Northumberland has lost 10 GP practices in the past 10 years, with the number of patients increasing, figures obtained by the BBC show.

The county currently has 36 practices operating from 61 sites, 10 less than in 2013-14.

The figures, given to Northumberland County Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board, show remaining services serve 333,900 patients, an increase of 12,000 since the same period.

They also show 75 per cent of surgeries are more than 30 years old.

A maintenance backlog of £250,000 has also been identified, the information given to Friday’s meeting showed, while 68 per cent of surgeries are deemed as too small.