Portsmouth City Council reveals plans to hire its own doctors in a bid to tackle the island's lack of GPs

The ambitious scheme has been tabled by the Liberal Democrats, who are in charge of the council.

It comes after shocking figures by the Nuffield Trust revealed that Portsmouth had the worst ratio of GPs to patients, with only one GP to every 2,463 residents.

In a bid to end the health crisis in Portsmouth, the Lib Dems have today launched a three-pronged plan, which the party hopes will bring more GPs to Portsmouth.

Firstly, the party said it will ‘directly employ, and fund, GPs through either the city council or the Portsmouth Primary Care Alliance’ to increase the number of appointments and GPs available in the city.

Secondly, the authority has asked that Portsmouth becomes a pilot area and follow Scotland and Wales in allowing pharmacists to give people prescriptions.

It’s hoped this will help to ease the pressure on existing appointments.

Finally, the Lib Dems have insisted they will seek to ‘hold the government to account and demand they properly fund our GP services’.

‘The NHS is a national service and shouldn’t be a postcode lottery of services,’ the party said in a statement of intent to The News.

Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson, head of both the city Lib Dems and the council, added action was urgently needed.

He said: ‘Local residents have told me time and time again how upset they are they can’t see their GPs. Portsmouth people should have the same right to see their GP as anyone else in England.

‘In Wirral, they have double the number of GPs than Portsmouth. The NHS is a national health service and the services you access shouldn’t be decided on where you live.’

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The proposal has the backing of Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, who said: ‘I welcome this sort of innovation. Increasing the number of GPs is helpful and we should also be making best use of new technology. The more local commissioning is, the better.’

Former health minister and Gosport’s MP, Dame Caroline Dinenage, supported calls for Portsmouth to become a pilot area for pharmacies dishing out prescriptions.

‘It’s definitely a positive step to think about innovative ways of easing the strain on primary care – as long as the right processes are in place and pharmacies themselves are content that they can cope with the extra workload,’ the Tory MP said.

However, Labour has blamed the island’s GP shortage on Tory ‘mismanagement’ of the NHS, with the party saying that GP numbers nationally had shrunk by about 4.500 in a decade.

Stephen Morgan, Labour MP for Portsmouth South, said: ‘As I raised again in Parliament recently, multiple GP closures, record numbers of people waiting for care and waiting longer than ever before has turned our city into a healthcare hell.

‘It’s encouraging to see the council finally now speak up over these concerns, which I’ve been calling on the government to take action on for some time.

‘Ministers’ repeated failure to intervene is stopping Portsmouth people get the healthcare they need and deserve.’

Cllr Vernon-Jackson has written to GPs in Portsmouth inviting them to a health summit on August 4 where the plans will be on display.

He added: ‘We know the GPs in the city are under enormous pressure and we have to do what we can to support them.’