IN YEARS gone by most General Practioners worked from home but in the mid-1960s it was recognised that they needed staff and premises to operate effectively.
The General Practice Finance Corporation was established in 1967 to help GPs buy their own surgeries.
In the mid-1980s the Government wanted to bring more private money into building new surgeries, so instead of lending GPs money to build their own surgeries they handed the responsibility for building new surgeries to the private sector and leased GPs the building.
“It was kind of a precursor to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI),” said Andy Drane, a health sector expert at law firm Davidson Chalmers.
“It was seen as a great wheeze at the time, getting someone else to put up the capital, and it wasn’t necessarily wrong, but nobody thought about what would happen when the 30-year leases came to an end.”
In 2002 the General Practice Finance Corporation was privatised and sold to Norwich Union, and now many GPs surgeries are owned by private property investors.
“They are now predominantly owned by five or six investors, of whom the major ones are Assura and GPG,” said Mr Drane.
“By and large those companies aren’t out to turn the doctors over, and indeed some are being very accommodating to find solutions, but equally they’re not going to write off bills totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“We act for about 200 of the 1,000 practices in Scotland. Most of them have some sort of recruitment issue, and property is usually one of the issues.
“The Lothians have a particular problem with this, as they were very keen adopters of this lease model.
“The GPs who signed the leases 30 years ago are long gone, and it is the younger partners who have been left picking up that tab.
“Perhaps it was their own fault for not scrutinising the terms of the lease, but GPs are not businessmen. They are trained to make people better, not how to run a business or maintain a building.
“There are good reasons why retiring partners won’t want to depart with outstanding liabilities, but the failing lies in the fact they won’t have a proper adult discussion – or the partnership agreement does not allow for an adult discussion about accrued liabilities.
“Ultimately, you could end up in an almighty legal argument over who is liable for what, and a punch-up that most GPs will run a mile from when they consider what the legal costs would be.
“One solution suggested is the Government should just take on all of these leases and let the doctors off the hook.
“That would certainly deal with all the leasing issues of my clients, but whether that is the best use of public money is for the politicians to decide.
“However, if they just take a hard line and say ‘that’s the doctors’ problem’ people will just stop going into general practice.”
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