A Cumbrian MP said he will be meeting with a Government minister to discuss an at risk Lake District village GP surgery.
Coniston has had a doctors’ surgery for 170 years but Dr Katharina Frey and Dr Ahmed Abbas, who run Coniston Village Surgery at Wraysdale House, handed their contract back to the NHS from August 1 2025.It was due to the retirement of Dr Frey and the practice said it was unable to recruit a new partner.
Villagers launched a recruitment video to tempt someone to work in the village – but no one has come forward. A petition was set up, signed by over 1,000 people, was in support of keeping the surgery open.
Last month, NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board, which commissions services, announced there had been no bids to take on the vacancy at the surgery.
At the time, Peter Tinson, director of primary care at NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board said: “We have unfortunately received no bids for the contract to provide general medical services at Coniston Medical Practice which was live on the Find A Tender portal from December 23 2025 until February 4 2026.
“We allowed an additional two weeks over the standard 30 days for any interested parties to prepare their bid.
“The ICB will now consider options for how patients in the Coniston area can continue to receive services and a decision will be taken in due course.
“We will provide an update on this as soon as we are able.
“In the meantime, the practice will continue to run as it has under the management of the Morecambe Bay Primary Care Collaborative.”
This week, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron said he had secured a meeting with the minister responsible for primary care, Stephen Kinnock, to discuss the campaign to secure the future of Coniston GP practice.
Mr Farron said he had also recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, to ask for the proposed contract to be made more viable by linking it with the contract for the dispensary.
Speaking in the House of Commons this week, Mr Farron said: “The beautiful and vibrant yet very isolated community of Coniston has had a GP practice for the last 200 years or so, but it runs the risk of losing it this year. Its GPs, who were wonderful, retired last summer and a caretaker service is being provided.
“Bids have been invited and there has been much interest, but no bid has been made. The reason is that the finances are really marginal at such a small surgery where people cannot go anywhere else.
“There is an answer, and I want to ask the Minister whether he might intervene and talk to the ICB to help us to get there. If the dispensing contract were to be let jointly with the GP contract, that would make it viable, and I know of GPs who would be interested if that were to happen.
“Will he talk to the ICB to ensure that that flexibility is applied so that we can save the surgery in Coniston for the next 200 years?”
Mr Kinnock replied: “It would be deeply troubling if such an important service to the community were to be removed, so I would certainly be happy to speak to him. Perhaps he would like to write to me to provide more details.
“Looking to the medium to longer term, the review of the Carr-Hill formula could well end up benefiting communities such as the one he has mentioned, because remoteness and rurality will be an important factor in the Carr-Hill review, but I accept that that might be a bit too far off for what sounds like a more urgent issue. If he would like to write to me, I am sure we can look into that.”
