Doctors in West Yorkshire: Calderdale GPs gearing up for an extra 2,800 patients to sign up to their practice as different surgery shuts

Todmorden Group Practice, which is based at Todmorden Medical Centre in Lower George Street in Todmorden, is taking on the patients from the Calder Community Practice – also based at the centre - which is closing.

The extra numbers had concerned some patients at both practices who had voiced worries on social media as to how the practice would cope.

But senior practice staff say they want to put patients’ mind at rest, with five extra GPs as well as some other medical staff being introduced.

Todmorden Group Practice has stepped in following news that Calder Community Practice’s contract with Locala expired on March 31 this year.

Proposals were in place for Hebden Bridge Group Practice to take over but fell through at the 11th hour.

Some of the Calder Community Practice patients identified as most vulnerable will be registered with their new practice this week, with the bulk of patients then being transferred on June 12 and becoming patients of Todmorden Group Practice on June 13.

Todmorden Group Practice Manager Tracy Wilson said: “They will be called for review ‘as and when’ – it should be a seamless transition,” she said.

Any patient of either practice is invited to attend meet-the-team sessions to ask questions of GPs and some associated staff at the medical centre between 6pm and 8pm on Tuesday, May 21, and between 9am and 11am on Saturday, May 25.

Calderdale councillors and other health experts have for some years heard that it had been very difficult to attract GPs to work in the semi-rural upper Calder Valley practices like those in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge.

But the situation is changing and, with more competition for posts nationally, recruitment has been easing, said Dr Vasuki Vivekananthan.

“The recruitment situation has improved in our favour – it has been historically difficult to recruit GPs,” she said.

Dr Vivekananthan said the practice had been able to recruit three newly qualified GPs from Greater Manchester courses, with two already started at the practice and the third to start in June.

Additionally, two extra GPs who work remotely have also been recruited to the team.

From September 2024, that means there will be 12 doctors at the practice – not all full-time but the equivalent together of 8.1 full-time doctors.

An extra practice nurse and a healthcare assistant are also joining the team at Todmorden.

In all the practice also has nine nurses – covering the equivalent of seven full time posts.

“A lot of practices run at two and a half GPs for one nurse – we are almost one-to-one here,” she said.

Ms Wilson said issues patients had previously raised over the experience of getting an appointment was improving following changes including the practice’s telephone system, with a July 2022 rating of 26 per cent rising to 39 per cent last year and a further rise in a good experience expected when the July 2024 figures become available.

As an example of what the practice delivers, in April 2024, Todmorden Group Practice GPs delivered 2,129 appointments, the nurses 1,468 appointments, and health care assistants 1,402 – 4,999 in total, equivalent to 37.2 per cent of its patient population.