A crunch meeting about Maryport’s health services was due to take place yesterday as the town’s only surgery faces budget cuts of £180,000 over the next five years.

Doctors, nursing staff and patient representatives planned a summit meeting yesterday afternoon to look at the implication of the cuts to both surgery staff and the public.

Anne Greggains, patient participation group chairwoman, said the surgery had a responsibility to keep the public informed of what the changes would mean but warned that patients also needed to play their part to ensure that the impacts of the budget cut could be reduced as far as possible.

She said: "The surgery is being told it will receive £35,000 less each year for the next five years. That is a really significant amount.

"The practice is already talking about not replacing doctors due to retire in the next couple of weeks.

"They have already said that some procedures carried out on behalf of hospitals may have to be stopped which would mean patients would have to travel to these hospitals for tests."

Mrs Greggains, whose group represents patients, said it was essential that the surgery communicated with the people of Maryport.

But she warned that the public, too, had to step up to the mark.

She said: "There are so many missed appointments at the surgery that there is hardly any point in recording them now.

"Patients are urged to call if they have to miss an appointment. Even if it is only a couple of minutes before, that would give a GP time to call another patient or see someone a little earlier."

She said if doctor numbers did reduce, patients will find it harder to get an appointment with the doctor they want.

“People should not be put off when they are referred to a nurse practitioner or nurse first. They can assess a situation and see what is needed."

She said prescriptions are a cause of concern.

“As a group we would urge as many as possible to sign up to Visiononline, the internet-based prescription and appointment service.

"We suggest that people do not, where possible, leave it to the weekend to pick up prescriptions because there will be nobody in the surgery to solve any problems and, of course, we would always ensure that people order their repeat prescriptions well in advance of running out.”

Mrs Greggains said there are challenging times ahead and while the surgery must be aware of patients’ needs, the patients themselves have a vital role to play.