The Practice suffers loss as costs rise

The Practice, the UK’s largest GP practice group, for the 12 month period ended 31 March 2012, saw turnover on continuing operations increase to £32.1m from £26.0m for the 15 months to 31 March 2011. Turnover on acquisitions for the period added a further £3.5m to make total sales of £35.6m. Cost of sales was also up to £27.5m from £17.3m for 2011. Total administrative expenses were £13.5m (2011: £11.8m) giving an operating loss of £5.5m (2011: £3.0m). Taking interest payments and amounts written off for fixed assets into consideration loss on ordinary activities before taxation was £5.8m (2011: £3.0m). Losses therefore are almost double on the previous year. This can perhaps be explained by some rapid acquisitions in the last two accounting periods. Acquisitions included Chilvers & McCrea and U Surgeries. The chairman Bruce Macfarlane explains the “pause” in implementing the Health & Social Care Act was advantageous for The Practice as it gave us time to embed our new surgeries and position our new business to be ready to take advantage of the changes to the commissioning of healthcare that the Health & Social Care Act entailed.’