HEALTH bosses have been urged to explore ways of bringing GP services back to the former site of Deer Park Medical Centre.

Witney town councillor Brenda Churchill and other campaigners met with representatives of Oxfordshire’s Clinical Commissioning Group yesterday.

The group encouraged the CCG, which commissions health services for the country, to consider new options for the centre, which closed last year, including transforming it into a community-led practice.

Other options put before the CCG included using developer funding via the district council to expand the centre and open a new practice.

The closure of the 4,000-patient centre left hundreds without a GP and prompted a major campaign to save it.

Mrs Churchill, who formerly led Deer Park’s patient participation group, said: “What we’re aiming to do is see Deer Park Medical Centre expanded.

“Witney will need another doctor’s surgery and that is by far the cheapest option. We will be looking to the district council to help achieve that.”

It is not the only potential option that the Deer Park Campaign Group has up its sleeve.

Another would be creating a community-led service, in which members of the public would become investors and stakeholders.

Mrs Churchill continued: “We could have a community doctors' surgery there, which would mean the community put money up front.

“This would be like Witney’s community bus service where users can buy into it.”

Mrs Churchill said much of the community’s involvement would be dedicated to getting the medical centre up and running before handing the leading role back over to the NHS.

The councillor, who wants to keep her new role as the town’s mayor separate from campaigning, said there were serious concerns about the level of development planned for Witney and the surrounding towns and villages.

Currently, 1,000 homes are being built in the west of the town and there are proposals for a 3,000-home ‘garden village’ in nearby South Leigh.

Mrs Churchill continued: “You’ve got thousands of people coming to live here and they will have to go to Witney for schools and doctors' surgeries. This is where people don’t stop and think.”

The Clinical Commissioning Group declined to comment before the meeting.

Mrs Churchill, who has campaigned so save – then re-open – Deer Park Medical Centre since the closure was announced in 2016, said: “The closure seems a long time ago now. The sad part is everything I said would happen has come true. I knew that it was a disaster waiting to happen. We might have opened the door for other people even though we didn’t win ourselves.”