SIR – As a patient of Thornton Medical Centre I was appalled to learn that the Primary Care Trust had terminated their service agreement with my GP who leads the provision of local services.

They tell me that it was because another GP at the practice had given notice of terminating her agreement with the PCT.

What one event has to do with the other is beyond me. I understood that agreements to provide personal medical services were just that – personal.

Our GP did not want to end his agreement, yet it has been taken from him. All the more mysterious is that the PCT have given him a temporary contact to run the service to next April while the PCT carry out a tendering process.

No-one at the PCT can provide a coherent answer to my concerns, which are shared by many other patients.

We face losing our GP, who does not want to leave, and then having our local medical services sold off every five years-or-so to enterprises with no long-term incentive to invest in the practice.

If this is putting patients first, then I fear for all of us!

Laurie Horam, Mary Street, Thornton