For several years, Griffin Close GP surgery in Frizington has stood closed because of staffing pressures. Next year, those doors will reopen.
Working with ministers and North Cumbria Primary Care – Fellview, we have secured over £300,000 to upgrade the surgery and bring it back into use.
Through a new partnership with the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine, Griffin Close will also become a GP training hub. Fellview will recruit additional GPs who will work across Frizington, Cleator Moor, Egremont and Whitehaven while training future doctors.
This will help tackle one of the biggest challenges facing healthcare in Cumbria: recruiting doctors and persuading them to build their careers here. By training more doctors in West Cumbria, we can build a stronger pipeline of future GPs for practices right across the area, from Whitehaven to Workington and surrounding communities.
But improving access is not only about recruiting more GPs. It is also about making better use of healthcare professionals working in our communities.
That is why I’m pleased the government is expanding Pharmacy First this autumn.
Thousands of pharmacies already provide treatment for seven common conditions without patients needing to see their GP first. Since Pharmacy First launched in 2024, pharmacists have provided 14 million consultations across England.
Now participating pharmacies with qualified prescribing pharmacists will be able to provide treatment for migraines, acne, ear infections, allergic rhinitis and scabies.
For many people, that will mean walking into a pharmacy, getting advice and, where appropriate, treatment there and then rather than trying to secure a GP appointment.
That is more convenient for patients and frees up GP appointments for people who really do need to see a doctor.
This is the direction I want our NHS to keep moving in: more care available locally, more choices about where you get help, and GP and hospital capacity focused where it is most needed.
There are encouraging signs of progress elsewhere in West Cumbria too.
More doctors and nurses have been recruited at West Cumberland Hospital, with our local waiting list at its lowest level since March 2023 and waits for diagnostic tests falling too.
We have new NHS dentists in Egremont, Whitehaven and Workington, while the Urgent Dental Access Centre is treating around 140 patients every week. More than 2,000 extra children in north and west Cumbria have accessed NHS dentistry since the election.
There is still a long way to go, and I still hear from constituents who have waited too long or struggled to access care.
But government investment is translating into practical improvements in West Cumbria.
Reopening Griffin Close, training the next generation of GPs and giving people more ways to get treatment closer to home are the latest steps on that road to recovery.