What the sad decline of my local GP surgery tells us about the state of the NHS

I – along with 8,699 other people – will have to travel unacceptable distances for crucial medical care when the Lambeth Walk GP Surgery is forced to move locations, writes Revd Canon Roger Royle. It’s not good enough – and it’s happening everywhere

In any survey, Lambeth Walk is streets ahead of other practices in England (Getty)

Not far from the Imperial War Museum in South London is Lambeth Walk, a street made famous by a song in a popular musical, Me and My Girl, which opened in the West End in 1937. Sadly, there is a possibility that fewer and fewer people will be doing the Lambeth Walk, including myself, in search of medical care because the Lambeth Walk GP Surgery is having to move. Its lease is running out.

The leaseholders are the Department of Education and King’s College, London. The Department of Education I know little about, but from 1958 to 1961 I spent three enjoyable years reading theology at King’s on the Strand. I even became the president of the theological faculty. So my loyalties are mixed, but leases are leases. However, when it means that 8,700 people, many of whom are elderly like myself, have a much longer journey to get quality medical care, I know where my loyalties lie.

Lambeth Walk GP Practice came to my rescue over two years ago. The practice that I had been going to and had much admired for 30 years had, I thought, lost the plot – as well as my confidence.