At the time of letting the contracts to the Partnership, the Health Board was in a challenging position of having to manage a number of vacant practices across its resident population. The Partnership has previously managed a practice in Lliswerry without any apparent concerns and was the only bidder for several of the contracts. 
Nonetheless, the Health Board should have had a greater appreciation of the risk associated with a single Partnership taking on so many new practices over a short timeframe. It should also have undertaken greater due diligence checks on the Partnership’s business model and applied greater scrutiny to its business cases and financial plans. 
Whilst no evidence of fraudulent activity has been identified, the problems experienced by the Partnership have caused financial concerns for staff employed by the Partnership. In addition, in line with nationally agreed approaches to support financially ‘at risk’ practices, over £1 million of sustainability funding was accessed by the Partnership ahead of them handing five1 of their eight contracts back to the Health Board. 
The Health Board has amended some of its commissioning arrangements because of these events and changes to procurement regulations. However, in our view there is a need to further strengthen contract letting processes to minimise the risk of similar events occurring in the future.