An ICB has agreed to re-run the procurement for a local GP practice contract, following concerns raised by staff and patients.
Last month Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB received hundreds of letters from patients and staff after its decision to award SSP Health the APMS contract for Withnell Health Centre in Chorley.
Patients and staff, including Dr Ann Robinson, who has been a partner at the practice for the past 10 years, said the public was not properly consulted and held multiple protests at the centre demanding a review of the process.
The ICB had initially said that due to the contract being an interim arrangement, the board had a duty to undertake an open procurement process ‘which allows for all interested providers to be fairly considered’.
Now Kevin Lavery, the ICB’s chief executive, said that the board decided ‘to abandon the current procurement process’ following a ‘full and robust’ review.
He admitted that patient engagement was ‘not thorough enough’ and said that the current interim arrangements will be extended by 18 months as the ICB re-runs the procurement process.
He said: ‘The review looked at each of the stages of the process, including decisions made by the ICB and Chorley and South Ribble CCG.
‘During the review, we found the patient engagement that took place was not thorough enough and, due to this, a decision has been made to abandon the current procurement process.
‘As the public body responsible for commissioning GP services in Lancashire and South Cumbria, we do have a duty to undertake an open procurement process for the service provided at Withnell Health Centre and all interested providers have to be fairly considered.
‘The ICB intends to undertake further engagement with patients and the community in Withnell and launch a new procurement process to award the long-term contract for the service.
‘I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the community of Withnell as we recognise we could have done more to keep patients informed.
‘Going forward we are committed to doing better with our public engagement and would like to reassure our local population that securing high-quality services remains a priority for the ICB.’
A spokesperson from campaign group Save Withnell Health Centre said: ‘The ICB informed us today that they have decided to abandon the current plans for Withnell Health Centre and they will instead re-run the procurement process.
‘They will complete this process in 18 months time and until then the surgery will remain in the hands of the current management team under the leadership of our fantastic GP, Dr Ann Robinson, on an 18 month contract starting on the 1st of April 2023.
‘The contract to manage our GP surgery will be advertised again, interested parties will have to submit bids with the highest scoring bid securing the contract.
‘We have been assured by the ICB that there will be a much greater emphasis on patient engagement.
‘This is a huge win for each and every one of the staff working at the practice and for each and every one of you, our truly wonderful patients.’
Sadly the procurement process is so unbalanced that it is unlikely to ever lead to an award to a GP.
It is designed to favour corporate interests.
Organisations with terrible track records eg capita are frequently awarded contracts due to the way the procurement is set up.
The original mistake by the CCG/ICB was to consider this a contract change and not continuation.
Having failed to remedy this mistake, repeating the poor result is hard to avoid.
same problems in wales. the lhb (same as pct in england) closed my high earning, rural, single handed dispensing surgery when i was advised by four consultants to cut my hours after developing a dvt in my right (dominant) arm, and a Hb of 5G%.
a public meeting was held, attended by a load of paitents, politicians, press etc etc.
they said – publicly – that the surgery was “not financially viable”. even though planning had been given, and work had already started on two new housing estates !
one of the patients pointed out “dr jenkins is in the room, he has three houses, several classic cars, a boat, and an aeroplane – it looks pretty viable from where we are sitting !”
but they wouldn’t have it.
so i now do locums two days a week, and i’m as happy as a pig in manure.
no plans to retire yet !
i was 73 a fortnight ago.