250,000 forced to switch GPs after surgeries close

MORE than 250,000 patients had to change GPs last year – double the figure of two years ago – as more doctors retire, move abroad or quit.

In many cases, patients were assigned to a new doctor after surgeries merged, but others were removed from surgery lists altogether when their practice closed – leaving soaring numbers without a GP.

Last year, an unprecedented 58 surgeries closed. A further 34 merged, in which case patients are meant to be transferred automatically to a new register.

But they will often have to travel miles to the next town and be under the care of a new GP.

Surgery closures leave patients in limbo and have a knock- on effect on nearby practices, which may have to take on thousands of extra people. Most are already struggling to cope with the pres- sures of treating their own patients, and appointment waiting times are lengthening.

A freedom of information request from the GPs’ magazine Pulse revealed that 92 surgeries closed or merged in 2016, affecting 265,560 patients.

This is up from the 221,000 patients displaced by the 72 surgeries that closed or merged in 2015. But it has more than doubled since 2014 when 43 surgeries closed or merged, affecting 104,000 patients. A Pulse spokesman said the closure rates were ‘ unprecedented’, having been merely a ‘trickle’ prior to 2013.

Last July, the Mail told how millions of patients deemed too healthy because they had not seen their GP could be dropped by their surgery to free space on practice lists.

Last week the head of the NHS, Simon Stevens, promised to prioritise GP services at the expense of routine hospital operations and tests. By 2019, he pledged all patients would have access to weekend and evening appointments to reduce demand on A&E units.

He wants to recruit an extra 5,000 GPs by 2020 and invest a further £2.4billion into surgeries over the next four years. But latest Health Service figures show that on average, 150 family doctors are quitting each month, raising doubts that his ambitious plans will be met.

Many doctors retire early because they are reluctant to work seven days a week, while younger doctors are shunning GP training posts in favour of careers in hospitals, which are thought more prestigious.

On top of the GP exodus, surgeries are under severe pressure from immigration and the ageing population. Waiting times are growing and many practices are completely booked for up to four weeks.

Soaring numbers of GPs are retiring in their fifties after pension changes cut the incentive to work. The NHS Business Services Authority, which oversees pensions, blamed the Government’s £1.25million cap on the amount staff can put into their pensions in their careers. Many GPs on six-figure salaries hit the limit by their mid-fifties, leaving little motivation to continue.

Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said: ‘ This is damning evidence of a system that is falling apart at the seams. The system is at breaking point, bearing the brunt of the chronic under-funding of social care and preventive services. General practice is buckling under the strain of rising demand for care and massive challenges in recruitment.’

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, 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.’

Pulse obtained the figures from freedom of information requests to all 209 clinical commissioning groups, which each include all GP practices in different areas.

Dr Richard Vautrey, of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, said: ‘Despite repeated warnings by the BMA, a decade of underinvestment and failure by successive governments to take the growing workload and workforce crisis seriously has led to this situation.’

Labour health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth said: ‘These are startling revelations. A Government who knew how to manage the NHS properly would be getting a grip. But instead we get incompetence.’

An NHS England spokesman 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 £1billion to improve services and boost GP numbers.’