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GPs take back control of trust-managed practice

A GP practice in West Scotland has successfully won the contract of West Kilbride medical practice, a former trust-managed practice.

West Kilbride medical practice will be taken over by Three Towns medical practice, after being run by NHS Ayrshire and Arran health board since 2017.

The town has had severe GP recruitment difficulties after all of its full-time doctors resigned from the medical surgery, leaving the practice without a full-time GP. 

According to the practice’s website, it currently employs two salaried GPs and locum GPs.

Director of East Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Eddie Fraser, said Three Towns medical practice will provisionally run the surgery from 1 August.

He said: ‘NHS Ayrshire & Arran and our partners in the Health and Social Care Partnership are committed to ensuring that people have access to high quality local health services.

‘Workforce planning, including recruitment and retention of GPs, is a national issue and has been a key driver in the new GMS contract to promote stability in our GP practices.

‘As with the whole of Scotland, Ayrshire and Arran has experienced these challenges in recruiting GPs. This has led to a small number of independent practices withdrawing from providing services, with NHS Ayrshire & Arran stepping in to ensure continuity of service by directly managing practices.

‘The West Kilbride Medical Practice has been directly managed by NHS Ayrshire & Arran for some time and we recently advertised for tender as a general practitioner business. We are delighted to confirm that the Three Towns Medical Practice, who are already established in North Ayrshire, has been awarded this contract and has a provisional start date of 1 August. This provides the best, stable environment for the patients of West Kilbride Medical Practice.’

Last year, practices closed in West Kilbride after recruitment issues. This followed patient list closures in North Ayrshire the year prior.