§ Mr. BoswellTo ask the Secretary of State for Health when the Government intends to invite offers for the purchase of the General Practice Finance Corporation.
§ Mr. MellorHambros Bank, on behalf of the Government, will tomorrow issue an information memorandum to those financial institutions and others who have expressed an interest in acquiring the operating business of the General Practice Finance Corporation. The GPFC provides family doctors with a source of funds for the purchase, construction and improvement of their surgery premises in the form of fixed and variable rate loans and acquisition and lease finance.
An agreement has been reached with the general medical services committee of the British Medical Association providing for its participation in the management of the successor company to the corporation once it is transferred into the private sector. The object is to preserve the ethos of the existing business, maintain its sensitivity to the needs of family doctors, and ensure the operational integrity of the new company in its early years within any group of which it might become part.