GRASSINGTON Medical Practice will officially merge with Ilkley Moor Medical Practice on Monday, August 3.

Patients at both surgeries are being advised that services will be disrupted for two hours on the day.

In order for the clinical systems to be aligned, patients will be unable to access IT systems or patient records from 4pm on August 3 to 8am on August 4.

During this period the surgeries will be closed for appointments and will be covered by the out of hours service.

Dr Mark French, partner at the Ilkley Moor practice, said: “The merger process has been carefully planned to happen as much as possible outside normal surgery hours to avoid unnecessary inconvenience.”

The practices carried out consultations with patients earlier this year, saying their joint objectives were to maintain access to a wide range of services, to give patients access to a greater number of medical staff with a wider range of clinical expertise, and to pool resources.

The Ilkley Moor practice currently has more than 13,000 registered patients while the Grassington surgery serves about 4,000 patients.

Both are member practices of the Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group.