Agenda item

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to Melanie Carr of Democratic and Scrutiny Services and supplied the text (see contact details below) by midday on Wednesday 15 April 2026, three working days before the day of the meeting.  Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item.  Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:

·            at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);

·            when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chairman who will instruct anyone who may be taking a recording to cease while you speak.

 

Four public questions / statements were received as follows:

 

Olivia Rathbone - Arkengarthdale resident

The planned closure of Reeth Medical Centre is not simply a service change. It removes our only locally accessible primary care service.

 

This is not a failing practice. Reeth Medical Centre has been recognised as one of the highest-performing GP practices in the country. The issue here is not quality—it is the withdrawal of provision.  The consequences are predictable.

 

For many, travelling to alternative practices is not a realistic option, particularly in winter. Access to routine care will become significantly harder—and for some, effectively unachievable. The closure also removes dispensing services, creating an additional barrier to accessing medication.

 

Many of those affected are older and clinically vulnerable. Some live in sheltered housing in Reeth and rely on the practice being within walking distance. Without it, they face reduced access to care, worsening health, increased hospital admissions—or being forced to leave their community for higher-cost, council supported care elsewhere.

 

This is not just a healthcare issue—it will increase demand for adult social care, which this council is directly responsible for funding. That is a foreseeable system impact.

 

So this is not just about access. It is about system design, cost-shifting, and equity.  If patients cannot access primary care locally, they do not disappear from the system. They present later, sicker, and more expensively—through urgent care, hospital admissions, and social care.

 

If the current process were paused, there are alternatives. In Coniston, an interim GP service has been maintained while a long-term solution is developed. In Rotherfield, Sussex, the community bought the surgery building.

 

Our community is strong and resourceful. Dales communities already run essential services—from a post office to a filling station and more. We can be part of the solution and help sustain local provision, while reducing pressure on the wider system and on council-funded care. You can give us that chance.

 

So my question is this - What is the evidence that closing this practice will not lead to higher overall system costs and worse patient outcomes—and on what basis is that risk considered acceptable?

 

Gill Fawcett - Arkengarthdale resident of

Please help us save Reeth Medical Centre

 

There are a lot of people like me that are having sleepless nights. Some are devastated, wondering how they will get their medication or see their doctor, especially the old and those suffering with ME, Fibromyalgia and Long Covid. All this worry will aggravate their health. 

 

I am lucky and can still drive, but with advancing years I may not always be able to remain in the family home of 40 years, that I made with my late husband. Without a doctor I may now have to move away for healthcare, but where would I go?

 

There are a lot of people that can’t drive anymore and who don’t have family members living near. There is no public transport. We feel left behind. A neighbour said, ‘if there are no doctors, people are going to die’. 

Not only are we losing a doctor, but a very good nurse as well. My late husband had to go to see her twice a week to get his leg ulcers dressed. It would take half the day to get to Leyburn or Richmond and back, and in wintertime you may not be able to get home in the snow on these narrow country roads with passing places that don’t get treated with salt. 

 

Without the doctor more people will have to use A&E departments. The Memorial Hospital at Darlington is overstretched now with very long waits, without 1600 more people needing to use it more often. By past experience, there are times when you travel all the way to A&E but are not always seen but told to go home and see your own doctor. And if you do have to go into hospital for treatments, will we have to stay in longer? How will they be able to let you home when there is no doctor or nurse nearby to keep an eye on you? 

 

I worry that having to travel long distances will put people off seeking medical help. With elderly farmers that do a dirty job they can contract sepsis that needs treating urgently. Without a doctor close by it’s things like that which just won’t happen. It is going to end up with loss of life.

 

These are the type of things we are lying in bed worrying about now. It’s been an awful few weeks and we are scared about what comes next. We need your help to keep us safe.

 

Rev Canon Caroline Hewlett - Reeth resident

I come to this committee knowing that we are both concerned about protecting the most vulnerable people in our communities. 

 

Clergy who go to inner city parishes find that part of the deprivation there is that all essential services have left the area, and they are the only professional left. It may be surprising to hear of deprivation in the beautiful dales, but the loss of our GP practice signals just that.

 

Our community has a large population of older people, many with complex health needs, who are deeply worried that they will not be able to access even basic healthcare easily. I am deeply worried for them and for what the loss of our medical centre – the doctor, the nursing support, the dispensary - and the role they play in not just for regular medical needs but also as palliative care support and as our volunteer emergency cover – filling the gap until an ambulance turns up.

 

One of my neighbours lives with Spina Bifida, and has relied on the Medical Centre to keep him alive; another moved here with her ill and immobile husband just a year ago, to live safely in sheltered housing with a GP close by; a friend who lives in Reeth with a serious illness says that she would not be alive and would not have been able to have her children without a careful, local GP service. The doctor’s surgery is in the middle of an area where homes have been built for older people. They can be taken there in a wheelchair – the warden can sort their prescriptions. They know help is on hand. As a result, they feel safe. 

 

On a personal note, for the last year, I have been unable to drive for medical reasons, and I know that I and others without cars will not easily be able to access healthcare by public transport, which is very limited, run by volunteers and unable to function in bad weather.

 

The lack of a GP means that those needing extra care and support through age or long term illness will have no choice but to leave the dale. New people will think twice about moving there, weaking our community and making it unsustainable long term. One elderly couple put their house on the market last week because of the announcement, saying ‘this is no longer a place where you can grow old.”

 

Please help us halt this process while proper assessments can be done and the impact properly understood. Give my neighbours the chance they deserve to explain their side of the story. 

Please use your influence today to protect the most vulnerable members of the community in our part of the Dales. Thank you.

 

 

Mr Ashley Robinson - Thwaite resident

As a resident of the Upper Dales and someone who has built a career around data analysis, I have a deep professional respect for evidence. But today, the data I am reconciling isn't just a spreadsheet, it is a map of my neighbours, my friends, and the very real risks they face. I am deeply worried, and by the end of this statement, I believe you will be too.

 

1. The evidence shows that if frontline medical support disappears from Reeth, the most vulnerable people in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale will be in immediate danger.

 

2. A Community-Led Data Mission - This data wasn't gathered through a simple online link. It was driven by a community on a mission. We attended markets and gathering places with paper surveys to ensure the non-tech, the elderly, and the isolated were included. In the Dales, we leave no one behind, and our 80% survey coverage, representing 562 households and 1,268 patients, reflects that dedication and concern.

 

3. The Facts of Compounded Isolation - Our topline report, which I have submitted to the Committee, provides the full empirical picture. Key "Deserts of Care" include:

·         Arkle Town: We have identified 16 elderly residents aged 75 or older. Crucially, 5 have no car access in a village entirely bypassed by the "Little White Bus."

·         Marrick: 100% of respondents here report that winter travel is "Almost Impossible" due to the 1-in-4 gradient of Marrick Bank.

·         Transport Poverty: Across the dales, 31 elderly households have no access to a car. The ICB’s assumption that they can "just go to Leyburn" is a physical impossibility for much of the winter.

 

4. Clinical Fragility & The Pharmacy Desert - Our population is 26% sicker than the national average. With a 99.4% dispensing rate, Reeth is our lifeblood. Removing this service creates an immediate "Pharmacy Desert" for over 1,200 people.

 

5. The "In Appetite" Fallacy - In the ICB’s latest Board Assurance Framework, Risk C4 (Public Engagement) is rated as "In Appetite" with a score of 12. This means the Board is satisfied with their current controls. But how can this risk be "satisfied" when 31 medically stranded elderly households have been offered zero transport solutions?

 

6. "People Will Die" - When we asked residents to describe this closure in three words, the most haunting response was simply: "People will die." We need your help to make sure that does not happen.

 

These are facts. If the ICB has data to refute them, we need to see it. If they don’t, they have a duty to gather it. Please exercise your power today: ask the ICB to press pause on this closure while proper checks and balances are done to ensure the life-threatening risks we have highlighted are avoided.

 

The Chair thanked the members of the public for their contributions to the meeting and confirmed she had recently met with a representative of the ICB, alongside the Chair of the Scrutiny of Health Committee, at which the following had been confirmed:

·         The GP at Reeth gave notice on handing back his contract in November 2025.  His contract ends on 31 May 2026.

·         The ICB had received four expressions of interest, but three had subsequently been withdrawn.

·         Information regarding the coming closure was originally advertised online by the GP.

·         As the GP had chosen to hand back his contract, the ICB was under no obligation to carry out an impact assessment.  However, as a result of the level of concern subsequently raised, the lCB were now looking at the associated risks.

·         Formal letters were sent to all patients last week.

·         A replacement GP had not been found, so a decision had been taken to disperse the practices’ patients to other primary care providers.

·         Options for prescription delivery were being looked at.

·         The potential for another local GP practice to provide a branch surgery, a few mornings a week was currently being explored.

 

The Committee noted the deep concern of local residents and agreed this created an urgent adult safeguarding issue in the Reeth area.  They also expressed their surprise that the ICB had not recognised the potential impact of the closure of the Reeth Medical Centre and the associated issues, which in their view included:

·         Online services were not suitable for the elderly, particularly as the rurality of the area affected digital coverage.

·         The lack of public transport – not all patients had access to a car.

·         Increased travel time for medical staff resulted in fewer patients being seen in a day.

·         The impact on those GP practices required to take on the dispersed patients.

·         The potential for an increased need for adult social care provision for some elderly residents as a result of not having access to a local GP and therefore not being able to maintain their independence in their own homes.

·         Not just the health and wellbeing of local residents but the sustainability of the whole community in that part of the Dales

 

Members welcomed the news that discussions were underway with other local GP Practices, involving Local Councillors and the MP to identify an appropriate solution. 

 

Councillor Andrew Lee, Chair of the Scrutiny of Health Committee confirmed he had been aware confidentially in January 2026 of the planned retirement of the GP and acknowledged the unique challenges faced by small GP practices, particularly financial viability.  He drew attention to a planned extraordinary meeting of the Scrutiny of Health Committee to be held on 8 May 2026 in Grinton, to consider resilience and continuity in rural primary care, in the light of the planned closure of Reeth Medical Centre. 

 

The Chair confirmed an invitation had been extended to the whole committee to attend that meeting and expressed her hope that by that time a solution would be found, or at the very least an interim solution whilst the work continued to find a permanent way forward.

 

In light of their discussions, the Committee

 

Resolved - That the following recommendation be made to the Scrutiny of Health Committee for their consideration at their extraordinary meeting:

 

The Care & Independence OSC would like to express their extreme concern that any closure of primary health care services in Reeth will have a direct impact on not just access to healthcare in the community but also the cost of delivering social care to those who can no longer remain in their own home and access healthcare.  The Care & Independence OSC therefore recommends that the Scrutiny of Health Committee considers whether:

i.       The NHS Humber & North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board should be asked to confirm that, if necessary, interim arrangements will be put in place to allow time for a viable and sustainable local solution to be developed

ii.      Urgent input should be sought from the community to ensure the needs of older and more vulnerable residents are reflected in developing that solution.’