St David's GP Practice - the future of services for registered patients

The Health Board is working with stakeholders to find a solution for how services can continue to be delivered to patients after October 2024.  Recent attempts by the Practice to find another GP Partner to share the responsibilities and workload shouldered by Dr Riley have failed, and there has been no interest from local independent GP Practices.

Small single-handed GP Practices can struggle with business pressures and with staffing which means they are at risk of becoming unsustainable.  Unfortunately, both Solva Surgery and St David’s Surgery have had contract terminations within the last eighteen months.  There is also some uncertainty whether the St David’s Surgery building would be available to lease once the current contract ends. 

The Health Board has a responsibility to ensure that all patients continue to have access to General Medical Services.  The Panel that is considering the contract termination has recommended that a managed dispersal of the patient list take place at the end of October.  This would mean that all patients would be allocated to the next nearest surgery to them, and for the vast majority of patients this would be Solva Surgery as the closest. This would create a single GP Practice that would be larger, more stable and more resilient for the future.  The Panel felt this is the most viable option to ensure that patients can continue to access GP services in the area. It is important to note that no decision has been made at this stage and that this is a recommendation that is subject to Board decision later this summer following the conclusion of public and stakeholder engagement. 

As Solva Surgery is a Health Board Managed Practice, if the Board supported the proposal for a dispersal, the single combined Practice would be operated by the Health Board through a period of careful transition and may involve bringing together the staff from both Practices from November 2024.   The new Practice would offer similar services as the Practices did before and would be large enough to be able to build a more diverse and specialist workforce to meet the needs of the population it would serve.   It is hoped this single combined practice would ultimately return to being an Independent Contractor Practice in the future.

In the short and medium term, it is possible that the new combined practice would need to operate mainly from Solva Surgery because it is much larger and purpose-built, with sufficient internal space and parking.  The potential to deliver some services from somewhere suitable in St David’s is being considered.

While the vast majority of patients currently registered with St David’s Surgery would be allocated to Solva Surgery in October as the next closest to their home address, the small number of patients living closer to Fishguard or Haverfordwest than to Solva may be transferred to another Practice which is closer to them than Solva Surgery (based on drive-time).

The decision on how to deliver services from November 2024 onwards will be taken by the Board later this summer.  Ahead of this, the Health Board wants to understand how this recommendation to disperse the patient list may affect you. 

Feedback is anonymous, please submit your views by 19 June 2024.  All feedback will be collated and will form an important part of the consideration and decision-making by the Health Board on how services will be delivered from October onwards.

Please also complete the equality monitoring questionnaire, as this helps us to make sure that we are gathering he views from all parts of the community.

Thank you.