A BIGGIN Hill doctor's surgery is seeking permission to expand.

The Stock Hill Surgery has applied to raise the height of its roof to add another floor, with a lift, to provide more treatment space.

Practice manager Barry Gent (crt) said: "We're currently reshuffling the deck on a daily basis, moving nurses into different treatment rooms, which isn't ideal for the nurses or the patients."

The practice's patient list has increased from 10,900 in November 2005 to 11,500 in November last year.

The surgery has decided not to renew its lease on a surgery in Tatsfield, which runs out in March, where patients could see a doctor once a week.

Mr Gent said: "We were putting a doctor and a receptionist into Tatsfield and they were needed here.

"We only had a doctor there, so patients had to come here for blood tests and asthma and diabetes clinics.

"The aim is to put everything under one roof.

"It gives us more flexibility as we can have rooms set up. We currently have a physio pilot running where a physiotherapist comes here five hours a week.

"To accommodate that we've had to shuffle one of our nurses out of her room. With the expansion we can have a room for that and do more hours if demand is there. It saves patients going to Orpington."

The planning application also suggests the extra space would provide more storage room as well as larger toilets for disabled patients and space for training.

Mr Gent said if the application gets planning permission, the extension could be built within 18 months, with builders working around the open surgery.