GP Funding: South-west England

Roz Savage Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate on GP funding in the south-west, and for his passionate speech.

I want to shine a spotlight on a village in my constituency called Sherston, where the future of the local GP surgery hangs in the balance. I realise that Sherston may not be the centre of everybody’s universe, as it is of mine, but in many ways it is a microcosm of the wider issues facing NHS-funded GPs in the rural parts of the south-west. For years, residents of Sherston and the surrounding villages have lived with growing uncertainty as to whether they will continue to have access to primary care close to home.

Here is the situation: the lease on the current building for Tolsey surgery expires in 2027 and, for a range of reasons, it cannot be renewed. A local housing developer stepped in and offered to build a brand new surgery at no cost to the NHS, in exchange for a modest increase in the number of homes in a proposed development. Understandably, the community overwhelmingly backed the plan. The only missing piece is a commitment from the integrated care board to fund the running of the surgery.

The issue has been running and running. It is not just the local residents who have been calling for action; the parish council, our county councillor and I have all repeatedly urged the ICB to commit to supporting this facility—not just the bricks and mortar, but the long-term operation of a much-needed service. After months of dialogue, however, no clear answer has been given.

The ICB relies on a toolkit to decide how to allocate resources. Early in our discussions, it acknowledged that the toolkit was designed with urban settings in mind and is not well suited to rural areas, yet the ICB has continued to defer to the toolkit, as if it is unable or unwilling to apply common sense to a rural context. It argues that there is spare capacity at the Malmesbury primary care centre, but anybody familiar with these places knows that that is simply not the case. Staff are stretched, appointment slots are limited, car parking slots are even more limited and patients are already struggling to get seen. Understandably, the people of Sherston are at their wits’ end. This is not just about one surgery; it is about a broader failure to meet the healthcare needs of rural communities.

Access to healthcare in rural areas is closely tied to transport. Sherston has no regular reliable public transport to Malmesbury, which is five miles away. Many elderly residents no longer drive. For a sick or disabled person in significant need of a GP, or for a parent with young children, getting to a GP appointment in another town can be close to impossible. Once again, as in so many other contexts, we see rural issues—transport, healthcare, infrastructure and resilience—being treated in silos, when in reality they are deeply interwoven. We must start recognising that in the system.

Following the Health Secretary’s announcement in May of new funding for GP surgeries, I wrote to his Department to ask whether Sherston might benefit. Unfortunately, the reply was disappointing. I was told that the surgery did not meet the criteria and has

“not been selected for this year’s funding.”

Well, Sherston surgery does not have very many years left. This response reflects a deeper issue: a fundamental lack of understanding of rural life in our national decision making. A site visit and a short attempt to navigate the journey from Sherston to Malmesbury by bus—or, more likely, the lack of a bus—would speak volumes. I understand that not every village can have its own GP surgery, but when a brand-new, purpose-built facility is being offered, free, to replace a much-used existing practice, why would we say no?

It is not just Sherston. Across the south-west, rural GP surgeries are being overlooked in NHS investment planning. If we are serious about levelling up healthcare access, that has to change, so I have launched a petition to save Sherston surgery. I invite residents to sign and share it. Once we have gathered sufficient support, I will present it in Parliament to show the Government just how strong the feeling is.

I was impressed by the figures from the Health Secretary that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot cited—that the cost for a GP visit is about £40, versus about £400 for an A&E visit. Failing to fund rural GPs adequately is a false economy. For economic reasons as well as for health reasons, rural communities should not be treated as an afterthought. Everybody, wherever they live, deserves compassionate, reliable and, above all, accessible healthcare.