For the second week running, South West Bedfordshire MP Andrew Selous raised the primary care facilities for local GPs with the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Andrew Selous said,
“Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board (BLMK) have £120m of capital a year with only £2m of that earmarked for GP premises. The PM said that the £2m is not an upper limit. Locally we have a GP surgery in Clipstone Park and health facilities in Bidwell West and Linmere which were committed to in planning applications which we need more funding to build. The new residents are already here so this is urgent. The Luton & Dunstable Hospital is undergoing a £168m renovation, so now is the time for GP premises to be prioritised to get both of these facilities built, and built quickly”.
The exchange in Hansard was as follows
My integrated care board tells me that only £2 million of the £120 million of capital that it receives annually is for primary care, which seems an unfairly small amount for our amazing family doctors and practice nurses who are, after all, the front door of the NHS. Can our local general practitioners have a greater share?
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent and continued campaigning on health provision for his constituents. On his specific point, integrated care boards have the power to increase their primary care annual capital management budget, so long as they keep within the overall budget. I understand that he met a Health Minister earlier this week to discuss this further, and I will make sure that his proposals are very carefully considered.