A 16,000 patient practice has been left on a short-term interim contract after six of the seven APMS providers invited by NHS England to tender for the contract pulled out saying it was unviable.
The partners at The Mandeville Practice in Aylesbury, Buckingham handed back their contract last year after being unable to replace a recently retired senior partner, and finding locum costs unsustainable.
Since April, the practice has been run by local APMS provider Practice U Surgeries Ltd, on an 18-month contract.
Former partner Dr Gill Beck says it has been left with ‘no security for its future’, adding that commissioners were now getting to grips with how the practice can be run long-term without destabilising adjacent practices.
Local GP leaders said the practice that was no longer viable under the traditional funding model and which would become a ‘poisoned chalice’ if recruitment problems continued.
Speaking on the current state of general practice at the BMA’s Special Representative Meeting (SRM) this week, Dr Beck told delegates: ‘Within 18 months of my retirement from that practice, my partners handed in their contract.
‘Seven private companies came round to look at this, to see if they would take it over. Six withdrew saying it was financially unviable. My practice has gone to a one-year contract with a private organisation with no security for its future.’
Full story in Pulse 5 May 2016