Woodham Road Medical Centre look to the future by joining Green Cross medical centre network.

Green Cross Health welcomes two more practices into their growing network this month with Papakura East Medical Centre in Auckland, and Woodham Road Medical Centre based in Christchurch.

This grows their network to 64 practices supporting over 412,000 enrolled patients across Aotearoa making it the largest Medical Centre Network in the country.

Dr Adrian Gamble, lead GP at Woodham Road has been with the practice for nearly 20 years looking after a growing patient enrolment of 5,500 patients across Christchurch and beyond. The motivation for joining a larger medical network was driven by necessity to look at the future needs of the practice.

“In the next five years 2,000 GP’s will retire out of the 5,000 GP’s we have practicing today. In 2022 only 166 new GPs joined the profession, so we are looking at a significant problem just finding new GP talent let alone have a succession plan for the practice.” Dr Gamble said.

Dr Gamble added “We also needed help to look at the bigger picture to set our practice up for success in the future. This includes core funding sources and the shape of team with possible roles like Physician Associates to ease the burden on GP’s”

Wayne Woolrich, General Manager Medical at Green Cross Health says, “We’re in a unique phase of growth and we’re excited to have Woodham Medical Centre and their team on board.”

“We know from our GP owner conversations that they see the big advantages being with Green Cross Health and the benefits of being part of our national medical centre network. It has been really pleasing to have some of the leading medical centres in the country want to join us ”