Lorna and Mark present Sutton GP petition

Lorna and Mark present Sutton GP petition to Cambridgeshire Integrated Care Board Chief Executive at Sutton meeting

Sutton’s Liberal Democrat councillors Lorna Dupré and Mark Inskip today presented a 2,323-signature petition calling for GP services to continue to be provided in the village.

The petition was presented to Integrated Care Board chief executive Jan Thomas at a well-attended public meeting at St Andrew’s Church, Sutton. The meeting was called following the news that the Fenland Group Practice had given notice it would not continue beyond 31 March with the contract to provide health care at Priors Field practice in the village. This has come as a major shock to the nearly 6,000 patients on the lists of the practice.

Ms Thomas told the meeting that the NHS was working hard to try to find an alternative provider willing to offer services locally. The Integrated Care Board was also in discussion with the owner of Priors Field to work out how to bring the building up to a condition in which it could serve as a health facility at least in the short term.

Lorna said, “The number of signatures on the petition demonstrates how strongly local residents feel about the need to retain health services in Sutton for residents of Sutton and surrounding villages.” She and Mark have been gathering suggestions for alternative sites in the village on which premises could be sited, and have been working with the Patient Participation Group to find solutions for health provision locally.

The ‘safety net’ when the Fenland Group Practice contract ends on 31 March will be a ‘managed list dispersal’ of all 6,000 Priors Field patients to neighbouring practices in East Cambridgeshire, Fenland and Huntingdonshire.

Earlier today, Lorna addressed the meeting of the Adults & Health Committee of Cambridgeshire County Council about the situation at Priors Field. She asked the Committee to scrutinise how the NHS communicated with communities about GP practice closures, and how the NHS could monitor practices at risk more effectively and intervene earlier.

ENDS