Private management of support services has led to dozens of complaints from practices, GP leaders have said.

The services have been managed by Capita since last September in a move intended to save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds.

But, according to the British Medical Association, there have been complaints from local medical committees around the country about poor services quality.

These include delays in transfers of patient records and disruption in medical equipment supplies.

The BMA says the move has meant significant responsibilities have been transferred to practice staff to ensure efficient administration.

Capita has a contract to manage the NHS England Primary Care Support Service for at least seven years.

Writing to NHS England, BMA GP committee chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “Capita appears to have been considerably under-prepared for the level of work and resource required for the roll-out of new services related to patient records transfer and provision of medical supplies, and the reconfiguration of PCS offices.

“The pilot and interim solutions continue to be unsatisfactory and have led to significant delays in receiving patients’ records, and increased workload, disruption and expense to practices.”

He adds: “NHS England made this change to a reliable and trusted NHS service with the explicit intent of making significant financial savings through the use of a commercial provider.

“The result has been an unacceptable transfer of unfunded work on to already hard-pressed practices.

“Therefore every practice should receive recurrent recompense for the extra workload related to the new Capita services, in addition to compensation for increased workload and inconvenience caused by the unsatisfactory introduction of these services.”