Tens of thousands of patients hit by GP practice closures

More than 160,000 patients have been forced register with another GP practice due to the closure of their own in the past two years, it is claimed today.

Official figures obtained by the magazine Pulse show 61 practices in the UK have been forced to close since April 2013. In London, 52,000 patients have been displaced, with a further 27,000 patients affected in the Midlands.

The Cauvery practice in Scunthorpe closed in October, with 3,700 patients forced to move on. In a sign of the worsening pressures on GPs, the local hospital last month took over a practice in Chesterfield which was no longer able to continue due to staff shortages although patients did not have to re-register elsewhere.

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GP leaders say the closures are bad for patients and pile pressure on neighbouring practices.

Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, warned the situation would worsen. He said: “There are many practices on the brink of collapse, while others are significantly reducing the level of services they can offer. There needs to be a national, proactive approach to support general practice to pre-empt and prevent this sort of issue occurring.”

Birmingham Local Medical Committee executive secretary Robert Morley said the situation was “absolutely dire and getting rapidly worse”.

He added: “We have small partnerships that are becoming unviable because of issues of recruitment, retention, impossible workload, GP illness and single-handers retiring, and practices are also being closed by the Care Quality Commission.”