THE RIVERSIDE Surgery in Liss is set to become busier.

Woolmer Surgery in Bordon – which has been closed for three afternoons a week since February – is having to further reduce its opening hours until all clinics are permanently transferred to Liss at a date to be announced.

Woolmer is a branch of the Riverside Practice at Liss, and the move is a result of the forthcoming departure of a second GP in five months.

Clinics will continue to operate at Woolmer on four mornings a week until the building is sold and closed.

NHS South Eastern Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group has written to inform all Woolmer patients that they can transfer with the practice partner, Dr Charles Dawson, to the Riverside at Liss – or register with one of the two other remaining practices in Whitehill and Bordon.

Woolmer was forced to reduce its opening hours in February when one GP left the practice. All attempts to recruit a replacement failed.

But now a second GP is to leave for a new job in May – placing an impossible strain on the remaining three doctors to continue to operate from both sites.

In a message to patients, Dr Dawson said he had been left with no choice but to make a “personally upsetting” decision to ultimately close Woolmer.

He said: “As most of you know, I have been a GP both in Bordon and in Liss for 16 years and have grown to know many of you and your families well over this time. I would like to personally invite those of you that are able to travel to Liss, to remain registered with the practice. I do appreciate that for some, this is not a viable option.

“I will be incredibly sad to leave, and if there were any other way for me to stay and look after my patients in Bordon out of the Woolmer surgery please be assured, I would.”