Help is on the way for a troubled health surgery where hundreds of patients are forced to wait weeks for an appointment because of a lack of GPs.

After a barrage of complaints and pressure from Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst, NHS England has announced it has secured funding for the Thorndike practice in Rochester.

The overstretched health centre is full to capacity after other nearby practices closed.

It does not have enough doctors to cope with the influx of new patients but now the national public health funded service has acquired additional financial support from the GP Resilience Fund which will “help the practice to explore new ways of delivering patient care.”

Miss Tolhurst said this was a positive move in the right direction, if not a long-term solution.

She said: “Doctors from Thorndike and three other surgeries are committed to working together to solve the problem. We need to find out exactly why it is a problem at this surgery and also utilise the building more.

“With more than 30,000 houses being built – that’s about 60,000 more people – this problem is not going to go away.”

The GP Resilience Fund will also support a pilot scheme to increase the availability of on-the-day appointments for minor illness cases at the Rochester Health Centre in Delce Road.

The closure of a practice at the centre led to 2,000 people registering at Thorndike, but also freed up extra space for clinics.

From April 1, the NHS Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) took over responsibility for GP services across Medway

Miss Tolhurst said: “I would urge my constituents to let me know if they have a problem and I will pass this on to NHS England and the CCG. At the moment I am writing to them both every week.”

The GP Resilience Fund, announced last year, has earmarked £40 million over four years to support GP practices. The first £16m was allocated for 2016/17.

A further £8m has now been allocated for 2017/18.