Surge in number of patients having to change practice comes despite NHS pledge to invest £2.4bn in GP services by 2020

A record number of GP practices closed last year, forcing thousands of patients to find a new surgery, in spite of government attempts to stop local doctors shutting their doors.

NHS England data showed nearly a hundred practices closed in 2016, a 114% increase in GP closures compared with figures from 2014. Of the 92 practices that shut, 58 did so completely, while 34 merged with other local surgeries in order to pool resources.

The drop in GP numbers meant 265,000 patients – an increase of 150% from 2014 – had to change their practice last year, often travelling further for care. Brighton was particularly badly affected with 9,000 patients displaced when four practices closed. There have been a total of seven closures in the city over the past two years.



The new data, obtained by the GP website Pulse, has renewed fears that family doctors are not coping with increased demand and need an urgent cash injection to survive. Senior doctors also expressed concern that government funding was not being targeted correctly.



It comes despite the NHS announcing its GP forward view plan last year, promising to invest an annual £2.4bn into services by 2020. The government also announced £500m investment as a rescue package, which included £16m to support vulnerable practices.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, told Pulse: “We know the money, targeted in the right way, for the most severely affected practices, can make a difference.

“The tragedy is clinical commissioning groups have not delivered their part in making the resources available. Many practices that should have received support have had none to date. That’s been a failing of local delivery.”



Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “Too many practices are being forced to close because GPs and their teams can no longer cope with ever-growing patient demand without the necessary funding and workforce to deal with it. This has serious consequences for patient safety and the wellbeing of hard-working family doctors and their practice teams.”

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The findings are likely to put more pressure on the government to address a growing NHS crisis, with hospitals and family doctors under increasing pressure.

Jonathan Ashworth MP, the shadow health secretary, said: “These are startling revelations and really bring home the extent to which Theresa May’s NHS funding squeeze is impacting on people every day in communities across the country.”

He added: “Given the crisis in hospitals we’ve seen we need to be taking the pressure off hospitals. That means doing much more to protect GP services. With Labour, general practice will be at the heart of making the English NHS more focused on care closer to home.”

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “There is a pressing need for a national, cross-party discussion about how we can afford a modern, efficient, and effective health and care system. I once again urge the prime minister to begin such a process. We must face up to the scale of this challenge, and to the possibility that we might have to pay a little more in tax to ensure that everyone gets the high-quality healthcare they should expect.”

An NHS England spokesperson said: “All NHS patients wanting to register with a GP practice are guaranteed to be able to do so and we have increased investment in general practice by £1bn in two years in order to improve services and boost GP numbers.

“These figures as presented don’t reflect the full picture as they include patients whose records automatically transfer after a merger and therefore don’t have to change practice. As part of our plans to improve general practice services and boost the workforce, many practices are choosing to merge in order to offer patients a much greater range of services.”