Riccarton Clinic has been open for over twenty years. It has remained true to its innovative origins, offering a mixture of general practice and an accident & medical clinic. Growing from a humble start Riccarton Clinic now handles over 80,000 patient interactions every year and incorporates many allied health organisations under one roof.
The Riccarton Clinic and After Hours Medical Centre opened in August 1991 as the first independent after hours medical practice in Christchurch. This was an innovative step at the time and provided patients with an affordable and high quality service for their daily general practice and after hours needs. It was founded by Dr Charlie Baycroft and Dr Andrew Gin.
The practice has remained open every single day since despite the upheaval of moving to its current building, snow storms, and multiple significant earthquakes.
The present directors Dr Angus Chambers, Dr Alistair Blomley, Dr Jason Pryke and Dr Alisdair Webb have worked at the clinic for many years, Dr Chambers being part of the team that took over in 2000 and being joined by Dr Blomley and Dr Pryke in more recent times. Dr Webb became a director in April 2016. The practice continues to grow under their guidance. In 2007 it moved into new purpose built facilities which simultaneously extended the range of services and gave the opportunity to house many allied health organisations under the same roof.
In August 2007 the practice handled 6,000 patient interactions in a single month for the first time. This was a milestone and exceeded all other months in the year by a large degree. This figure was not exceeded in 2008 or 2009 but by 2010 patient numbers had grown so much that over 6,000 patients were seen for seven of the twelve calendar months. In 2014 the patient numbers exceeded 7,000 for five calendar months. In 2015 we had over 80,000 patient interactions.
Late in 2014 a second, smaller, building was purchased and consent applied for to change to healthcare usage. Consent was granted in 2016 and plans are underway to decant some of the existing services to that location so that capacity in the main building can be increased further.
