Incompetence and mismanagement by Mid Essex PCT is damaging patient care, according to a GP who has been practising for 30 years.
Dr John Cormack says he has been forced to spend £20,000 of his own money to keep Greenwood Surgery in Tylers Ride open.
And he claims that patients – some of whom have volunteered to help out – are suffering because the trust will not give him enough money.
He believes the trust is trying to force his surgery to close, and that “the worst thing is watching the vast amount of money wasted through sheer incompetence and mismanagement.”
He added that an independent practice manager concluded that she did not know how anybody could run the surgery on the budget that he had been allocated.
A trust spokesman said: “Funding for practices is based on the Carr-Hill formula – a national framework that reflects the health needs of the practice population.”
But Dr Cormack says that other practices in the area receive more money per patient than he does, and that one received almost 50% more per patient in 2006.
A BMA spokesman said: “It is important that the PCT identifies and resolves the problems to ensure that patient services are not affected.”
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