New to Partnership Payment Scheme - Risk to the Practice?

Following on from my last post, an article from GP Online has suggested that there may be hidden costs for GP practices. An accountant that was interviewed has said that there may be issues if the new partner was to leave or change his hours, and that if NHS England would claw that money back from the surgery. 

'If someone leaves or reduces their working hours then there is a clawback off the practice contract. So it’s tricky in that practices are expected to pay over the full amount to the new partner but they may then need to recover money if they leave.'

He also feels there would be thousands of pounds that needed to be spent on the partnership agreement to add a new partner and avoid this issue. 

My thoughts are that this is still early and may be worth seeing how the early adopters fare. The process seems to protect the rest of the partners if the new partner absconds however. The new partner completes the application form and agrees and signs that they will return the grant if they were to leave the partnership.

The Partnership also agrees to pay the new partner the grant, and they have checked that the new partner is eligible. 

If approved, the partnership receives a S96 contract. A sample one is not yet available yet which may give some clues regarding liabilities and risk to the partnership. Once the signed S96 contract is returned to NHS England, the grant is sent to the practice and the practice has to confirm that the money has been paid to the new partner. This confirmation is likely to protect the partnership, as they can say they have passed the monies to the new partner. Also the new partner has to meet for annual check ups to make sure they are still in the practice and working the same number of sessions; any changes will mean they will have to repay the money (or get paid some more money).

In short, I feel it's early to say this will effect practices negatively. I imagine the people who came up with this scheme have thought about this issue, and will have made provisions to make sure this sort of thing shouldn't occur. Waiting for the S96 sample contract and seeing some early adopters may allay some of the early fears with this scheme, but I have faith it will all go smoothly regardless. 

EDIT 22/09/2020 : Partnerships will be liable if the partner does leave so making sure the partnership agreement or there is letter of indemnity in place is a must for practices. 

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