Surgery Announcement

NHS Sussex continues to work with local partners to ensure continuity of care for patients registered with Hailsham Medical Group (HMG) following recent actions taken by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and decisions we have taken to ensure a stable and sustainable future for primary care services in the town.

Following ongoing engagement with wider partners, NHS Sussex concluded that the best course of action to bring some stability to the provision of General Practice in the area and ensure patient safety would be for the ICB to engage a new provider from the local area to provide GP services to this patient group in the community.

This took the form of calling for rapid expressions of interest (EOI) from current local providers within an eight-mile radius of Hailsham. Any provider(s) interested in taking on the patient list were told they must continue to offer all services from one or more of the existing HMG premises and maintain the same catchment area boundary. They also needed to commit to working with HMG to understand if and how TUPE will apply to the existing HMG staff.

The EOI process was launched on Friday 16 January and six bids were received from local practices.

A panel convened to review the bids on Thursday 5 February. The panel included an NHS Sussex Clinical Director who is a practising GP from Sussex, together with NHS Sussex’s Director of Quality, Patient Safety and Experience, and a representative from the Surrey and Sussex Local Medical Committee.

The outcome of the panel is that Manor Park Surgery, Polegate (Vita Healthcare) has been named as the new provider to take over the Hailsham Medical Group’s list of registered patients. We will now work with Hailsham Medical Group and Manor Park Surgery to ensure registered patients are safely transferred to the new provider by 31 March.

Patients do not have to do anything to re-register with the new provider as this will all be taken care of for them. They can also continue to contact the practice in the same ways as they have always done, and to attend appointments in Hailsham, with no break in accessing services while the required processes take their course.

We will support the practices to continue engagement and communication with patients, as well as local stakeholders. Following the completion of the transfer of the patient list NHS Sussex will lead weekly multi-disciplinary meetings to monitor progress and provide further oversight.

This action enables services to continue, providing unbroken access to primary care with little or no changes for patients, while bringing in a fresh leadership team to support practice staff and to provide a long-term future for primary care services in the town.

Our main priority is to support patients and staff, and we will continue to work with all involved, alongside NHS England to take the necessary action to ensure patients continue to have access to safe, high-quality care in the longer term.

Further updates will be shared here as soon as they are available.

Published: Jan 16, 2026