11k-patient GMS practice to switch to APMS after partners hand contract back

An 11,000-patient contract will switch from GMS to APMS after partners handed it back, as the ICB believes this will improve procurement chances.

GP partners at the Windmill Practice, described locally as an ‘excellent training practice’ with ‘a very good reputation’, will quit the surgery at the end of May, although no reason has been stated why.

Although the current partners hold a GMS contract, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB has started a procurement process to find a new provider under a 10-year APMS contract, with the option to extend for up to a further five years.

When asked about the contract change, an ICB spokesperson said ‘it was felt in this case that an APMS contract offers greater flexibility’ and therefore ‘increases the chance of a successful procurement and new provider’.

ICB commissioning delivery director Victoria McGregor-Riley said: ‘Our aim is to ensure the continuation of high quality primary medical services for patients.’

She added that the ICB is aiming for ‘a new provider to operate from the current location from the start of June 2024’, with ‘all eligible practice staff’ to be given the ‘opportunity to transfer to the new provider under TUPE arrangements’.

‘It is our intention to find new arrangements which will see a continuation of the great work being delivered by the current contract-holder,’ she said.

Pulse has reached out to the partners at the GP practice but they declined to comment.

This is the largest GP contract to be handed back to commissioners in the UK since last March, when a 25,000-patient Scottish practice threw in the towel due to problems with recruiting GPs.

Nottingham GP partner Dr Irfan Malik said he ‘can’t really blame’ them for handing back the contract ‘in the current financial climate’. But he added that he is worried their decision could have ‘a domino effect’ on other practices.

He told Pulse: ‘It is a concerning situation – obviously if another provider steps in and takes on the 11,000 patients then that’s the best option.

‘This is an excellent inner-city training practice that has had a very good reputation for many years – so this is worrying.

‘Especially with the back-drop of year-on-year lack of funding and resources to primary care, potentially it could have impact on other local practices, a domino effect on them.

‘If a good practice like this can hand back their contract, then are other practices vulnerable themselves as well?’

He also said that questions on why the contract was handed back were met with ‘radio silence’, adding: ‘This is affecting 11,000 patients so there needs to be answers to the questions that we are asking.

‘This is not a failing practice, this is a very high-quality training practice and they specialise in homelessness and asylum seekers and refugees, so this has implications and worries for us.’

Dr Malik also pointed out that the practice is renowned in Nottingham because of one of its former GPs, Dr Michael Varnam, who worked in the city for 35 years to improve GP access for disadvantaged patients, and whose legacy remains with an award established in his memory and a housing complex named after him.

‘He was legendary in Nottingham, he did so much for these deprived inner city patients, and this is why it’s sad as well that his practice has had to hand back the contract,’ Dr Malik added.

Nottingham LMC chair Dr Carter Singh said that the LMC has been helping the practice ‘through this difficult time for them’.

He told Pulse: ‘Any practice potentially closing could have a major impact on local practices and the local doctors in that area as well.

‘There is going to be an impact inevitably and potentially local practices would have to absorb workload.’

A Pulse investigation last year found that nearly 60 GP practices across the UK closed their doors the previous year.