Over half of the British public want new and improved GP surgeries to be built to support national housebuilding targets, according to a recent report.

Research carried out by Deltapoll on behalf of Assura plc, the UK’s leading specialist healthcare property developer, revealed the British public’s top priority for future towns.

And over half (54%) of the nation’s adults cited new or upgraded GP practices as a top priority for amenities alongside new housing developments.

The poll gave a range of amenities, from parks and pubs to public transport and traffic calming measures, but GP practices were the standout winner.

In contrast to other issues, which experienced generational differences, the support for GP practices was consistent across all age groups and regions, as shown in the table below.

Answers from 1,550 adults in Great Britain were recorded as part of the research, with the findings also revealing that 47% of people would be less likely to oppose housebuilding if the delivery of such social amenities was guaranteed.

Commenting on the findings, Jonathan Murphy, chief executive at Assura, said: “It is clear from this poll that health and wellbeing is an important issue to the British public, and GP practices have a critical part to play in their local communities.

“The Government aims to deliver 1.5 million new homes in the next five years; and it is vital that the right infrastructure is put in place to ensure new communities have adequate access to services, such as GP practices.”

The need for improvements to the GP estate was highlighted in a report published in June last year by Assura and the Institute for Government, which revealed that current infrastructure was unfit for purpose.

It stated: “More and more people want to access general practice, but buildings are now relatively small and are poorly maintained.

“The Government has grown the non-GP workforce, but not provided an estate that is either large enough or tailored to the work that they need to do.

“The Government and NHS England plan to better integrate primary care, community care and adult social care, but again this is difficult to achieve if there is no physical space in which these services can co-locate.

“These changes demand an estate that is both larger and more flexible. The estate will also need to contend with patients who expect to access care on the day they contact their GP practice – as has been promised to them by the Government.”

The report revealed that, as of 2022, there were 8,911 premises in general practice and, of those, 22% were built before the establishment of the NHS in 1948.

And GPs reported that 2,000 (22.4%) of the premises were not fit for purpose and 88% claimed they do not have sufficient consulting rooms.

Alongside this, demand for primary care services is rising, in part due to a backlog of people who could not access care during the pandemic, but also due to a growing and ageing population, with the number of people living with a major illness expected to increase by more than a third by 2040.

The report states: “If general practice is the front door of the NHS, it is currently a door that is hanging off its hinges, is too narrow for many to enter, and makes many of those who do pass through it feel undervalued.

“The estate and spaces in which public services operate are never purely functional; they are also a symbol of the importance that the Government places on those services and the people who work within them.”