THE manager of one of York’s biggest GP surgeries said its administrative workload has increased by at least 60 per cent since last year’s NHS reorganisation.

David Forster, who manages the Jorvik Practice in Stonebow and South Bank, also said some nine months on from the changes, he still does not have full confidence month-by-month that practice services will be funded.

Writing in Jorvik’s winter newsletter, Mr Forster said Jorvik had had to tackle a “tidal wave” of changes since the Health & Social Care Act came into force on April 1 last year.

He said: “We have new health authority bodies, new regulators, new health commissioners and new processes to get used to.

“The increase in regulation and administration alone has seen at least a 60 per cent increase in administrative workload at the practice.”

He said local health services were now commissioned by either NHS England (North Yorkshire & Humber) Area Team, the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group or City of York Council, and there were legal obligations to the Care Quality Commission, the Chief Inspector of GPs and Monitor, the NHS regulator of finance.

“Is the work of our new regulators joined up and coordinated?” he asked. “Well, we have seen little evidence so far.”

He stressed that despite the workload, he remained confident the practice continued to deliver excellent clinical care to all of its patients.

He told The Press that through the “superb” efforts of his staff, who kept their “noses to the grindstone”, the surgery had managed to prevent the difficulties affecting patients, but he was concerned about the impact on patients of further funding cuts that were on the way in coming years.

He said the surgery was now taking on extra administrative staff to deal with the extra work, but the funding for this came out of the surgery’s budget.

He said his concerns about the impact of the NHS changes were shared by his counterparts at other practices.

“We are all under the cosh,” he said.