About Us

Back in the late 90’s, GP services in Huntingdon were stretched to breaking point following a rapid rise in the town’s population. Fortunately the local primary care organisation (Huntingdonshire Primary Care Trust) was successful in achieving Government funding to create a brand new GP practice, appointing Drs Brendan Boyle & Sue Stanton to develop this innovative new service.

From its inception, this exciting new Practice was designed to serve the whole Greater Huntingdon area, drawing patients from a roughly 5 mile radius, including for example Brampton, Oldhurst, the Riptons and Godmanchester.

Acorn Surgery opened its doors to patients in March 2001, initially based in temporary accommodation whilst the Oak Tree Centre was being built. During the first two years the Practice became the fastest growing GP Practice in the history of the NHS! The number of patients on the Practice list is now over 10.500 and we see our continued steady growth as a huge vote of confidence in our extensive range of patient services and quality of care.

We continue to be one of the highest scoring GP practices in the country in terms of Quality and Outcomes and in 2017 were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission, a rating we have maintained since.


Two of our three GP Partners are accredited GP Trainers involved in the training & education of the next generation of family doctors – and our other Partner is an Accredited Tutor for University Medical Student training.

Conscious of our role in reaching out to the local community, the Acorn Team has been actively involved in a range of initiatives including working with Hinchingbrooke School 6th form students on Health & Social Care applied A level courses to provide guidance and mentorship; St Peter’s School careers events, working with local nursery and school reception groups teaching basic first aid awareness and hand hygiene. In the past we have collaborated with the District Council’s Diversity Team on Unity in the Community events, and organising supportive programmes for our Carers Group.


During the initial five years, the  Acorn Team worked jointly with Hunts District Council to create an inspirational landmark building – The Oak Tree Centre. We moved into this state of the art facility in August 2006. Imagine our delight when in 2007 we were part of the winning entry in a prestigious National Town Planning Award for Community Regeneration and we were elated that in October 2007 HRH Countess of Wessex officially opened our new premises at the Oak Tree Centre.

The Acorn is pleased to have a Practice team that speaks a range of languages to support and provide extended care for our patients.  We are always happy to organise formal translation and interpreting services for our patients where there is a need.

The Acorn’s active Patient Participation Group – the Acorn Patient Team – meets monthly to discuss surgery issues and to help support the Practice in the delivery of high quality services. The Group’s members have a broad range of skills which offers the Practice continuous opportunity to improve and achieve ever higher standards. The Practice has also been commended with a National Carers Award.

Our philosophy has always been to respond positively to each individual patient’s needs and to work in partnership with other health care professionals, underlining our holistic approach to health care. Simply expressed, our mission statement is “We strive to provide the same quality of care we would expect our own families to receive”.