LETTER: We warned of GP issues ahead

The Horsham GP issue is a problem that could have been avoided. It’s not rocket science - more houses, more people, growing elderly patients needing more GPs’ nurses and services. As a patient rep on many different forums in the past we have given the authorities notice of such difficulties many years ago when the BBH plans were first being talked about.

So why were they allowed to build the houses and sell them without any consideration to the public facilities that the people would need to use?

When the house build is finished BBH will be as big as Southwater and or Billingshurst and deserves a GP practice / health centre of their own. Though just reshuffling the same GPs will not answer the problem of there not being enough GPs, nurses etc to do the work.

It has to be acknowledged that GPs are private businesses operating within the NHS. They are funded for every patient they have registered with them, at the same standard level what ever the age or health complexity of the patient. So it can make good business sense to pile the patient numbers high in order, dare I say it, to treat them cheaper.

GPs can also raise money from renting out any extra space for other services and smaller practices will not have the room to do this. The fact that the funding is done in this way may be one of the causes of growing public discontent with the service, an issue no doubt the NHS will have to revisit some time in the future.

At present most of the GP surgeries are in the centre of the town and have no room for expansion even if there were more GPs. Just keeping on piling the numbers of patients into any of the Horsham practice will not improve patient satisfaction or outcomes from the service.

I hear about the difficulties for disabled people and the elderly getting to BBH, though by the same token has anyone given thought to how disabled people living in BBH, Warnham, Slinfold, Faygate, Rusper and Mannings Heath etc get to see a GP in Horsham town centre.

In a village the size of Partridge Green there are two branch surgeries (converted houses), one from Henfield, one from Cowfold, offering GP appointments, practice nurse, phlebotomy and dispensary services.