{"id":65531,"date":"2026-06-18T08:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T08:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/65531\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T08:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T08:12:21","slug":"newton-place-and-faversham-medical-practice-merger-defended-by-gp-after-patient-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/65531\/","title":{"rendered":"Newton Place and Faversham Medical Practice merger defended by GP after patient backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A GP has defended the merger of two surgeries amid patients\u2019 claims that care has deteriorated following the loss of familiar doctors and nurses.<\/p>\n

Newton Place Surgery and Faversham Medical Practice announced plans to merge in February 2025 and the application has now been approved by NHS Kent and Medway.<\/p>\n

\"Dr\"DrDr Gaurav Gupta with the Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine. Picture: Faversham Medical Practice<\/p>\n

Some patients and healthcare professionals have raised concerns about staff turnover, appointment availability and the way the changes were communicated.<\/p>\n

However, Dr Gaurav Gupta, managing partner of Faversham Medical Group, insists the move will make services more sustainable.<\/p>\n

But Newton Place Surgery patient Jon Ralph, who requires regular pressure bandaging for problems with his legs, said care has “gone down” since experienced nurses left the practice.<\/p>\n

The 73-year-old told KentOnline there are too many \u201cagency staff\u201d.<\/p>\n

“Unless they get permanent staff in there, things won’t get better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Ralph said he previously received regular treatment from nurses who were familiar with his condition, but claims he has since struggled to access the same level of care.<\/p>\n

\"Newton\"NewtonNewton Place Surgery, Faversham<\/p>\n

He said: “You’re waiting over four weeks before you can get an appointment. You could be dying.”<\/p>\n

He also expressed concern about patients seeing doctors who are unfamiliar with their medical history.<\/p>\n

“You’d be waiting for weeks – you\u2019ll get 10 minutes to see them,” he added.<\/p>\n

“The GP you would see is new. Therefore, they don’t have any experience with you.”<\/p>\n

He said care at the surgery has got worse, adding: \u201cIt’s an absolute joke.”<\/p>\n

Defending the merger, Dr Gupta said they had received “very good feedback” on service improvements, noting expanded physiotherapy, Saturday blood tests, and faster prescription turnarounds.<\/p>\n

\"Faversham\"FavershamFaversham Medical Practice. Picture: Google<\/p>\n

He said routine booking times had actually halved from four weeks to two and confirmed the patient-list merger process was currently underway.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging some GPs had left over the past year, he stressed they are actively recruiting: “The practice is on track to increase GP numbers and provide more appointments.”<\/p>\n

Dr Gupta confirmed routine slots were reduced from 15 to 10 minutes, but noted patients with complex needs can book 20-minute double appointments.<\/p>\n

“There has been no reduction in services as a result of the merger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A healthcare professional, speaking anonymously, echoed patient dissatisfaction on social media, claiming the public wasn’t properly consulted before the merger was announced on Facebook.<\/p>\n

“There was no conversation with the public about why the merger was going ahead, what benefits it would bring or what problems it was intended to solve,” they told KentOnline.<\/p>\n

\"Jon\"JonJon Ralph has been left frustrated by the merger of the two Faversham GPs<\/p>\n

They described the loss of trusted, familiar GPs as a “tragedy.”<\/p>\n

“These people, in the main, were well liked, well trusted and knew the place,” the source said.<\/p>\n

They added: “Nobody is consulting or talking to the public about what is going on.<\/p>\n

“There are continual pressures being put on services and nobody knows what’s happening.”<\/p>\n

Addressing concerns about consultation, Dr Gupta said: “Staff have been consulted throughout the merger process and all due process has been followed.<\/p>\n

“The practices have continued to share information regarding the merger with patients and Patient Participation Group (PPG) members.<\/p>\n

“We have been working closely with NHS Kent and Medway and following their advice on communication with the community.<\/p>\n

“We will continue to do more communications work and engage closely with our PPG and the Integrated Care Board (ICB).”<\/p>\n

Dr Gupta also pointed to the two practices working together to help deliver approximately 1,500 meningitis vaccinations in Faversham.<\/p>\n

“We appreciate there are still issues that cause frustration for some patients and we are working to address them and provide the best care possible,” he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for NHS Kent and Medway confirmed the merger has been formally approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A GP has defended the merger of two surgeries amid patients\u2019 claims that care has deteriorated following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[1537,96,529,309,5,6],"class_list":["post-65531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-faversham","tag-health","tag-human-interest","tag-kent","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116770107752102473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}