Withnell Health Centre: Plea to secure village GP's future

The primary care commissioning committee are considering a recommendation to launch a new competitive tender procedure later

Patients at a village surgery are urging NHS bosses to guarantee the future of its long-serving GP.

Dr Ann Robinson has operated Withnell Health Centre in Chorley for 11 years.

More than 1,500 people at the practice submitted written objections to a decision last year to hand the contract for the facility to a conglomerate.

The primary care commissioning committee is now considering a recommendation to launch a new competitive tender procedure.

Dr Robinson's position at the Withnell surgery was thrown into doubt by the decision to give the contract to a firm that runs more than 40 surgeries in North West England, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Lancashire and South Integrated Care Board (ICB) was deluged with written objections alongside protests which resulted in the NHS body opting to start the process from scratch after acknowledging patients had not been properly consulted on the plans.

Its primary care commissioning committee is to consider a recommendation for a new competitive tender procedure - the kind under which Dr Robinson lost out 12 months ago - whereby prospective operators of the surgery would be pitched against each other.

However, campaigners have called on the organisation to make use of a recent rule change which they said enabled the ICB to award the up to 15-year contract directly to Dr Robinson.

In a letter to ICB's chief executive, Kevin Lavery, Save Withnell Health Centre group member Louise France said any other option would amount to "ignoring the wishes" of the practice's 5,500 patients.

"You have had over 2,000 responses to the patient surveys the ICB ran this year and Withnell Health Centre currently scores 97% satisfaction on the most recent [nationwide] GP patient survey."

However, papers to be presented at the committee meeting stated three procedural routes permitting a direct award to be made to a particular provider.

'Due process'

The most relevant one - that the existing operator is satisfying the current contract and will likely satisfy the new one - does not apply in this case as the new contract would be worth at least £500,000 more than the present deal.

Craig Harris, of the ICB, said it was "committed to securing the best outcome for Withnell Health Centre and its patients within the legal guidance we are required and permitted to consider".

He added: "The ICB has not made any decisions yet, this will be a committee discussion in public and we need to follow due process for equity and fairness.

"Until this decision has been made, we aren't able to comment any further.