AN OUT-of-hours GP service will be transferred to a private company next month.

The service, which is currently provided by the Great Western Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, will be handed over to Wiltshire firm Medvivo.

Chippenham-based firm Medvivo will take on a “caretaking role” from February 1, while Swindon NHS bosses finalise plans for the service.

Out-of-hours GPs are doctors paid to travel to patients’ homes when their own doctors’ surgeries are not open. Currently, the service is based out of the Urgent Care Centre at GWH.

The hospital took on the out-of-hours contract in 2016 after the collapse of failed healthcare company SEQOL – leaving a £1.8million hole in planned borough council savings for that year.

A spokeswoman for Swindon NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, which pays for the service, said: “It was always the intention of GWH to seek a new provider and Medvivo will be providing a caretaking role whilst a wider procurement plan for the service is finalised.

“Medvivo have experience of providing GP out-of-hours service provision in Wiltshire.”

A spokesman for Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust added: “We took on the GP out-of-hours service in 2016, as part of the wider transfer of community services from former provider SEQOL to the trust.

“It had always been our intention to seek a new provider and we are confident Medvivo – which is also the provider of similar services across Wiltshire and Bath – will increase the resilience of what we know is a vital healthcare option for local people.”

Medvivo currently provide GP out-of-hours services in Wiltshire, staff a children’s clinic in Swindon and an evening and the town’s weekend urgent care clinic.

The transfer of the GP service will be discussed at Swindon Borough Council’s health overview and scrutiny committee next Tuesday.

In papers shared ahead of that meeting, Swindon CCG said that Medvivo would move the out-of-hours GPs’ base from GWH to the Swindon NHS Health Centre on Islington Street in the town centre.

A procurement process was currently being managed to find a long-term provider of out-of-hours GP service, the CCG said.

The hoped that that provider would be confirmed by April 2018.

Last year, Medvivo were awarded a five-year contract to provide “integrated care services” across Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire - beginning in May.

It will see them running the NHS 111 non-emergency phone line and develop a new “clinical hub”, where medics can assess calls from sick patients.

Following that announcement, Wiltshire CCG director Jo Cullen said: “It’s more than just bolting together the existing NHS 11 and out-of-hours services and calling it by a new name. It’s the introduction of a new service that dovetails with existing primary care services.”

Samantha Wathen of campaign group Keep Our NHS Public said it was “disappointing” that Medvivo had been given the out-of-hours GP contract.

She said: “They will not be using their company’s name but will instead utilise the NHS logo. This is sadly now common practice.”