GP practice opened in 2009 set to close

The Brampton Medical Practice in Brampton, near Rotherham, will shut its doors for the last time next week.

More than 1,000 patients have been told they will have to move to neighbouring practices following the decision by its owners, Wentworth North Primary Care Limited, that it is no longer viable.

NHS officials said they had been told by the firm it had anticipated 1,400 new homes would be built in the area, leading to a significant growth in patients.

But the housing plans have been scrapped owing to the economic downturn and the practice, which only opened in August 2009, had not been able to recruit the numbers of patients expected. It has 1,112 currently on its patient list.

Managers said they only became aware of the problems during a routine annual review of the contract and it was unrelated to moves to save cash in the NHS.

NHS Rotherham chief operating officer Chris Edwards said: “We apologise to our patients who have been inconvenienced by this situation and have written to all of them personally to outline their options for receiving primary health care in the future.”

He said it was an unusual case as the practice started from scratch with no patients and was working on the basis that it could recruit enough patients to gain sufficient income to cover costs.

Patients have been allocated to one of three alternative practices but could move to another if they wished.

NHS officials said they were working with the company to minimise the impact on staff but it was expected they would be at risk of redundancy.

They believed all NHS funds provided during the delivery of the contract at the practice had been spent on delivering patient care but as a “matter of routine, a full independent assessment is underway”.

The surgery will close on Friday, May 27.

No one was available from the practice to comment on the closure last night.