Our practice list size on 21.2.2003 was 7,178, with 3,517 male and 3,661 female patients.

 

Earby is a played out cotton town of about 4,500 population. Until the county re-organisation (1974) we were in North Yorkshire but are now just inside the Lancashire boundary. A lot of the traditions of the town however are still Yorkshire, although of course with the long-standing association with cotton over the years this would have placed us more characteristically in Lancashire .

Figures from the annual local labour force survey show that employment in Pendle is 73%, with an unemployment figure of 2.3%. Most of our patients are skilled manual workers although over more recent years the distribution has changed with increasing numbers commuting to the larger towns and cities. The active cotton mills have disappeared now and much industry is related to aeroplane engines and light engineering. Some of the local villages are more typically farming communities - we still have more than 150 patients living on farms - mainly smallholdings. Earby has very few people from ethnic minority groups.