Make Surgery The Best

Baroness Detta O'Cathain issued the challenge before cutting the first turf on the site of the new practice premises at Canada Road on Friday.

"We are one of the nicest towns in the country, we should have the nicest surgery," said the leading businesswoman, who is chairman of the Arundel Surgery Patient Support Group.

The group is planning a name change and is to bid for charitable status as it sets about raising funds to buy extra items of equipment which the practice would otherwise be unable to afford.

Baroness O'Cathain told the Littlehampton Gazette: "People who have been kept alive and healthy by the doctors should think about how they have been helped and whether they would like to make a donation.

"We will be drawing up a shopping list of items needed, which might simply be a chair, or something more technical. We want state-of-the-art equipment.

"This is a local surgery and ours are very much local doctors, involved in the community and knowing their patients. We owe so much to them."

The new, 7,000 sq ft surgery, due for completion in the early spring of next year, will replace cramped, 47-year-old premises in Torton Hill Road, where staff worked tirelessly in spite of conditions described as "appalling" by Rosemary Cornish, of Western Sussex Primary Care Trust.

Mrs Cornish, who previously worked at the Arundel surgery, said the scheme would provide much improved facilities. "Without doubt, today is a really exciting day for the doctors and staff and for the people of Arundel as they see the start of this new development."

Dr Roger Eve said the turf cutting ceremony marked the end of years of struggle searching for the right site.

"We actually identified this land early on, but there were difficulties as it is a recreation ground. We looked at all sorts of others but for one reason and another, they just weren't suitable, so we ended up approaching Arun District Council again and now, with Detta's help, it has worked out.

"This is the logical place, with two-thirds of Arundel's population living this side of the A27, including housing for the elderly."

Dr Eve and his colleagues Dr Andrew Mott, Dr Mike Jenkins and Dr Marco Cavaroli, as well as around 30 other staff, will have much more space than at present.

Although roughly two-thirds of an acre of the recreation ground was needed for the surgery site, land twice the size, at Herrington Field, is being leased by the council from the Arundel Estate as a replacement public open space.

Medical Centre Developments is building the new premises as a PFI (private finance initiative) scheme and the practice will then lease the surgery.