Concerned Tatton GPs asked me to raise the issue of 'funding for rural GP practices' in Parliament, which I did, as it hugely impacts them.
The government wants to remove “rurality” as an element in the funding formula. It will harm patients and make recruiting GPs to rural areas even harder. It will also affect our towns as they will miss out to bigger more densely populated areas.
The unique challenges faced by rural GPs (including older populations and sparse geographical locations) have long been accounted for in the existing Carr-Hill funding formula which was introduced back in 2004.
Now, government wants to re-write that formula and look at how “working-class areas” could benefit under a changed model based on deprivation rather than workload.
Measuring pressures on GPs solely through the lens of deprivation would ignore the complex and distinct demands faced by rural practices.
At present 9.6 million people (17 per cent) in England live in rural areas. A quarter of those residents are over the age of 85 and the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan estimates that figure will rise to a third by 2037. This issue is not going away and to discount rurality is dismissing large numbers of people, not only in my constituency but right across the country.
The changes will also make it less attractive to be a GP in a rural area. The Rural Services Network report that 59 per cent of hard-to-recruit GP speciality training posts are already located in rural areas. This will inevitably get worse.
Government claims the changes being looked at by the National Institute for Health are being consulted on, but there seems little transparency over this.
During the debate I secured and led in Parliament, I said GPs across Tatton must be heard as part of this “consultation”. They are the people on the ground, they know how this will affect patients in areas like ours. I also called for an impact assessment to be published by the Department of Health before any changes to the current funding formula are agreed. Rurality must be kept as a marker, and I will keep fighting to make sure this happens.
What this government is proposing is an act of ignorance and fails to acknowledge the significant challenges of running GP practices outside of big cities. It represents yet another example of Labour’s assault on rural life.
Doctors in rural areas will face different challenges to those in the most deprived areas of the country. Both are important. Both have distinct needs.
