A Freedom of Information Act request by Pulse magazine has revealed that there has been a 500 per cent rise in practices approaching NHS managers for advice on closing or merging their practices over the past year.

In total, 169 practices approached NHS England between April and December last year for advice on how to close or merge their practices compared with just 37 requests during the whole of the 2013-14 tax year.

Meanwhile 78 practices have either closed completely or closed a branch surgery as a result of a merger since April 2013, a trend that has accelerated since April last year, when more than 100 practices sought advice from their LMC about potential closure.

The reason for the increase appears to be due to a mixture of funding cuts, practices being blocked from closing their practice list and problems with recruiting new GPs, leading to overwork by existing practice staff.

As one doctor, who is going to take early retirement but is concerned that no one will want to take on his practice, put it, “the writing has been on the wall for the best part of a couple of decades and is now painted in enormous bold capital letters in a fluorescent font with powerful searchlights pointed at them”.

This news comes as recent research from the BBC has found that 25 per cent of GPs will take early retirement, with a further 30 per cent saying they will ‘probably leave’ before the retirement age and 32 per cent indicating they will ‘probably not leave’. However, only 6 per cent said they would definitely commit to working until the age of 65.