More than a million left without a GP after surgery closures
Written by News on 30/05/2018
More than a million people have been forced to find a new GP after their surgery closed or merged during the last five years, according to a report.
Data obtained by GP magazine Pulse says there has been a rising number of patients displaced as practices have been forced to close their doors.
It found that the rate of closures accelerated between 2013 and 2018.
In 2013, 18 practices closed across Britain, leaving more than 23,000 without a GP.
By 2017 the figure had risen to 134, displacing at least 311,000 patients.
Between 2013 and 2017, a total of 445 GP practices shut their doors due to closures or mergers, affecting more than a million patients.
The magazine, which obtained the information through a series of Freedom of Information requests to health bodies across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, estimated that in total more than 1.3 million patients had been affected.
It asked how many surgeries had been closed as a result of practice closures, mergers, or practices closing branch surgeries, and how many patients had to move surgery as a result.
Commenting on the analysis, Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of the British Medical Association’s GP Committee, told Pulse: “These new figures will resonate with the experience of GPs across the country as the recruitment and retention crisis in general practice is impacting practices of all sizes and all situations, as doctors face the pressures of rising workload, increasing administrative burden and a lack of resources.”
Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s shadow health and social care secretary, added: “This exposes the real crisis in primary care after eight years of grinding Tory austerity across the NHS.
“Labour has long called for primary care to be given greater priority and investment.
“A key test for Theresa May in the coming weeks will be whether or not she finally delivers the level of investment and support that primary care so obviously needs.”
An NHS England spokesman said: “More than 3,000 GP practices have received extra support thanks to a £27m investment over the past two years and there are plans to help hundreds more this year.
“NHS England is beginning to reverse historic underinvestment with an extra £2.4bn going into general practice each year by 2021, a 14% rise in real-terms.”
(c) Sky News 2018: More than a million left without a GP after surgery closures
