Following a meeting with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Clarke MP, yesterday, South West Bedfordshire MP, Andrew Selous, said:
“Leighton Buzzard, Linslade and Houghton Regis are all growing fast with thousands of new homes built or going up now and general practice capacity is not increasing alongside that growth. I have raised this repeatedly in Parliament recently and have had meetings about it with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and yesterday with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who is in charge of government spending.”
“Yesterday’s meeting with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury went well and he agreed that the Government needs to have a better system of allocating capital for new general practice premises where there is significant housing growth. This needs to be more certain and better planned. I will work with him to deliver that. New buildings need new primary care staff and last year 3,793 new GPs started work and there are now 4,000 GP training spaces this year. We need the practice nurses and pharmacists alongside them.”