Official opening of Harold Moody Health Centre in Southwark
The new Harold Moody Health Centre has opened on Southwark’s Aylesbury Estate, rehoming two local GP practices, and providing a brand-new neighbourhood base for delivery of community health services.
Aylesbury Medical Centre (Nexus Health Group) and East Street Surgery began welcoming patients in February to their purpose-built and fully accessible premises on Thurlow Street. Additional consulting rooms provide better facilities for staff, an improved experience for patients, and scope for diversifying and expanding services in the years to come. Alongside practice nurse and GP appointments, both practices will continue to offer patients access to a range of other health care professionals, for example pharmacists, physiotherapists, advanced nurse practitioners and mental health nurses.
The welcomed community resource is part of a wider renewal of the Aylesbury Estate and ensures that residents have access to vital NHS provision on their doorstep.
Councillor Evelyn Akoto, Southwark’s Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing said, “It’s essential that people have provision in their local communities to support health and wellbeing – the Harold Moody Health Centre is a vital new facility on the Aylesbury Estate helping to ensure residents have that support at hand. We’re really pleased to have worked closely with the NHS to bring this care to people’s doorsteps.’
Speaking at the opening event on 29 July, Dr Kenny Chan, GP Partner from Nexus Health Group, said: ‘We’ve watched the build of Harold Moody Health Centre from our former premises at the Aylesbury Medical Centre next door and are pleased to now be operating from the site. We’d like to thank to NHS South East London premises team for all their help and support in the lead up to our move. We are delighted that we have a state-of-the-art building that is available to all our patients across north Southwark.’
Dr Arnold Abraham, GP Partner from East Street Surgery said: ‘We couldn’t be happier to be installed in our new practice premises. The move went well, and all our IT services are up and running. Patients haven’t had to learn a new phone number or reregister, and they’re telling us already how much they like our new home. Our list is open, so we’re also welcoming new patients who want to register.’
The new building houses two GP practices and community health services provided by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
The Trust provides speech and language therapy, health visiting, breastfeeding and midwifery services at the site. The Aylesbury neighbourhood nursing team and the nutrition and dietetic weight management service are also based at the Harold Moody Health Centre.
Professor Ian Abbs, Chief Executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: ‘The new Harold Moody Health Centre puts our health services at the heart of the Aylesbury Estate.
‘It provides an opportunity for us to make a lifelong positive impact on the lives of many people who live in the area, particularly children, parents and carers. It will also enable our staff to forge valuable links in our community, where it is most needed.’
The opening of the centre comes after years of painstaking and complex planning involving the GP practices, Guy’s and St Thomas’, NHS South East London, NHS Property Services, and Southwark Council.
Sally Tombs, Managing Director – London, NHS Property Services, said: ‘NHS Property Services is pleased to have been able to support the delivery of the new Harold Moody Health Centre. As the head leaseholder, we have worked closely with the Trust, GP practices and Southwark Council, to ensure the new Centre would offer local people a wide-ranging offer from general practice and community health services.’
Andrew Bland, Chief Executive Officer for South East London Integrated Care System, said: ‘I’m grateful to the many partner organisations involved who have worked together to bring our joint plans to fruition. This new health centre supports broader developments in the way general practice supports people, with a wider range of clinical and other expertise offered to patients, and the co-location of general practice and community health services also offering increased opportunities for the health and care system to work more closely together.’
Darren Summers, Strategic Director for Integrated Health and Care, and Place Executive Lead for Southwark, added ‘The location of Harold Moody Health Centre, right at the heart of the estate, brings greater potential for health services to connect with local communities and to build bridges between clinical and non-clinical ways to support people more effectively to manage their health. This is a key ambition within our plans to develop neighbourhood models of working and build integrated neighbourhood teams across the borough.’
The centre was named after Dr Harold Moody following a public vote. Dr Moody came from Jamaica in 1904 to study medicine at King’s College, London. Encountering racial prejudice, he was unable to gain work as a doctor and set up his own GP practice in Peckham in 1913. He lived and worked in the area until his death in 1947.
Moody founded the League of Coloured Peoples in 1931, which challenged racial discrimination and fought for equality. He campaigned for employment rights for Black seamen, fair pay for Trinidadian oil workers, and the lifting of the colour bar in the British Armed Forces that prevented the appointment of Black officers. Moody’s campaigning work influenced the Race Relations Act 1965, the UK’s first law against discrimination on the grounds of colour, race, ethnicity or national origins.
The Harold Moody Health Centre is located at 60 Thurlow Street, London SE17 2GB.