THE new preferred provider of medical and community services at the Lyme Regis Medical Centre is to be national company Virgin Care.

The company is part of the global Virgin Group founded by billionaire tycoon Richard Branson.

NHS Dorset has stressed to patients that it is business as usual at the Uplyme Road Centre.

A spokesman said: “We would like to reassure patients that services will carry on as normal and the teams who currently provide these services will continue to do so.”

The recommendation to award preferred provider status for the Alternative Provider Medical Services contract was made by the Dorset Primary Care Trust’s Lyme Regis Medical Centre Procurement Project Team.

It was approved by the board of NHS Dorset following a lengthy bidding process. The announcement follows a complex legal dispute over ownership of the medical centre building, which saw the eviction of Dr Ian Conway.

Views were sought from local people and organisations about what they wanted from healthcare in the area.

The primary care trust used the findings in the tender process to emphasise the importance of health services to local people.

Today people in the town were digesting the news and waiting to find out what the announcement would mean.

Mayor Sally Holman said she was studying the statement from the health trust and would be interested in collecting local people’s responses.

“I am interested in seeing what exactly is on offer and will that meet what residents asked for,” she said.

The Lyme Regis Medical Centre will be the third APMS contract in Dorset.

It uses a form of contract which was introduced to allow primary care trusts to make arrangements with additional providers outside established contracting routes to provide services.