ABSTRACT
This is a scheme to help doctors who own or have a long-term lease on their building. It is to enable the practice to improve the surgery. You will need to have a surgery with consulting rooms and waiting room, etc., and the surgery must already be eligible for reimbursement of rent and rates. The grant is for the provision of new rooms, improved toilet facilities, better wheelchair access, hand wash basins in consulting rooms, double glazing, pram parks and so on. Improvement grants are not for you to buy land to build on, or for replacement of old buildings. You cannot replace furniture or repair structural damage either. Where you are adding to a building, you must have at least a covered corridor joining the old to the new. The size of the finished building must not exceed the dimensions laid out for cost rent purposes (paragraph 51, schedule 1).
