GP surgery refurbishments locally to enable over 140,000 more appointments

Patients in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are in line to benefit from 140,000 more GP appointments each year as a result of government-funded upgrades to premises, which will increase practices’ capacity to provide appointments.

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced this week that it will investing £102 million to modernise over a thousand doctor’s surgeries in England to create additional space to see more patients, boost productivity and improve patient care. Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are in line to receive almost £1.8m for investment locally.

Right now, many GP surgeries could be seeing more patients, but don’t have enough room or the right facilities to accommodate them. From creating new consultation and treatment rooms to making better use of existing space, these quick fixes will help patients to be seen faster. 

Patients and staff in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are in line to benefit from funding for 22 upgrade and improvement schemes, including:

• Converting an underused community hall into 4-6 additional clinical rooms, dramatically increasing appointment capacity while repurposing an existing space.
• Repurposing generous waiting areas and meeting rooms to become new patient-facing rooms to increase the capacity to deliver appointments.

Projects will be delivered during the 2025-26 financial year, with the first upgrades expected to begin in summer 2025.

The ICB continues to work with all practices who submitted an expression of interest and will look to future funding streams to help progress their proposals.