An opposition councillor has raised concerns over the sustainability GP practices across the county, after a surgery partnership dissolved with little warning over the summer.

However medical chiefs have insisted the dissolution of the partnership that provided the services at Chiltern House Medical Centre, in High Wycombe, and Dragon Cottage, in Holmer Green, at such short notice is “highly unusual”.

The concerning announcement came in July, and a specialist healthcare consultancy was drafted in to take over the running of the centre, with health chiefs insisting services will continue.

However just over a month later Dragon Cottage closed for good after the building’s lease ran out, forcing patients to travel to High Wycombe for treatment.

At a meeting of Bucks County Council’s (BCC) health and adult social care select committee on October 2, Liberal Democrat councillor, Steven Lambert, asked what measures can be put in place to ensure statutory bodies are prepared for similar situations.

He said: “One of the things that concerns me is that this isn’t going to be something new, GPs will want to dissolve their practices at some point, whether they want to retire or move on or something like that, something will happen.

“How sustainable is it as a model? The way this currently works is: ‘I’m going to resign, out of the door, bye’ and we have to run to catch up to put something in place to make sure the patients aren’t practice-less, this won’t be the first one.

“If we do know something is going to happen and there is a process for managing when GPs retire or stand down, and practices are dissolved, how can we make sure that we, the statutory bodies, can be involved and understand what that looks like?

“But also how do we know we can safeguard what the patients are going through and have the confidence when these things happen you guys can hit the ground running?”

Robert Majilton, from Buckinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said usually a practice would give at least six months’ notice before dissolving, however the partnership at Chiltern Medical Centre gave just “days” warning.

He added the CCG is urging practices to work together to ensure measures are in place to ensure patients do not lose out, if the same situation happens again.

Dr Penny Macdonald added practices usually work “with a really robust partnership agreement”.

She said: “It is really odd for something like this to happen. It would almost be impossible in other practices to have so few partners, and the fact that one’s ambition to leave affected things so drastically.

“Because we have got an enormous amount to share, and the opportunities for us working together are immense because a partnership that may be a little less successful can be supported in ways by a partnership next door who are the opposite. They can share staff, they can share ideas.

“Going forward I am sure our collective working will serve to strengthen the partnerships.”

Picture: Dragon Cottage