A senior GP has said that social media rumours claiming the proposed merger between two surgeries in Basingstoke had collapsed are not true.

Dr Matt Nisbet, associate clinical director at the Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group, the organisation responsible for GP services, has quashed rumours that the planned takeover of Shakespeare Road Medical Practice had fallen through.

It comes after the surgery was forced to temporarily close its doors to patients last Wednesday.

Reports on social media suggested that the planned takeover of the practice, first revealed by The Gazette in November 2020, had collapsed, resulting in the practice losing its medical licence and not being able to see patients.

But the surgery reopened the next day for urgent appointments and earlier this week for routine appointments.

Now, Dr Nisbet has confirmed that the rumours were false, and that the takeover had taken place as planned on April 1.

The reason for the closure was the pressures that NHS staff had faced during the pandemic, including catching up on postponed work and running the vaccination programme, mounted up, on top of pressures linked to the takeover.

Bramblys Grange, which now runs the surgery in Shakespeare House, decided it was right to temporarily close to allow staff to properly plan for the future care of the 14,000 patients.

"Bramblys Grange have been very clear in their intentions that they’re here for the long haul, that they’ve made a long-term commitment to improving the wellbeing of people in Popley," Dr Nisbet told The Gazette.

"[The Care Quality Commission] think that Bramblys Grange provide high quality services for their patients and it’s about rolling out some of the things that they are doing which have been really successful, like having a joint approach to children’s clinics with the hospital, having a proactive approach to chronic disease management, it’s about seeing some of those things rolled out to the people of Popley over the next 12 months."

He added that whilst patients will be officially registered at Bramblys Grange in October, it won't see the end of GP services in Popley, and in fact will see more services and more staff working there.

"Staff, like with any merger, the staff who wanted to move across were offered it. The reality is that we know that Bramblys want to expand the clinical staff."

Initially, Bramblys Grange have taken over the running of the surgery on a temporary, 'caretaker' basis. This started on April 1, with the practice, formerly known as Bermuda and Marlowe, being renamed to Shakespeare Road Medical Practice.

The 14,000 patients registered there, and at the smaller Fort Hill site in Winklebury, will officially become Bramblys Grange patients on October 1, with both sites staying open.

At this point, the contract will become permanent, with no specified end date.

Bramblys Grange run surgeries at Dickson House in Crown Heights and the Rooksdown practice.