Firs House requests catchment limit

Firs house door Chris Cox

Limited physical space at the Firs House surgeries in Histon and Cottenham has led them to apply for a change to the catchment boundary within which they provide medical services.

The calculation of a practice’s physical capacity to manage its patient list looks at patient population size compared with its internal area.

Calculations for Firs House Surgery, including the branch location in Cottenham, indicate that they already lack 338m2 of space, and therefore do not even have the recommended capacity or resources to maintain their existing property at present, let alone accommodate growth.

Implications

If the application is approved by the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Integrated Care board, residents of properties built for Phase 3A of the Northstowe development would not be eligible to join the practice.  

No decision about the application has been made yet, but if it is approved, any residents currently registered with Firs House will remain registered, regardless of whether they are outside any new boundaries, unless a house move takes them outside the new boundary.

Comments

  1. Tom

    Good for them. I hope the community supports this and that their application is successful.

    Perhaps the planning committee at SCDC will finally learn to stipulate supporting infrastructure at developments like Northstow 3A?

  2. Geoff Moore

    This space deficit is the equivalent of 3 No three bedroom houses! It begs a few questions.

  3. Beverley Lewis

    It is about time this was dealt with. Too many people, too little space. not enough doctors/nurses to cope now let alone in the coming years. It should be stipulated that when planning applications are made they should include sustainable infrastructure in the plans which cannot, by law be disregarded and not dealt with.
    Beverley

  4. Peter Garside

    There is a large local property site gifted to our community by the Chivers family over 100 years ago. This is the old Infants School on New School Road. It could be demolished & the site developed as a Medical Centre with space for other NHS Services & a Minor Accident Clinic. There would be ample space for double the number of Doctors plus wheelchair access & space for Patients to park locally if the rarely used playing field opposite is also developed..
    NHS apparently don’t have enough money when last approached so this valuable local site is rented out to a part time Music School originally based in Huntingdon I understand.

    Problem solved if people with the necessary authority got their act together in my opinion.

    Peter Garside

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