Message from the Partners and Manager at Sothall Medical Centre

Posted on February 21st, 2023

Dear Patients, we have prepared this communication to inform you of a change in the contractual management of your surgery. GP surgeries are almost all run as small businesses contracted by the Integrated Care Board (ICB) formerly Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Contractually we need to have a minimum of two partners (usually working GP’s) who are signatories on this contract. The Partners at Sothall are Dr Leonard, Dr Rainford and Dr Welch.

Being a partner in a GP practice seems to be far less popular these days and we have been unable to recruit GP’s who wish to be partners. Dr Rainford is planning to retire this year, in August. Dr Welch and Dr Leonard also wish to retire within a couple of years. It is currently challenging to recruit salaried GP’s however we are confident that, whilst we are unable to recruit partners, we anticipate recruiting replacement salaried GP’s will be possible, and we do not anticipate any reduction in service in the longer term.

As you can see, as partners retire it causes a problem meeting our contractual requirements. Although there are other options which could be explored, we have decided to join with our Federation, Primary Care Sheffield (PCS) Home – Primary Care Sheffield, which a not for profit organisation owned by the GP Practices across Sheffield. PCS will hold the contract for Sothall Medical Centre which will operate on the same basis as other PCS practices across the City. If all goes to plan, we are hoping to make this change on 1st April, our three partners will then become salaried whilst essentially working as they do now.

This change will ensure long standing security for the practice including staff and patients, whilst allowing our current partners to retire following their long service at the practice. It is highly unlikely that any patients would notice any change to the service we provide. There are no plans to make any changes to the services, staffing, location, or any other aspects of service we provide from our practice.

The only differences we think patients may notice are, a new telephone system which we feel will improve the patient experience, and potentially some changes to our website, as we bring it in line with the websites for the other GP Practices that PCS runs. PCS have a great deal of experience in Primary Care and are in an excellent position to support Sothall Medical Centre, especially with non-patient-facing support services (back office etc) and we feel this can only improve efficiencies and ultimately improve service delivery.

Dr Andy Hilton, the CEO of Primary Care Sheffield attended the Sothall Patient Forum on Wednesday 1st February to explain how PCS could ensure the future of Sothall Medical centre going forwards. Dr Hilton answered any questions put by members of the Patient Forum; the minutes of this meeting are available here: – Patientforumminutesfebruary2023.pdf (sothall.net) (sothall.net)
Whilst I would like to reiterate that all of our current and future patients would not notice any difference to our practice or services, should you have any specific questions relating to this please use the contact us form on our website: – https://florey.accurx.com/p/C88023/patient-form

Our next Forum meeting is provisionally planned for Wednesday 5th April at 18:30 in our waiting room, these meetings are open to all our patients. It is not essential to register an interest in advance however if you do, I will send you an agenda around a week before the meeting and you will have to opportunity to add your items to this. Register by clicking on the relevant tile here; Sothall Medical Centre

Michael Lyall, Sothall Medical Centre Practice Manager on behalf of the partners