Senior partner Kier Newson confirmed yesterday (Wednesday) that NHS England has now approved funding for the project, which will see the creation of a large modern surgery for the village. The plan, which was given the go-ahead in March last year, has been given an allocation of almost £2million by the NHS, the Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioners said. Dr Newsom said: “As the Senior Partner of The Glebe Surgery, Monastery Lane Storrington I am delighted to be able to confirm that NHS England have approved funding for us to build our new surgery on the current site. The building will begin within a few weeks. “As far as we aware it is the second new build project in the county to have funding agreed under the new NHS Estates and Technology Transformation Fund strategy. “The new surgery will be triple the size of our current building. It will have more than 50 car parking spaces and have an adjoining independent pharmacy. “I’m sure you understand how important this is for the community and how delighted all of the staff and doctors who work at the Glebe Surgery are.” The Glebe Surgery found itself inundated with thousands of new patients after the sudden closure of the Mill Stream Surgery in the village in 2014. It started making plans to expand its facilities and create a new surgery fit for the future. Dr Newsom said: “Throughout this process our staff and patients have been brilliant, working together with in the significantly cramped current building. Treating patients in PortaKabins is far from ideal but everyone has been so understanding and supportive. “It will be absolutely fantastic to build the state of the art GP surgery that everyone in our community will benefit from. “Our absolute aim is to provide the best possible care for our patients. Achieving this agreement with NHS England means that not only will we be able to build a new surgery for today but also build a surgery of sufficient size to accommodate the increasing local population expected over the next ten years. “The new Glebe Surgery will have the space needed to grow and develop as a practice. We will be able to employ more staff as needed, extend our hours, provide out of hospital services to patients closer to their homes and bring community health an social care teams together under our new roof.” Dr Newsom praised the support given to the surgery by Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning. “They have remained committed to supporting this project from the start,” he said. “ They feel the new Glebe Surgery will have the facilities to develop the NHS Five Year Forward View and encourage the progress of Local Community Networks. “Local Community Networks bring together health and social care professionals, hospitals, community trusts, the county and district councils as well as third sector charitable organisations. These groups working together vastly improve our abilities to provide effective and personalised health and social care to our patient population. “I would like to thank personally Mrs Sue Smith our Practice Manager, Mr Paul Spells our Business and Development Manager and all my staff for their tireless hard work in bring this project to fruition. I would also like to thank our CCG and NHS England, in particular Mrs Jo Fox, for all their support. Most of all I would like to thank our patients for making The Glebe Surgery a wonderful place to work.” Sarah Henley, Associate Director of Primary and Community Care Integration at Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “We are absolutely delighted for the Glebe Surgery with this positive news. “We have been committed to this project all the way through and it is fantastic that it has now reached this positive outcome – both for the practice team and for the patients in this area. “The plans are brilliant and mean that the practice will be able to develop how it works, and bring primary care and community services closer together for the benefit of local people. “It is also exciting that this area is the second in the county to go through this new process to completion. We would like to thank NHS England, and in particular Jo Fox, for all of their support to get to today.” Deborah Tomalin, Director of Commissioning for NHS England in Kent, Surrey and Sussex said: “We are pleased to provide this investment to Glebe Surgery which will provide significant improvements for patients. “The NHS England Estates and Technology Transformation Fund supports improvements in GP premises and infrastructure with the key aim of expanding and improving patient access to local GP services. “This project in Storrington is a major investment and is an excellent example of why this fund has been set-up and how it will directly improve local patient services.”