Unbiased panel to evaluation Shropshire out-of-hours GP contract

The choice to award the contract for Shropshire’s out-of-hours GP service to a brand new firm will likely be reviewed by an impartial panel, NHS officers say.

It comes after NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin (NHS STW) confirmed it had eliminated the contract from Shropdoc, a not-for-profit organiser that at the moment offers the service.

NHS chiefs stated they’d undertaken a “strong, clear and honest commissioning course of”, however had now prolonged a session interval for additional submissions to be made earlier than the evaluation takes place.

Dr Rob Park, one of many founders of Shropdoc, stated the belief’s unique session had been “minimal” and he feared the brand new service wouldn’t be nearly as good.

NHS STW confirmed the contract was initially awarded to Wiltshire-based Medvivo – which as been contacted for remark – on 5 February.

The belief then entered a standstill interval – the time between a contract being awarded after which signed – which has been prolonged to permit for any additional written submissions to be made.

After the interval ends, the belief has confirmed it will then think about the representations after which evaluation the choice via the impartial panel.

Talking after the announcement of the contract, Dr Park stated Medvivo was a part of a enterprise capital firm.

“They seemingly are going to supply the service for much less,” he stated.

In the meantime, Lib Dem Bernie Bentick, shadow portfolio holder for public well being at Shropshire Council, stated the general impetus for the transfer gave the impression to be to chop prices.

He stated he believed the worth of the present Shropdoc contract was in extra of £10m per 12 months.

Underneath the proposed new contract, the GP facet of the operation was value £6m a 12 months.

A spokesperson for the belief stated: “The service specification stays unchanged, and the re-procurement isn’t a cost-cutting measure.

“It’s going to proceed to be a regionally supplied service, staffed by native clinicians, with face-to-face appointments forming a core factor and remaining accessible on the out of hours bases and through house visits.”