Patients left without GPs

Health officials admit there is a shortage of doctors

Health Secretary Alan Milburn is being asked to intervene after 200 Tyneside patients were left without a family doctor.

Doctors at the Winlaton and Ryton medical partnership in Gateshead say they do not have enough general practitioners to cope with 9,000 registered patients.

They have sent letters to 200 people telling them surgery boundaries have been redrawn and they must find another doctor.

But neighbouring surgeries say they are also stretched and cannot take them.

John McWilliam: 'Unacceptable situation'

Blaydon Labour MP John McWilliam wants Mr Milburn to change rules which allow medical practices who take on new patients to exclude them after seven days.

He said: "This rule is just plain daft and I will be having a go at Alan Milburn about this one. It is just silly.

"What will happen is patients will be chucked out then re-allocated after seven days and then chucked out again.

"Practice managers would be ill-advised to indulge in this type of behaviour. I think what has happened is unacceptable."

'Very distressing'

Julie Simpson, one of the 200 patients, said: "This isn't right, it isn't just and is morally wrong.

"To penalise long-serving patients doesn't seem logical. We were never notified that they were re-drawing their boundaries."

No-one was available for comment at the Winlaton and Ryton partnership.

But Dr Rob Dawson from the nearby Grove surgery in Rowland's Gill, said his practice could not take on any more patients.

He said: "There is certainly a shortage of doctors in this area, which is one of the reasons most of the practices are in the same position we are.

"This is very distressing both for the patient and for ourselves."

A spokesman for the Gateshead NHS Primary Care Trust said it was looking at ways of increasing the number of GPs in the west of Gateshead.