Kilkeel Medical Practice to hand back contract to department

Those running GP surgeries are in full-blown firefighting mode to keep them open, a GP representative has said.

It comes after Kilkeel Medical Practice became the latest service to announce it will hand its contract back to the Department of Health.

Doctors from the County Down practice said they had been unable to recruit GPs to fill several vacancies.

Dr Alan Stout said many practices were "hanging by such a thread" that losing just one doctor can put it at risk.

The co-chair of the British Medical Association's GP committee said it was part of a wider pattern happening across surgeries.

"Often it is generated with an older GP retiring and then the practice becomes unsustainable," he told BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme.

He advised patients in the area to stay with their current GP to avoid a complete local collapse of services while work continues in the background to find a solution.

Some 14 GP practices across Northern Ireland have made a decision to hand back their contract in the past 12 months.

In a statement, doctors from the Kilkeel Medical Practice said it was with regret they have decided to return their contract to the department.

They said the practice has been operating with half the workforce for three years due to an inability to recruit GPs for several vacancies.

"As a result, the management of the ever increasing workload has become unsustainable," the doctors added.

"We want to assure our patients that we will continue to deliver GP services as normal until the contract is handed back."

The practice will operate as normal until 31 October while efforts are undertaken to recruit a new contractor.

The Department of Health confirmed the practice's decision and said it will begin to develop a number of alternative arrangements to ensure patients are not left without a service.

"The preferred option is to secure a GP contractor - or grouping of GPs - to take over the practice through a formal recruitment process," it said.

"In some circumstances, health and social care trusts can take over a GP contract as an interim solution."

It said the practice will continue to deliver services for the next six months and the department will write to all affected patients.

The department acknowledged the "ongoing and significant pressures" facing GP services and said it is committed to building the workforce in the face of budgetary pressures.

The Department of Health has been successful to a degree in keeping practices open in these scenarios, Dr Stout said.

But he described the situation as full-blown firefighting.

"It's different solutions in each area and it's solutions and discussions we've never had before," he said.

"They are temporary, they are sticking plasters and there is a real need for some sort of long-term, sustainable solution to all of this."

He said there are many more practices that will hand back their contract, and solutions to resolve this will become more problematic.