A GP practice in the health secretary’s Cambridgeshire constituency is set to close with only one month’s notice due to recruitment issues.
Priors Field Surgery in Sutton will close on 31 March following the retirement of the GP partners who currently hold the contract.
Councillors have now launched a petition to their local MP – who also happens to be health secretary Steve Barclay – to step in to ensure future GP practice services for local patients.
The practice, which serves around 6,000 patients, comes under Fenland Group Practice which runs four other practices in the county, all of which are over 10 miles away from Sutton village.
Fenland Group Practice said on its website that ‘all options have been explored’ to replace the retiring partners but ‘a sustainable option within Sutton is not viable at this time’.
But NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB said they are keen to explore a more long-term solution for providing primary care services to local people.
Patients will be automatically transferred to another GP practice, however residents and the local council have expressed concerns about accessibility to other practices in this rural area, as well as the speed at which the surgery has closed.
On Friday, East Cambridgeshire District Council announced it is ‘urgently looking into the announced closure of Priors Field’ and have asked the health secretary to do the same.
Leader of the council, Anna Bailey, said she is concerned about the impact on local residents, especially those who do not have easy access to a vehicle.
She added: ‘With stretched local resources, I am also very concerned about the effect of taking on large numbers of new patients on other GP practices.
‘GPs are independent practices and, while we as a council cannot affect the decisions of the Fenland Group Practice, we are doing everything we can to raise this at the highest level of Government and we are also exploring any other community support we can provide.’
Local councillors Lorna Dupré and Mark Inskip have launched a petition calling on NHS England Steve Barclay, MP for North East Cambridgeshire, ‘to ensure the ongoing provision of GP services in Sutton’.
Since publication five days ago, the petition has received almost 2,000 signatures, with its website saying the proposal for patients to use GP services in villages ‘miles away’ is ‘completely inadequate’.
The Fenland Group Practice website directs patients to voluntary and council schemes if they have issues travelling to their new allocated GP practice.
The website also lists eight other practices in the area, the closest of which is Haddenham Surgery seven miles away from Priors Field, while the furthest away is Fenland Group Practice’s Ramsey surgery 15 miles away.
Earlier this month a survey from the RCGP found that a quarter of GP practices were at risk of closing, with workforce pressures being one of the contributing factors, and a practice in Somerset closed due to workforce shortages, displacing 6,000 patients.
