This presentation outlines how two neighbouring communities worked together to strengthen their ability to recruit and retain general practitioner services. Chiltern is a small rural community of around 1,000 people approx. 250 kms north of Melbourne. In 1999 the town had one elderly part-time GP wishing to retire, and despite long term advertising of the practice for sale the existing GP was unable to gain any interest from a prospective purchaser. Other health services within the town such as the chemist and bush nursing hospital are dependant on the presence of a local GP to remain viable. Discussions between the Chiltern Surgery, Beechworth Surgery (located some 25kms from Chiltern), Local Government, local hospitals, Division of General practice and the Rural Workforce Agency, Victoria (RWAV) commenced to look at the feasibility of the Beechworth Surgery amalgamating with the Chiltern Surgery to maintain GP services in Chiltern. RWAV provided a sustainable models grant of $10,000 to assist the Beechworth Surgery to restructure and prepare a submission to the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care for the project to receive funding as a Demonstration Project in Virtual Amalgamation. The submission was successful and a grant of around $95,000 approved to assist in the development of amalgamated computerised clinical and management systems. This presentation will detail the cooperative approach used and the resulting benefits to the community such as sustainability and reliability of local services, greater choice for the community and improved capacity to recruit GPs in the future to the amalgamated service.