Lily Dove has used her GP practice for so long that she remembers when the doctor would visit on a horse and trap.
Now the 95-year-old great-grandmother is being removed from its register because so many newcomers have moved into the area.
Some 1,500 people are being taken off the database by the medical practice in Watton, Norfolk, which has struggled to recruit enough new GPs to cope with the market town’s rapidly growing population – many of them Eastern Europeans.
Mrs Dove was shocked and upset to be told she would be ‘de-registered’ within a fortnight and would have to move to a different clinic.
When she complained she was told no exception could be made for her because it would be ‘discriminatory’.
Mrs Dove, a widow from the nearby village of Ashill, has lived in the area since her birth in January 1919.
She suffers from a number of health problems, and now fears that her failing eyesight means it would be dangerous for her to start using an unfamiliar surgery in the next nearest town, Swaffham.
She said: ‘I am deteriorating a bit. Life is difficult enough without having to change my doctor.’
Mrs Dove lived for 88 years on an arable farm in the village of Stow Bedon, which was run first by her father John, then by her husband Ellis, and finally by her son John.
She moved out when he sold it four years ago and now lives on her own in a bungalow.
Extra care comes from her family and a cleaner who comes once a week.
Regular check-ups at the surgery are essential for the great-grandmother, who is on medication for diabetes, cholesterol and heart problems. After an operation for arthritis and a recent painful fall on her left hip, she also needs a walking frame to get around.
A letter was sent to Mrs Dove from the surgery in Watton apologising, but telling her that it would be discriminatory towards others forced to move if they had let her stay with them
She said: ‘I’ve been with the Watton surgery all my life, as were my parents before me.
‘In fact when I was tiny the doctor came out in his horse and trap – although of course you had to pay in those days. This letter from the surgery just came out of the blue.
‘There was no question of discussing it with you or anything. When you can’t see very well, you could easily fall over. I should be very nervous going to Swaffham.’
Local services are under increasing pressure because of Watton’s expanding population.
New housing developments have attracted so many new residents – many of them Eastern Europeans attracted by farm work in the rural county – that public services are struggling to cope.
Mrs Dove said: ‘This problem has been going on for some time. Why didn’t they make a fuss before and get help then instead of letting it get to this state?’
Safety fears: Mrs Dove’s son John, 71, is worried his mother will struggle with the change due to her age and health
Her son John Dove, 71, added: ‘She was very upset by the letter.
‘Having been a patient there all her life, she was annoyed. She just doesn’t want to change.
‘She doesn’t know Swaffham – with her failing eyesight she knows where she’s going in Watton.
‘You can’t keep pulling people into a rural area without putting bits and pieces in place to deal with them.’
One of Mrs Dove’s friends, who is in her 80s, has also been told she must switch to a new GP nearly ten miles from her home.
Watton Medical Practice manager Mary Osborne said there was a ‘national crisis’ in GP recruitment, with 40 unfilled vacancies across Norfolk alone.
The clinic already has vacancies for a nurse practitioner and two GPs – and another two family doctors are expected to leave by the end of the year.
‘This is a matter of patient safety and we have acted out of concern for ongoing patient care and patient safety,’ she added.
‘We were informed by the local area team for NHS England that we could not be discriminatory and ask some residents to move and ask others to stay – that would have been unlawful.
‘The decision was made on geographical area, where there is an alternative practice to cover a patient’s primary care.’
NHS England said it understood the pressure on the surgery but felt it was ‘regrettable’ that patients were being de-registered.
Maureen Baker, of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said every patient should be able to see their GP when they need to – but the situation facing the profession made it increasingly difficult.
‘De-registration of patients only takes place as a very last resort, and only when there could be a threat to patient safety,’ she said.
‘This is a consequence of the desperate shortage of GPs in many parts of the country, which is leaving the service teetering on the brink of collapse – with the greatest impact being felt on patient care.’
