Sutton surgery recovery going well amid national GP pressure, says patient group
Priors Field Surgery was on brink of closure earlier this year
A patient participation group in Cambridgeshire feels progress at its village surgery is going well amid national pressure on GP practices.
Priors Field Surgery in Sutton near Ely has seen much improvement since it was taken over by Malling Health in April under a 12-month interim contract.
The good news comes as NHS data found one in five GP practices in England and Wales have closed since 2013 as patient numbers rise.
“It’s all happening, but what pleases us is it’s going somewhere; it’s positive, whereas in March it was falling apart,” said Dai Harding, member of the Priors Field Patient Participation Group.
“People are getting appointments the same day, getting medications prescribed immediately, there’s always a doctor who they can talk to.
“It’s mainly done by telephone triage to start with but if they need to see a doctor, they can so we think it’s working really well.”
"The way it's going could be a model for others"
In Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, NHS workforce data found there are more than 700 GPs including those who are training.
Two thirds of practices in England and Wales saw the number of patients per fully qualified GP rise since 2015, according to NHS data.
However, the number of attended appointments per GP increased by 21% between March 2019 and the same month this year.
In Cambridgeshire, NHS workforce data found between December 2016 and December 2022, the number of patients jumped by 10% as the number of full time GPs fell by 8%.
Mr Harding has seen Priors Field Surgery, which serves almost 6,000 patients, recover from the brink of closure to progress under a new provider.
“We think the way it’s going could be a model for rural community practices to develop in accordance with declining numbers of GPs, increasing numbers of patients, declining resources and patients’ expectations rising,” he said.
“There will be similarities rurally.
“We’ve got Manea up the road has its own railway station, we haven’t got anything like that here, so each rural community has differences and it has to be treated as such.”