Extra rooms at Leighton Buzzard GP surgery created 11,000 more appointments says care board
More than 11,000 extra health appointments have been delivered to Leighton Buzzard residents in the 12 months since capacity increased at a surgery, according to the Central East integrated care board (ICB).
Five of the seven additional clinical rooms have enabled primary care network (PCN) services to expand during the first year of operation, said the report to Central Bedfordshire Council’s social care, health and housing overview and scrutiny committee.
“The ICB doesn’t have full data for all the rooms, so it’s not possible to evidence full use or to accurately compare total usage to the maximum potential of 56,000 appointments per annum.
“One of the extra clinical rooms hasn’t yet been used by the hospital trust, while another of these has supported a range of community services to be delivered from the health centre.
“The new rooms have provided benefit for local residents, but there’s potential for increased use and further benefit through greater flexibility for services to expand in line with expected population growth.
“We’ll continue to support services to increase capacity as demand grows. The ICB has provided the requested usage report now and doesn’t expect to continue reporting on this specific case going forward.”
The former BLMK (Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes) ICB completed a partnership project to create seven additional clinical rooms at Leighton Buzzard Health Centre, explained the report.
“This estates project was in line with forecast population growth in the Leighton-Linslade area during the next ten years. Previously there were seven clinical rooms and one counselling room at the Bassett Road surgery.
“An additional clinical room was created in December 2024, which enabled the PCN to launch its same day minor illness service from the health centre in January 2025. The PCN increased its occupation of the premises from two clinical rooms to five clinical rooms from January 2025, as well as the phlebotomy room.
“Six further clinical rooms became available at the health centre from July 2025. From this stage, occupation of the building has been:
- PCN with eight clinical rooms;
- Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust having formal occupation of two clinical rooms for therapy services, although these two rooms are currently unused;
- East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) offering podiatry and specialist services from two rooms;
- East of England Community Health and Care NHS Trust providing speech and language therapy in one dedicated room;
- and two flexible bookable rooms used by various community services and the PCN.
“BLMK ICB estimated the additional seven clinical rooms would provide up to 56,000 more appointments per annum over time.
“This estimate was based on all seven clinical rooms being used from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, for 48 to 50 weeks of the year, with an average appointment time of 15 minutes.
“With operational experience, the assumption of an average of 15 minutes per appointment may not have been an appropriate or realistic calculation towards the total number of appointments from the rooms for their initial usage.”
CBC is doing feasibility work for the development of a community centre on the Clipstone Park housing estate, added the report.
“The ICB is contributing funding to ensure there’s scoping for the potential to include three to four clinical rooms in the designs. CBC is leading this work. Timescales for completion haven’t been confirmed to the ICB.
“This is expected to assess the likely capital and revenue costs for including clinical rooms in the building, so the ICB can consider with the local GP practices the potential viability and affordability of delivering primary healthcare services from the community centre.
“That would help improve access for local patients and to free up capacity at the main GP surgery sites in the town.”