Our history

Back in the late 90's, GP services in Huntingdon were stretched to breaking point following a rapid rise in the town's population. Fortunately Hunts PCG was successful in achieving new Government funding to create a brand new GP practice, appointing Drs Brendan Boyle & Sue Stanton to develop this innovative new service. From its inception, this exciting new Practice was designed to serve the whole Greater Huntingdon area, drawing patients from a roughly 5 mile radius, including for example Brampton, Oldhurst, the Riptons and Godmanchester.
 
The Acorn Surgery, opened its doors to patients in March 2001, based in temporary accommodation adjacent to Huntingdonshire Regional College and over the subsequent 2 years we had the unique distinction of becoming the fastest growing GP practice in the history of the NHS! The number of patients on our registered list is now over 8,000 and we see our continued steady growth as a huge vote of confidence in our extensive range of patient services. Last year, easy access to all our services meant we were one of the highest scoring GP practices in the country as voted by our own patients in a Government patient satisfaction survey.

Apart from all the usual GP based clinics, including a full travel service & minor surgical procedures, we also run our own Vasectomy Service accessible by patients from any GP Practice. In addition, we host a consultant run gynaecology and urogynae clinics, a diagnostic cardiology clinic (echocardiograms and 24 hr ECG monitoring service), and several clinics run by the Primary Care Mental Health Team. Two of our GP partners offer acupuncture and two of our nurses are fully qualified nurse prescribers.

All  four of our GP partners are fully accredited GP Trainers, involved in the training & education of the next generation of family Doctors - and Cambridge University medical students.

Conscious of our role in reaching out to the local community, the Acorn Practice Team has been actively involved in a range of initiatives including working with Hinchingbrooke School 6th form students on Health & Social Care applied A level courses to provide guidance and mentorship; collaborating with the District Council's Diversity Team on Unity in the Community events; organising supportive programmes for our Carers Group .

During those initial five years, the Practice Team worked jointly with Hunts District Council to create an inspirational landmark building - The Oaktree Centre. We moved into this state of the art facility in August 2006.  Imagine our delight when in 2007 we were part of the winning entry in a prestigious National Town Planning Award for Community Regeneration.  We were elated that in October 2007 HRH Countess of Wessex officially opened our new premises at the Oak Tree Centre.

The Acorn is pleased to have a Polish Receptionist who is a fully qualified translator and a GP who speaks a range of languages including Urdu.  The Practice is currently having its information leaflets and surgery notices translated into other languages in order to communicate as clearly as possible with all our patient groups.

The Acorn's thriving Patient Participation Group meets monthly to discuss surgery issues and to help support the Practice the delivery of services which are second to none.  The Group's members have a broad range of skills which offers the Practice continuous opportunity to improve and achieve ever higher standards.  The Practice has also been commended with a National Carers Award.

The Practice philosophy has always been to respond positively to each individual patient's needs and to work in partnership with other health care professions, underlining our holistic approach to health care. Simply expressed, our mission statement is "We strive to provide the same quality of care we would expect our own families to receive".