• Lily Dove, 95, has been ‘de-registered’ from her GP in Watton, Norfolk
• Along with 1,500 others, she has been told to move to another practice
• The process is a result of lack of GP’s and increased population

Lily Dove has used her GP practice for so long that she remembers when the doctor would visit on a horse and trap.

Now the 95-year-old great-grandmother is being removed from its register because so many newcomers have moved into the area.

Some 1,500 people are being taken off the database by the medical practice in Watton, Norfolk, which has struggled  to recruit enough new GPs to cope with the market town’s rapidly growing  population – many of them Eastern Europeans.

Mrs Dove was shocked and upset to  be told she would be ‘de-registered’ within a fortnight and would have to move to a different clinic.

When she complained she was told no exception could be made for her because it would be ‘discriminatory’.

Mrs Dove, a widow from the nearby village of Ashill, has lived in the area since her birth in January 1919.

She suffers from a number of health problems, and now fears that her failing eyesight means it would be dangerous for her to start using an unfamiliar surgery in the next nearest town, Swaffham.

She said: ‘I am deteriorating a bit. Life is difficult enough without having to change my doctor.’

Told to move: Lily Dove, 95, is one of the 1,500 people who have been ‘de-registered’ from the medical practice in Watton, Norfolk

Mrs Dove lived for 88 years on an arable farm in the village of Stow Bedon, which was run first by her father John, then by her husband Ellis, and finally by her son John.

She moved out when he sold it four years ago and now lives on her own in a bungalow.

Extra care comes from her family and a cleaner who comes once a week.