A Leicestershire-based management company which runs two GP practices in Caerphilly County Borough is under “enhanced monitoring” from the health board, after it handed back the contract for another of its surgeries.
eHarleyStreet has been the subject of media reports, and Senedd debates, alleging that staff had not been paid and that access to doctors had been limited at its practice in Brynmawr.
The company has now handed the contract to run Brynmawr back to the health board.
Caerphilly Observer has also been told of similar allegations at Bryntirion Surgery in Bargoed. The firm, and companies closely associated with eHarleyStreet, also runs Gelligaer Surgery in Hengoed, Aberbeeg Medical Practice, in Abertillery, Blaenavon Medical Practice, Tredegar Health Centre, Pontypool Medical Centre, as well as surgeries in Newport and Cardiff.
The company, through its solicitors, has previously denied allegations of mismanagement and blamed locum agencies of “driving up prices to unsustainable levels“.
A spokesman for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: “We have received the resignation of the GP partnership between Dr [Jonathan] Allinson and Dr [Jalil] Ahmed for the contract that they hold at Brynmawr Medical Practice. We have agreed for the transitional arrangements to commence immediately with an official transfer date being March 1, 2025.
“Our focus now is on working closely with the staff at Brynmawr Medical Practice and the local community to provide good access to quality primary care services within the area. We want to thank the community for their understanding and support as we transition these arrangements.
“The GP partnership remains in enhanced monitoring for their other practices within the health board and we will continue to work closely with them to ensure primary care services are sustainable and meet the needs of our patients.”
The health board does not hold any General Medical Services contracts directly with eHarleyStreet, but rather with named GP partners associated with the firm.
Speaking in the Senedd on Tuesday January 28, Blaenau Gwent Senedd Member Alun Davies welcomed the contract resignation, and called on the Welsh Government to make a statement on the situation.
He said: “This partnership leaves behind an absolute mess: tax unpaid, pension contributions still outstanding, pay for staff and doctors outstanding.
“These are not the values of the Welsh NHS or the values of the Welsh Government.
“We now have a situation where there continue to be other such practices in the Aneurin Bevan area. In my own constituency, we have Tredegar and Aberbeeg, and I know members elsewhere are supporting patients in their own constituencies, but we have a consistent systemic failure, where patients are not receiving the service that they have the right to expect and where staff face bullying as a fact of their working lives.”
How are GP surgeries run in Wales?
Under the independent contractor model, GPs are self-employed and have responsibility for running the surgery and providing primary care under an NHS General Medical Services contract.
In Wales, this contract is negotiated routinely every year by the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, and Welsh Government, through the union’s Welsh GP Committee.
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