CONCERNS have been raised that GP surgeries in Droitwich might be having to cope with more patients than they should after enquiries were launched into the number of patients per general practitioner in the town for a recent town council meeting.

Councillor Shaun Best, who had been looking into the current situation, expressed concern that he had been unable to discover any specific figures about patient numbers in Droitwich due to data protection issues, despite checking with the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Surgeons.

He said: “There are no guidelines from Government or anybody else as to how many people a doctor can actually treat. We’ve got surgeries that are both actually over run. I think somewhere along the line we need to look at this. That’s all I can say, we’ll get no help off anybody from this.”

Councillor Richard Morris added his concerns about how the town will cope once the developments at Yew Tree Hill and Copcut begin to be populated bringing 765 and 740 additional properties respectively to Droitwich.

Currently the town is served by the Spa Medical Practice and Salters Medical Practice on Ombersley Street East, and by The Corbett Medical Practice on Corbett Avenue, housing a total of around 19 full-time GPs (a number which includes several part-time members of staff) to serve the current population of approximately 23,500.

District Councillor Lynne Duffy, who also attended the meeting, said she had looked into creating a new surgery on the Westlands estate approximately five years ago, but that idea had been blocked by the Clinical Commissioning Group at the time, because Droitwich had ‘more than its fair amount of doctors’.