Letter to our patients regarding Aylesbury Medical Centre new premises – Summer 2023
Dear patient/guardian
GP services for patients registered at 301 East Street Practice and Aylesbury Medical Centre
We are writing to you today to inform you that in summer 2023, your current GP surgery will move to a new, larger, modern and purpose-built health centre. The aim of this is to allow your surgery to offer a better service by enabling a range of services to be provided.
The new centre is being built on Thurlow Street, in between Inville Road and East Street close to your current GP surgery building. When the new building has been completed, we will begin to move your practice into the brand new premises.
The date of the move and final details are under discussion between the NHS organisations and GP practices involved but we wanted to let you know as far in advance as we could. We will be in further contact before summer 2023 to give you more information and the opportunity to ask any questions you may have.
We are excited about the move and would like to take the opportunity to reassure you that as this is a relocation, we expect to add to the services available to patients and no services will be lost in the area.
Name of the centre
The new NHS health centre will be named Harold Moody Health Centre after local GP and campaigner Dr Harold Moody.
People in Bermondsey and Walworth, were asked to rank the names from a shortlist of three, with the Harold Moody Health Centre being chosen as the favourite.
Dr Moody came to London from Jamaica in 1904 to study medicine at King’s College, London. Having been denied a hospital appointment out of racial prejudice, he set up on his own as a GP, establishing a practice in King’s Road (now King’s Grove), Peckham, in 1913. In 1922 he moved to nearby 164 Queens Road, where he lived, worked and died.
Moody also founded the League of Coloured Peoples and fought for causes including employment rights for black merchant seamen, fair pay for the Trinidadian oil workers and the lifting of the implicit colour bar in the British Armed Forces that had prevented the appointment of black officers.
Next steps
We will be in touch again when we have more detail. Patients will not be required to take any action as their medical notes and registration will automatically be transferred over to the new site. You will also be given a choice to register with another surgery if you do not wish to remain as a patient of either 301 East Street Practice or Aylesbury Medical Centre. Both GP surgeries will work closely with commissioners to identify vulnerable patients who may need assistance with the relocation to the new premises.
In the meantime, please continue to contact your GP surgery as normal. If you have any questions or concerns about this letter, please contact Partnership Southwark at
Yours faithfully,
Kate Kavanagh, Associate Director – Healthy Populations and Community Based Care Team (Interim), NHS South East London and Southwark Council.
