Ed Davey visits Chancellor's seat ahead of Budget as GP funding in Surrey slashed by £10 million

6 Mar 2024

EMBARGO: 00.01 Tuesday 5th March

GP funding in Surrey fell by 5.3% in real terms between 2018/19 and 2022/23, equivalent to a £9.2 million cut when accounting for inflation
Funding per patient took an even starker hit, falling by 8.6% in real terms resulting in a £14 per patient shortfall
Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey will visit a GP surgery in Jeremy Hunt’s seat ahead of the Budget to call on the Chancellor to cancel his planned £1.3 billion real terms cut to NHS spending
A recent poll of the Chancellor’s seat showed it was at risk of falling to the Lib Dems with voters in the seat naming the NHS as their top priority as 59% of them had close friends and family who had struggled to get a GP appointment

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will today (Tuesday 5th March) visit a GP surgery in the Chancellor’s Godalming and Ash constituency ahead of the Budget to demand that Hunt cancel his planned real terms NHS spending cuts.

It comes as figures show Surrey has seen GP funding slashed by 5.3% in real terms since 2019, above the national average of 3.3%. It means that patients in Surrey are experiencing a £9.2 million real-terms GP funding shortfall since 2019.

GP funding in Surrey amounts to just £151 per patient, one of the lowest in the country and down on £165 in real terms if funding had been uprated with inflation since 2019.

A recent poll by Savanta which showed Jeremy Hunt’s seat could fall to the Lib Dems at the next election. It also showed that voters in Godalming and Ash put the NHS as their number one issue that would define how they vote. The poll also found that 59% of people in the seat had close friends or family that had struggled with booking a GP appointment.

Ed Davey will use his visit to Jeremy Hunt’s seat to call on the Chancellor to cancel his planned £1.3 billion in real terms cuts to NHS spending ahead of the Budget, and use some of the money to increase investment in local GP services.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

“Jeremy Hunt is totally out of touch with patients across the country, including those in his own seat who are struggling to see a GP when they need to.

“The Chancellor must urgently change course and reverse his planned health service spending cuts at the Budget.

“It is no wonder lifelong Conservative voters across Surrey are rejecting Rishi Sunak’s Government and switching to the Liberal Democrats in their droves, with even the Chancellor’s own seat now under threat.

“People know at the next election it is a clear choice between an out-of-touch Conservative or a hard-working local Liberal Democrat MP who will stand up for local health services.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The data on NHS spending cuts can be found here.

The Autumn Statement set out day-to-day spending on NHS England in Table 2.1. When converted into real-terms (2023-24 prices) using the Office for Budget Responsibility’s GDP Deflator (in Table 1.7 of the Economic Supplementary Tables here), this shows a fall of £3.5 billion in 2023-24 and a further £1.3 billion in 2024-25.

Reporting on the Savanta poll can be found here.

Notes from the Library:

GP funding cuts notes can be found here.