GP vacancies in Cumbria and Lancashire have quadrupled in the last three years and Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins has demanded ministers take action.

The call came after health ministers revealed 121 GP places are now unfilled in the Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority area, up from just 30 in 2000. Jim Gardner, chairman of the South Lakeland Local Health Group, said the problem was not so acute in South Lakeland but the warning signs were there.

"Although practices have filled their vacancies, the number of applications has dropped dramatically. We are fishing in a smaller pool. It's a problem. I think there's always a risk that places will not be filled."

Medical students coming into the area next year could alleviate the situation, he said, with 50 fourth year students from Liverpool University's medical school joining the health trust in 2004.

Mr Collins said the root of the problem was the Government's short-sighted fixation on hospitals which meant other health services had suffered.

"Whichever way you slice it, a 300 per cent increase in the number of GP vacancies can only be bad news for patients."

He added there were no easy solutions: "But once again we are seeing people in our area steadily losing access to basic services - first post offices and police stations, then NHS dentistry, now perhaps a risk hanging over GP services too.

"Why can we not afford in the 21st Century services that were taken for granted through most of the 20th?"