A 12-week public consultation about proposals to open a big modern surgery in Dunstable has been launched this week.

Five of Dunstable's GP practices hope to move into the planned new medical centre.

The surgeries are the Chiltern Hills practice, High Street North, Dr Day and Partners, Priory Gardens, Dr Freeman and Partners, West Street, Dr Hawking and Partners, Kingsbury Court and Dr O'Toole and Partners, Kirby Road.

Those five practices have been working with Bedfordshire Primary Care Trust and the Chiltern Vale Health Commissioning Consortium on the ideas.

And the proposal is that the super-surgery should be in an area near the Brewers Hill Road and High Street North junction, across the road from the fire station.

A nurse-led primary care service is planned for the Manshead/Downside area.

The team say that a new medical centre would provide a wider range of local services, better services for patients with long-term conditions, and for older people.

The new centre would be open for longer, have room to grow and have space for less complex specialist services, nearer to home.

But the one surgery would be further away from some people than their current GP centres.

If all goes smoothly, the centre could be up and running by the end of 2010.

Two public meetings about the medical centre plans will be held in Dunstable's Queensbury School.

The meetings will go ahead from 7.30pm to 9pm on June 3 and July 8, and the public consultation will end on July 29.

All patients in the five practices hoping to move into the new centre will receive a consultation leaflet and Freepost response form for their households.

You can write to Bedfordshire PCT at Gilbert Hitchcock House, 21 Kimbolton Road, Bedford, MK40 2AW, or via Freepost, at Dunstable Consultation, Bedfordshire Primary Care Trust, Freepost NAT 16245, Bedford, MK40 2BR.

Click here for a link to the PCT website.

Do you agree that the plans would improve GP services or are you an elderly or disabled person who is worried about having to travel further to see your doctor?
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