A HEALTH watchdog has called for more investment into GP practices across Dorset to ensure patients have access to a family doctor.

As revealed in the Daily Echo, surgeries face closure as a result of a GP recruitment crisis which has been branded ‘a ticking time bomb'.

Martyn Webster, manager of Healthwatch Dorset, said: “This particular time bomb has been ticking for some time and there is, as our local NHS has honestly admitted, no quick way to defuse it.

“The pressures and workload on GPs have never been greater, morale is falling and many older GPs are retiring due to stress. Meanwhile, the proportion of money going into general practice, as a percentage of the NHS budget, has been falling.”

As previously reported, under plans being drawn up by the NHS, GP surgeries could close and multi-skilled teams developed ‘to allow more services to be consistently delivered across the county for more hours of the day and days of the week.’

It comes as hundreds of residents are being forced to wait weeks to get an appointment as leading doctors issued a stark warning that services are ‘stretched to breaking point.’

There are more than 18 GP vacancies advertised in the county alone and many senior partners have resorted to leaving messages on their websites informing patients how they will deal with the shortage of staff. These include a merger of two practices, temporary closures and apologies for difficulties in meeting demand for appointments.

Martyn, added: “We need to keep the GPs we’ve got and attract more to join the profession. That will mean taking a good hard look at how things are done in general practice at the moment and whether there are different ways of doing things which would make better use of existing resources. But it’s also going to mean considering more investment in general practice, both to help reduce existing pressure and also to make it an attractive career prospect, as it used to be. 90 per cent of our contact with the NHS as patients is with general practice and that means they facilitate early diagnosis, screening, management of long term conditions and preventative medicine. In other words, investing in general practice not only makes sense for its workforce, it also ends up saving the NHS money in the long run and providing better patient care."

NHS Dorset CCG said it is working with practices across the county to help with recruitment, retention and the support of staff to ensure local people have access to the services they need.