Contract for all GP services in two towns handed back after just eight months

The medical group responsible for providing all GP services in two towns in Scotland has given notice on its NHS contract after just eight months.

Alba Medical Group will no longer provide GP services in Moffat and Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway as of 31 May next year, where it is the sole provider. Work is already underway through the standardised national tendering process to find new providers.

Alba took on the challenge of strengthening the services offered at the practices, which provide for just over 9,800 patients, in April after staffing decreased at both practices, and the health board had assumed direct control and management.

Dr Grecy Bell, deputy medical director for NHS Dumfries and Galloway, said Alba felt it had ‘no option but to take this decision’.

‘Restoring them was always going to be a challenge, and it was always going to take time. In the last eight months Alba retained staff at both practices, successfully recruited new, additional staff, and set about making operational changes aimed at making these practices more sustainable,’ she said.

‘However, Alba have noted that they took on these practices at an incredibly challenging time when changes had to be made, both in terms of the composition of the practice team and how local people access services, and that it came amid the challenge of establishing an understanding and acceptance of these necessary changes within the local communities, across the region and nationally.

‘Alba are within their rights to relinquish the contract for these practices, but it means that just eight months after the process to award the contract the work now begins to attract an alternate provider.’

Work has begun to invite expressions of interest from GP providers, however Dr Bell acknowledged that finding GP partnerships to take on practices ‘can be very difficult – especially once a practice becomes board-managed’, and particularly in the current context of national GP shortages. Dr Bell added that provision of general medical services to the communities was a ‘key consideration’ and ‘concerted efforts’ would be made to promote the contracts ‘as vocally and widely as possible’.