LIKE many of you, I’ve got a real hankering for a bit of Sunday night television.

Sitting down around the box is not something most of us do these days, what with mobile screens surrounding us on a 24/7 basis.

But Sundays are different, a time when everyone is prepared to give the big black box in the corner their undivided attention.

Recent weeks have seen me gripped by tales of Churchill’s later years and the drama of spies in The Night Manager.

Then there's the wonderfully whimsical Dr Thorne.

Following the tales of a village in 19th century England, the twee period drama based on the writings of Trollope has about as much tension as a spa break.

For those who haven’t been following it, I won’t try to get you up to speed with the plot – not that it’s complicated, it’s just that it doesn’t actually matter as a happy ending is inevitable.

But one thing that’s struck me is there’s something lovely about a village doctor knowing everyone’s names and being a source of wisdom for those around.

Sadly, those days look to be over.

In recent weeks we have seen the issue of The Practice Group withdrawing from running its GP surgeries in the city come to the fore.

The decision to walk away and leave 11,400 patients without a GP was taken purely for financial reasons.

A review by the Government meant its funding per patient was reduced and now officials believe they are too small to survive.

So they simply announced they would walk away, just weeks after one of the surgeries in Hangleton was placed in special measures. The result has placed thousands of people in limbo.

Sadly, it’s not just an isolated incident. Last June we had the overnight closure of Goodwood Court in Hove, leaving more than 10,000 people stranded without a GP.

And then there was the much-criticised closure of the Eaton Place surgery in Kemp Town, which ironically meany thousands having to register with a nearby surgery run by, yep, you’ve guessed it, The Practice Group.

Looking across the country, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 72 practices shut in England in 2015, with a total of 206,269 patients displaced.

This is up nearly 50 per cent from the 51 surgeries that shut in 2014 and more than treble the 20 that closed in 2013.

Some of these closures are due to retirement and others due to increased pressures of an older population.

But there is another more obvious cause.

Not wanting to sound like I’m looking at life through rose-tinted spectacles, I do remember a time when I had a family doctor.

He knew my name, he knew my health but best of all he knew my personality – all of which help improve confidence that he would give me the right course of treatment.

In recent years I have simply not had any contact with my GP, in part because I’m in good health but also because it’s so difficult to get anywhere near one.

On the rare occasion I have, I’ve been greeted not with compassion and care but with the feeling that I was getting in the way of more important and pressing matters.

This unhelpfulness and unwillingness to adapt to the 21st century world has sadly become commonplace in many GP surgeries which, we must remember, remain private enterprises as they have done since 1948 when the rest of the health service was absorbed into the NHS.

Thanks to the Health and Social Care Act passed in 2014, provision to the private sector has opened up even further.

It’s no coincidence that the passing of this legislation has coincided with a massive reduction in GP surgeries.

Indeed, after years of being based in communities, many doctors are throwing in the towel and moving on.

The void is being filled by groups such as The Practice Group.

Sadly, as we have seen, it does not take much for these providers to walk away when the going gets tough.

The result is people in some of the city’s most vulnerable communities are without a local GP.

Instead, they will have to jump on a bus or pay for a taxi to get a simple check-up from a medical professional who will no doubt be worrying more about the clock than the patient’s health.

It’s a sad reality in a world well removed from the twee goings on of a 19th century novel.

Come Sunday evening, many of you may be craving Dr Thorne but on Monday morning there will be thousands craving a doctor of any sort.

And from the looks of things it’s only going to worse.