Closures of GP surgeries are at a record level, a conference heard yesterday.

In total some 201 surgeries closed last year, Dr Chaand Nagpaul told the conference of the British Medical Association in Belfast.

Dr Nagpaul, chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said pressures on general practice had “sunk to new depths.”

He warned of unfilled practice vacancies and increasing amounts of work being transferred from hospitals.

Dr Nagpaul told doctors that the only answer to the problem was money – and that it should come from extra funding, not from moving it from elsewhere in the NHS.

He said: “Demand escalates relentlessly, with a growing, ageing population with expanding, multiple complex needs.

“Meanwhile, the explicit wholesale transfer of care out of hospital continues unabated. It’s GPs who’re absorbing this burgeoning workload, with 70 million more patients seeing us annually compared to seven years ago and with fewer GPs per head which is drowning our capacity to cope.

“Unfilled GP vacancies are at their highest, with half of practices struggling to recruit locums to provide essential services. This has led to a toxic mix from which existing GPs can’t wait to escape, and which many young doctors will not join.”

He added: “If you were seriously ill, would you want to be the sixtieth patient to see an exhausted GP at the end of the day, a GP who has worked non-stop, skipped lunch, squeezing in home visits and dizzy reading hundreds of hospital letters and test results before seeing you beginning to end in ten minutes?

“Unmanageable workload is fuelling GPs turning to part-time work, with one in five intending to reduce clinical sessions further. Making the job doable will reverse this trend and itself expand capacity now.”