glory".

Passingham continued: "Eleven consulting rooms have been built on the first floor of the Ellen Badger building – nobody in Shipston wants to call it a hospital because there are no beds in it."

He added doctors were "still not agreeing to move in".

Juned said there were "contract arrangements that we may not know much about and are not involved in".

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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