Improved Health and Social Care Services for Bishopton.

Work to improve the existing health centre site in Bishopton is nearing completion.

The refurbishment programme has focused on reconfiguring the existing building to make better use of the available space. This will provide additional capacity for the existing GP practice and will enable Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) to plan and deliver a wide range of health and care services to benefit the local community.

The updated layout now provides access to three, brand new virtual consulting or ‘multi-use’ rooms, has added an additional treatment room, doubling capacity at the centre, and makes available a new, improved consulting space.

Additional funding has also been secured to allow for the centre’s roof to be replaced. This work will be undertaken in the near future.

In a separate project, earlier this year, Bishopton Health Centre was identified as a test practice site for a new call queuing system, as part of the roll out of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s board-wide telephony transformation programme. It is hoped that any resulting future enhancements to the system will help practices to identify periods of peak activity, thereby enabling them to maximise resources at the busiest times to minimise any call queuing issues for patients.

This refurbishment work was commissioned as part of the wider programme to improve the delivery of health and social care services in Bishopton. This was in response to the increase in the local population from new developments, particularly at Dargavel.

The programme to develop a new-build satellite facility within the nearby Dargavel development also continues to progress, with construction work scheduled to begin in the summer of 2023, with a scheduled completion date of summer 2024.

Once complete, the satellite building will provide the existing GP Practice, Bishopton Medical Practice, with an additional facility to address the current and projected requirements across each of these communities, in a local setting.

Partners, including Renfrewshire HSCP, Renfrewshire Council, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are working together to progress the plans.

Detailed designs are currently in development, but it is anticipated that once complete and operational, the addition of the satellite facility will provide a total, combined capacity across the two sites of 14 clinical consulting rooms, three treatment rooms and seven virtual consulting, or ‘multi use’ rooms.

The project also offers an exciting opportunity to deliver a community facility with a ‘Targeted Net Zero’ energy operation, as well as aiming to reduce the emissions caused by extraction, manufacturing, transportation and assembly within the proposal.

Christine Laverty, Chief Officer of Renfrewshire HSCP said: “It is great to see the enhancements to the existing health centre in Bishopton becoming available for the benefit of local residents and staff alike. Disruption was kept to a minimum throughout the redevelopment work, which I know was a worry for some people. This gives us a local facility that will improve the experience for patients, and one we can all be proud of.”