An Isle of Wight Liberal Democrat councillor has warned the loss of doctors is an “ongoing threat” on the Island.
In an interview, Cllr Michael Lilley flagged improving the Isle of Wight’s GP services and attracting more GPs as a “priority” and pointed to “interventions” by his colleague Cllr Sarah Redrup and himself on the issue as reasons Islanders should turn to his party to solve the problem.
The representative for Ryde Appley and Elmfield said the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board has had difficulties replacing retiring Island GPs over the last few years.
This had put the Argyll Street and Wootton Bridge surgeries under threat of closure in the last couple of years, he added.
Cllr Lilley also claimed that the traditional model for replacing GPs – new ones buying out retiring ones “doesn’t work now” due to young GPs lacking adequate “financial resources”.
He pointed to the Solent NHS Trust’s taking over of GP practices in Newport and Wootton Bridge and recruiting new GPs as employees as a case study of how things could be done better.
Cllr Lilley commented:
“We need that new model on the Island where you have other forms of community ownership or public ownership of GPs, other than the old practice of GPs setting up their own businesses and raising the money to be able to buy into existing GP practices."
Answering what else could be done to attract more GPs and improve their services, he said:
“One of the things is making sure they get more resources, and that’s to do with the government, so that they’re able to reduce waiting times.
“And part of that is having more staff like nurses and specialist staff.
“The other particular thing is also pharmacies and developing community pharmacies. If anything we’ve been reducing on pharmacies – various pharmacies have been closing down on the Island.”
As to why Islanders should look to the Isle of Wight Liberal Democrats to improve services, he responded:
“We’ve been very focused on this – nationally and locally.
“Currently Sarah Redrup is chair of the policy and scrutiny committee for health and social care which is the accountable body that can call the NHS to account – the committee on the Isle of Wight is linked to the health select committee in parliament – so there are powers there.
“I was chair and deputy chair for some years and it was our interventions that enabled Wootton and Argyll surgeries to be not closed.”
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