NORTHUMBRIA Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has launched a new business venture in partnership with local GPs to offer a wide range of professional support services to primary care.

A wholly-owned subsidiary, Northumbria Primary Care Ltd will provide bespoke packages of support that can range from clinical leadership to management of an entire GPs' practice, including the payroll, financial services and human resources functions. 

Ponteland Medical Group, which serves 11,000 patients, Collingwood Medical Group in Blyth and Cramlington Medical Group are the first three to sign up.

Early results indicate patients can have a shorter waiting time for appointments and the practices themselves save money on administration. 

Dr Nigel Twelves is executive GP for Ponteland Medical Group and clinical director of Northumbria Primary Care Ltd. He said: “Having worked as a GP for more than 20 years, I am really excited about the development of NPC, which is already starting to deliver benefits for over 20,000 patients in the North-East."

While NPC Ltd was a stand-alone venture, it could access the vast corporate expertise of the highly-successful Northumbria Healthcare Trust.

"At Ponteland Medical Group we have transferred the entire practice management to NPC," he said, "which means our GPs are now able to focus on day-to-day patient care rather than the time-consuming, yet crucial, aspects of managing a practice.

"The benefits for our patients are already very clear, with more appointments available with GPs and quicker response times for patients when they contact the practice and we are looking forward to enhancing our services even further with the help of NPC."