New Jackson Medical Site and Practice Name Change
We are pleased to announce that we have now changed our practice name to Vallance Medical as we are expanding and opening up a second site at the New Jackson Medical Centre situated within the Elizabeth Towers building on Chester Road, M15 4ZN (map is shown below), in the Castlefield/Deansgate area of the City Centre. The site is due to open on the 12th June, pending any unforeseen delays.
Why have we taken up an additional new site?
We moved to our current site the Vallance Centre in 2008 from the previous health centre near the Brunswick Parish Church. At the time of moving into the Vallance Centre, our practice was relatively small and had two regular doctors. Fast forward to today, the local area has seen a very large number of new homes being built. To meet demand, our practice now has over 8 regular doctors, with nursing, pharmacist and other team members. We have since introduced additional services such as sexual health and family planning, minor surgery, as well as providing training to GPs and medical students. The limited number of rooms we had in the Vallance centre is now becoming a barrier to continuing to provide excellent care to our patients, as we can no longer hire new staff due to space constraints.
Our practice was invited to take some clinical rooms within the New Jackson Medical Centre due to the room shortages we faced, but also the large number of patients we have registered with our practice who reside in the city centre as well (over 50% of our patients reside in the city centre area). Therefore, for a large number of our patients, this new building will be a convenient place to access health services.
The building is also near two other practices – The Docs and Cornbrook Medical Practice. Both practices will join us in the building.
When will the new site be set up?
Our current expectation is that the building will be completed by the 6th June 2023. We understand that the building works are coming to an end and now there will be signage and other NHS IT services being installed.
How will I get to the new site?
Currently there is no free patient carparking available at the New Jackson site. However, the New Jackson site can be easily accessible by public transport. The Castlegate, Deansgate, City Road East bus stops, Deansgate train station, Deansgate and Cornbrook metro station are all within 5-10 minutes walking distance. There are also numerous private car parks in the immediate vicinity.
How will the new site work with the existing? Will we offer more services?
We are expecting the new site to be providing patient care exclusively and see it as a branch surgery or extension of the Vallance Centre. There will be a shared reception area on the new site so we can still offer all the full services that we currently offer. Patients can have the option of making an appointment or coming into either building; whichever is more convenient for them. Our online services, phone number, email address etc will all be the same. Our doctors will still share the same caseload of patients, and we are not anticipating significant changes to the current staff.
With this additional space, we will be able to provide more patient-centred services like mental health support, dermatology and skin surgery as well as expanding our popular musculoskeletal service. In addition, we hope to expand our popular Saturday appointments for nurses, healthcare assistants and doctors.
We are confident that the NJS building will allow us to offer more and better services, without disrupting the current services we are providing.
Will I be able to see any doctor or clinician I want in the new site?
We will try and offer a similar level of services at both sites. However, we may not be able to offer every staff member at every site and there will be some days where a particular clinician will work at the Vallance or New Jackson sites.
Will this new site include the other Vallance practices?
We are the only practice from the Vallance Centre moving into the new building at New Jackson. Other practices within the Vallance were offered to bid on the space at New Jackson but chose not take part.
Will I be able to register as a patient at the new practice?
Yes, of course you can register with our practice at the New Jackson site if you live within our catchment area. We are in the process of updating the practice boundary area to include the New Jackson area. Any new patients that walk in to the New Jackson building will be given the opportunity to register with our practice or any of the other two practices operating from the building.
If you are an existing patient of our practice, you will not need to change your registration or do anything else. You will be able to access the services at the New Jackson site as soon as we open.
Why have we changed our name?
We have previously named our practice after our GP names, eg Dr Ngan and Dr Chan etc. However, each time a GP partner changes, for example, due to retirement, we need to change our practice name again with several different official bodies. We therefore as a practice decided to keep one name for the future so that this unnecessary paperwork is not needed. Our doctors and staff agreed upon the name Vallance Medical. Please note that this change of name was not related at all to the sad passing away of Dr Ngan, and indeed Dr Ngan was one of the decision makers on the name.
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