One of the UK’s biggest GP practice operators has quietly passed into the hands of the US health insurance group #Centene Corporation, prompting calls for an official investigation into what campaigners claim is “privatisation of the NHS by stealth”.
A coalition of doctors, campaigners and academics has voiced concerns in a letter sent this week to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, asking him to order an investigation by the Care Quality Commission.
Operose Health, a UK subsidiary of Centene, has recently taken over the privately owned AT Medics, which was set up in 2004 by six NHS GPs and runs 37 GP practices across 49 sites in London. #Operose already operates 21 GP surgeries in England.
Objectors are concerned because they claim the change of control was approved for eight practices in the London boroughs of Camden, Islington and Haringey in a virtual meeting on 17 December that lasted less than nine minutes, during which no mention was made of Centene and not a single question was asked.
The approval was granted by the North Central London clinical commissioning group (NCL CCG), a local NHS body that purchases health services from GPs, hospitals and others using taxpayer funds.
The campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, Doctors in Unite, Allyson Pollock, a clinical professor of public health at Newcastle University, and others have written to Josephine Sauvage, the chair of #NCL #CCG, urging her to block the change of control at AT Medics, which has made £35m in profits over the last five years.
Boris Johnson and his fellow Tories ‘gave their word’ #ourNHS would not be sold off to American or other interests.
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