TWO Minehead doctors’ surgeries will be officially merging from Monday (April 1), although initially nothing will change for patients.

Irnham Lodge and Harley House surgeries will in future be part of the single Minehead Medical Centre, operating from both surgery premises.

Members of the combined Patient Participation Group will be handing out leaflets and answering questions about the merger in both surgery waiting rooms during the week.

The practices announced in October last year that they were joining forces to create a single partnership that would ensure services remained sustainable.

By working together, the partnership aims to be more attractive to new recruits, especially GPs, and no longer be in competition to attract new doctors.

The business partnership and practice teams will merge from April 1 but any other changes will be rolled out in carefully planned stages, with patients kept fully informed.

Initially there will not be any noticeable changes. Phone numbers will stay the same, and patients will remain under the care of their current named GP until the point of any retirements.

On Friday May 10 from midday, the computer systems will start to be merged.

A post from a member of the Patient Participation Group on Facebook caused a small flurry of anxiety this week, but the matter was quickly resolved.

It highlighted that Irnham Lodge patients using online access for appointments and prescriptions will need to re-register for this service after Monday, May 13.

This was initially interpreted as patients from Irnham Lodge needing to re-register with the practice, which is not the case.

Both surgeries have seen experienced doctors retire in recent years with more planned retirements to come, and had been struggling to attract new GPs due to the national recruitment crisis.

Rather than risk one or other of the town’s surgeries being forced to close, and other surgeries faced with suddenly re-allocating 7,000 patients or more, they decided to join forces.

Two new GPs have already been recruited to the team since news of the merger broke.

The surgeries said that through the merger, they would be able to combine skills to offer a greater range of services to patients, and combine the services currently offered at one practice but not the other.