More than a million patients have been forced to find new practices in the last five years because of the growing rate of closures, it was reported today.

445 practices closed between 2013 and 2017, according to the latest analysis of closures. About 270 of these have occurred since 2016.

In total about 1.3 million patients have had to join new practices because of the closures, according to the analysis by Pulse magazine.

The analysis includes practices that have handed back contracts to NHS England. Sometimes surgeries have continued to provide services because new providers have been put in place.

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said the return of contracts is “becoming increasingly common up and down the country, but particularly in rural and other under-doctored areas, where practices are finding it more difficult to recruit new GPs.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told The Guardian: “This exposes the real crisis in primary care after eight years of grinding Tory austerity across the NHS.

“Labour has long called for primary care to be given greater priority and investment. A key test for Theresa May in the coming weeks will be whether or not she finally delivers the level of investment and support that primary care so obviously needs.”

But a spokeswoman for NHS England said: “More than 3,000 GP practices have received extra support thanks to a £27m investment over the past two years and there are plans to help hundreds more this year.

“NHS England is beginning to reverse historic underinvestment with an extra £2.4bn going into general practice each year by 2021.”