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Hospital wins contract to take the lead on providing GP clinical services

A hospital trust in Surrey has been awarded a contract that will see it take on responsibility for some GP services including diabetes care and falls services.

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust was awarded a £61.5m contract by NHS Surrey Downs CCG to deliver adult community services to 305,000 patients from 1 October 2018.

Under the three-year contract, the trust will take the lead on delivering a range of services including a specialist community falls service, community diabetes services and specialist respiratory services.

The CCG has said services will be delivered ‘in partnership’ with four other providers including three GP federations, which are working together under an ‘alliance agreement’.

According to the CCG, the GP federations will have ‘shared responsibility for decision making and service delivery’, despite the contract being held by the trust.

Dr Hilary Floyd, medical director at GP Health Partners federation, said the contract was an ‘exciting development’ and would ‘allow the NHS locally to work more closely together’.

A spokesperson for the CCG said the alliance agreement ‘ensures all members of the partnership are fully engaged in decision-making and the delivery of service’. 

They added that GPs will have ‘a crucial part’ in ensuring patient care is managed ‘around their best interests and we anticipate this level of involvement will benefit patients enormously’.

This comes after Hammersmith and Fulham GP Federation signed a partnership agreement with four trusts to provide all healthcare services to 200,000 patients, which GP leaders said would see primary care ‘functioning very efficiently’ and ‘properly funded’.


          

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