Mitchison Road Surgery and Hanley Primary Care Centre are due to be sold to the HCRG Group, formerly known as Richard Branson’s Virgin Healthcare Ltd, as part of a sale of 60 UK surgeries believed to be worth £50 million. The two surgeries were previously run by AT Medics and Operose Health which is owned by Centene, the giant US health insurance company.

Professor Sue Richards, a member of IKONP, told the Islington Tribune that as a private equity company it has “no requirement to post company accounts, so it is very hard to see how the ICB [Integrated Care Board] ensure that the company taking over control is of good standing.”

The North Central London ICB, which decides how NHS funding is spent in Islington, will be holding a public webinar on the sale on 29 February, 2024 on the sale. You can learn more at this website and register for the webinar by clicking here.

We need to know why the ICB is agreeing to this proposal and how it benefits the patients at these surgeries. We can ask questions at the webinar but these questions need to be submitted by Friday 16 February to: nclicb.changeofcontrol@nhs.net.

We believe that there are other options for these surgeries.

The Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) Primary Care Working Group are aware of good alternatives that ICBs and their Primary Care Committees could adopt, that would secure a safer, more stable service and better value for money: 

• Enable Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and GP Federations to take over the Operose practices or support a merger of the Operose practices with other practices.
  • Award a GMS contract to PCNs to run practices, as has happened in Hoddesdon and Broxbourne PCN. Hertfordshire and West Essex made this decision to secure the long-term sustainability of the practice and care provided.  
  • The shortage of GPs, and particularly those wanting to be partners might be improved if practices were paid even a percentage of the 14% extra per patient that commercial practices receive, as with extra resources, the task of running practices would be more attractive.
  • Longer term, establish within Integrated Care Systems a body, e.g. PCN, GP Federation or a new body e.g. a primary care board, to hold NHS GMS contracts.
  • Encourage practices to convert to anEmployee Ownership Trust (EOT) as inMinehead, Somerset. Dubbed a John Lewis model it gives all staff shares in the company. EOTs cannot be sold and thus the practice become a community asset, fixed by their GMS contract to the community they serve. GP EOT accounts are open and transparent.

KONP’s position on primary care ownership and contracting is that Alternative Provider of Medical Services (APMS) contracts, which have been mandated by NHSE since 2014, with few exceptions, should be phased out and no new ones awarded. All practices should be on GMS contracts, run by GPs or salaried services run by other NHS bodies, as outlined in the alternatives listed previously, and not up for sale.

See this article on the KONP website for more information.