LOCAL MP LAUNCHES PETITION TO KEEP LAKES GP SURGERIES LOCAL

Westmorland MP, Tim Farron, has today urged local residents to back a campaign to save the Ambleside and Hawkshead Doctors surgeries and ensure they are run by local Doctors. The campaign has been launched following the announcement that Central Lakes Medical Group may be under threat after the Doctors handed in their notice due to cuts in funding for rural practices.

Speaking this morning Tim 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. Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (The ICB), are in the process of procuring a more long term contract, but the risk is that when the procurement process is finalised both practices could end up being run by a private sector provider whose motivation is profit and who have no knowledge of the local community. This would probably mean patients enduring a rotating cast of locum practitioners instead of remaining locally led with strong continuity of service and care.

Tim has written to both the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and the ICB to seek a guarantee that the practices will be protected in the long run.

Tim said: "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."

Tim is urging people to sign the petition and share it far and wide.