Every GP has a catchment area that is agreed with the people who plan GP services (Kent and Medway CCG.) Catchment areas are put in place to ensure wherever people live they have access to a nearby doctor surgery. It is also the responsibility of Kent and Medway CCG to ensure that there are enough doctors in an area to care for the local population. Sadly there is a national shortage of doctors and unfortunately Thanet is amongst the highest under doctored areas in the country which means our doctors have much higher patient numbers than the rest of England which puts the doctors under continued pressure. A GP Practice needs to operate safely and to do that it needs to manage the number of patients it has. To use an analogy imagine a GP Practice is a bus. The bus has enough space for a certain number of passengers. If you overload the bus with more passengers than it is designed to carry then it becomes unsafe. The same is true of a GP Practice, we cannot continue to manage more patients than we have capacity for and therefore we need to manage our list size. If we had more doctors and the space to house them we would love to maintain the registration of patients who move a short distance outside of our catchment but sadly this is not possible at the moment. You can find information on local GP practices via the NHS Choices website www.nhs.uk. Should you have any difficulties you can contact Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group by Telephone: 03000 424144 or via e-mail: eastkent.Primarycare@nhs.net who will be able to assist you in registering with a practice close to your new home. We wish you well at your new practice. East Cliff Practice