An Oldham MP has blasted the government for not delivering on its promise to increase the number of GPs by 5,000 within five years.

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams has criticised the government after a health minister revealed the number of GPs had actually decreased by over 1,000 since 2015.

Maria Caulfield MP disclosed in a parliamentary answer on April 6 that the number of GPs in England had gone down by 1,425.

Ms Abrahams said: "We shouldn’t be surprised that another Tory promise fails to materialise but you just can’t make promises like this around health care, fail, and then assume no one will hold you to account."

She also commented on figures provided by NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) which show the GP statistics in the borough.

According to the statistics, there were 143 GPs, excluding locums and trainee doctors working across 44 practices in Oldham in 2017.

These numbers are now down to 140 GPs working across 39 practices, which reflects the national picture.

READ MORE: Oldham's most and least subscribed GP practices revealed

The declining GP numbers in Oldham are worsened by the fact the number of patients registered with a practice in Oldham has gone up from 246,039 to 262,400 over the same period.

NHS Oldham's figures also showed GP appointments increased by 16 per cent from 50,477 to 58,601 between January 2020 and January 2022.

Ms Abrahams said a major reason behind the falling GP numbers was due to too many becoming "burned out and retiring early".

She added: "Some are also retiring early as the Government has failed to address the punitive pensions tax issues GPs and other doctors are facing.

"The result? Patient care is suffering."

Ms Abrahams pointed to PM Boris Johnson's 2019 general election campaign pledge to increase the number of GPs in England by 6,000 by 2024, however she said wouldn't hold her breath.

READ MORE: Third of GPs to quit within 5 years, according to new study

She said: "I will be writing to the Prime Minister and Health Secretary to ask, once again, about workforce plans for primary care including GPs and how the government will be ‘levelling up’ both in GP numbers but also in their capital allocations to allow more GP surgeries and health centres to be developed."

NHS Oldham CCG was contacted but said it was unable to provide a comment due to pre-election period, or purdah, restrictions.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: "We are committed to growing the general practice workforce to ensure everyone receives the care they need and there has been an increase of more than 1,600 full time equivalent doctors in general practice over the past two years.

"To boost recruitment, we have increased the number of GP training places and in 2021/22 we saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on GP training – a record-breaking 4,000 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014."

It comes after a report by the hospital trust in charge of the Royal Oldham Hospital also warned of NHS staff retention problems.

The Northern Care Alliance report said the trust, which runs care across Salford, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury, had lost 2,419 staff members over the course of 2021/22