A senior doctor has called for action to stabilise general practice or more surgeries will be forced to hand back their contracts, leaving many other communities at risk of losing this vital service.
The British Medical Association in Northern Ireland has warned that up to 50 GP surgeries here are at risk of closure.
To date, 16 surgeries have handed their contracts back to the Department of Health (DoH) in the past year, while it's understood that a further 30 practices are "in crisis", according to the BMA's NI chair, Dr Tom Black.
