PATIENTS are piling pressure on medical chiefs to keep their GP practice in the "safe hands" of its existing doctors following the sudden death of its only senior partner.
Fieldway Medical Practice users are backing a bid by Dr Karthika Shanmuganathan and Dr Chaudhury to run the practice immediately instead of an outside provider, following the death last month of Dr Richard Bamgboye.
NHS England plans to appoint a team from the Croydon area within the next few days to run the practice for one year, before choosing a long-term provider from across the country.
AT Medical, the private company which runs surgeries at Parkway Health Centre and Headley Drive, is believed to have made a bid, but there are fears a change in management could lead to disruption for patients or poorer care.
The practice's Patients Participation Group (PPG) has written to NHS England, noting that Fieldway has a particularly large population of "chronically sick, elderly and infirm patients," for whom disruption of care would be "alarming."
Their letter adds: "We […] respectfully ask you not to disperse the Fieldway Medical Centre patients to the other surgeries on the estate, or to bring in outside firms that will only look at the balance sheet to run the practice when there are two dedicated doctors ready and willing to give a continuity of service to the patients and in whom the patients have complete confidence."
Councillors and patients have been circulating a petition calling on NHS England to allow the doctors to run the surgery, "for the confidence, continuity, and total commitment of health care to the all for patients at this surgery."
PPG member Vanessa Barnett, 71, said: "It is the community here; everybody here is treated like an individual and Dr Richard was really, really good. They are all nice here; it is like a little family."
Roy Simpson, acting chairman of the PPG, said: "The [doctors] are trying to carry on Richard's legacy.
"He was not only a doctor, he was a friend, and if you talk to anybody he was the most friendly man you would meet."
He encouraged patients to raise their concerns about the future of the practice with NHS England.
Labour ward councillor Simon Hall said: "The community needs to be listened to – the centre is a vital resource for the community."
