DETAILED plans for the long-awaited extension to Launceston Medical Centre are nearing completion and are on schedule to be submitted to Cornwall Council for planning permission later in the summer.

The centre’s business manager, Peter Harper, told May’s meeting of the Launceston Patient Participation Group that surveyors and architects had been on site since January obtaining the necessary detailed information.

He said: “The doctors will meet the architects early in June to discuss the layout and the final details and we hope that plans will be ready for submission to Cornwall Council later in the summer.”

Meanwhile, the medical centre has been notified that there is another new form that must be completed if the funding for the extension can be granted by the NHS. Mr Harper told the group that the new submission would be the eighth prepared by the centre for NHS — including the original bid in July 2013.

Although funding for the extension had been agreed in principle by the NHS, the new forms — which require slightly different information and in a different format from previous submissions — have to be submitted to the Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group by May 27 if the funding is to be granted.

He warned: “Even if we get planning permission, it doesn’t guarantee that we shall get the funding we have requested for the work to be carried out. However, this is a positive step forward and we are hopeful that the funding will be forthcoming.”

Online prescription orders — The medical centre has introduced a new system of ordering prescriptions online which is now operational and available to all new patients or those using the online ordering system for the first time.

Mr Harper said the new method had the advantage that it linked directly to the full system used by the medical centre whereas the old method was a stand-alone system. It was planned to phase out the old method so that within two years all patients would be on the new system.

Doctors’ rota — The revised rota for doctors’ surgery days, which was introduced in April, was reportedly working well.