’Interesting. I did receive a call and asked if you were aware of what was going on and was told "yes". I suggest you talk to the LMC about this.’ (Derby Road Health Centre, Nottingham)

’He said his company was the new official website provider for the LMC Buying Group. He then said that as part of their ongoing commitment to the LMC they have decided to offer all surgeries that are currently with Sites 4 Doctors a transfer over to the new website free of charge.’ (Daybrook Medical Practice, Nottingham)

I have passed these to Chris Locke at Notts LMC but have not yet had a reply. I have also been in touch by email with CNS Media, who operate Surgery Link, and received a telephone call. They are under the impression that they have been instructed by the LMC to take over all practice websites. As I said in yesterday’s update, the LMC has no authority to issue such an instruction.

If you receive such an offer, we suggest you ask the following questions:

1: If they have a product which they believe to be genuinely attractive to GP practices, why are they starting their marketing campaign by attempting to poach Sites4Doctors customers?

2: If their product is so attractive, why do they need to offer a ’loss leader’ to tempt Sites4Doctors customers to switch providers, in effect giving away £199-worth of work to each practice?

3: Do they really believe their product to be so superior to Sites4Doctors that practices will be willing to pay £170 a year more for it than they currently pay for Sites4Doctors (£420 per year compared with £250)?

4: What in-house expertise do they have to help practices publish essential information to patients in an organised and accessible way?

We believe that the answer to both 1 and 2 is that they see a quick, cheap and easy way to build a core portfolio of practice websites which they can use to market their package more widely. The time saved in copying and pasting the existing content of your website - painstakingly entered and maintained by you - into their templates will probably more than compensate them for the lost £199.

You can draw your own conclusions in response to 4 by looking at Surgery Link’s one-and-only practice website, Netherfield Medical Centre (http://www.netherfieldmc.co.uk/).