An MP has written to the Government to urge it to help protect the future of a South Lakeland medical practice.
A search began earlier this month by Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board to find a new provider for services in the area. The practices are still open and will remain operating while the search continues. The partners will leave in December and an interim provider will be appointed from January until March.
Tim Farron, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP, has written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the board for reassurance. .
Mr Farron said: “The local community depends upon the excellent surgeries in Ambleside and Hawkshead and on their dedicated team of GPs and other staff. I am determined to ensure that the practice is saved.”
The practice covers some of the most rural, and sparsely populated areas in the country meaning that many residents already have to make long journeys to see their doctor, Mr Farron said, and added he feared a new operator would be a private sector provider with no knowledge of the local community.
He added: “Ambleside and Hawkshead surgeries are central to our community, and we will not let them close. Nor will we accept a reduction in the quality of service.
“Access to medical care in rural areas is already hard enough.
“The patients in the Lakes deserve the reassurance that both surgeries will remain open for the long term, that they will be staffed and led by local Doctors, funded adequately to meet the costs of providing the service and not subjected to privatisation. There must also not be a hiatus between the current practice and any successor.”
He has launched a petition for the surgeries to be run by local doctors.
