A CHANDLER'S Ford serving thousands of patients is to close by the end of this year, it has been revealed.

Brownhill Surgery will not provide general medical services to its 7,000 patients from November 30.

The surgery gave the NHS West Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) a notice blaming workload pressures, difficulties in recruiting GPs and the retirement of a GP at the surgery.

Dr Nigel Watson from Local Medical Committee on behalf of Brownhill Surgery, said: “At Brownhill we have tried really hard to provide the best care we can. Unfortunately we have had GPs leave because of the workload. We have been unable to recruit new GPS to replace them. We are not alone in the problems but it has hit us harder than most.

“We have worked hard to secure a stable future for the practice but have been unable to achieve this.”

The CCG is carrying out a survey to find out if patients would prefer to choose a practice or be allocated to others including Fryern Surgery or Park Surgery and St Francis in Chandler’s Ford, Boyatt Wood Surgery or St Andrews Surgery in Eastleigh, North Baddesley Surgery or Twyford Surgery in Winchester.

Alan Broadhurst, councillor for Chandler’s Ford, said: “People who have been going to Brownhill Surgery for many years feel they know the doctors there and now they’ll have new ones.”

A patient drop in session will be held on July 31 from 2pm to 7.30pm at Hiltingbury Community Centre.