The Northern Ireland Audit Office report examined 13 practices which had either handed back their contracts or gave notice to do so. Photograph: Getty Images
The Northern Ireland Audit Office report, published today, identified one in three “at risk” GP practices which sought crisis support in the last four years to cope with workforce and funding pressures. By March last year, face-to-face appointments “represented around 70 per cent of activity in England”.
The report examined 13 practices which had either handed back their contracts or gave notice to do so, with Health and Social Care Trusts taking over five of them. “Stakeholders told us that whilst it may immediately stabilise the practice, it had the effect of distorting the locum market for other practices.”