The Local Plan and … GP facilities

This morning, Cambridgeshire county council’s Economy & Environment Committee will be discussing its response (Item 6 with two appendices) to East Cambridgeshire district council’s revised draft local plan.

The county council isn’t responsible for providing GP facilities.  GP practices are individual businesses, and the responsibility for ensuring there are enough of them to serve their communities, and that they are funded to do what the NHS needs, rests with NHS England together with our local Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group.

(There is a ‘rule of thumb’ that each full time GP should serve around 1,800 patients.  Most GP practices will operate at this level because, as businesses, they will want to operate as close as they can to full capacity).

The draft local plan for East Cambridgeshire mentions only three specific sites for expanded health facilities:

  • Enhanced health facilities in Ely including the Princess of Wales Hospital
  • Extension to Staploe Medical Centre in Soham
  • Expansion of GP medical services in Sutton

The county council’s draft response recommends that the district council should consult with NHS England and the Clinical Commissioning Group to make sure this fits with their plans.

It also warns that the smaller sites in the draft local plan will have a ‘cumulative impact on health services’ and that the infrastructure development plan should take this into account.

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