NHS Commissioners have terminated the contract with Operose, the owner of AT Medics, to run Mitchison Road Surgery in Islington. The  NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board (NCL ICB) also decided that contracts for five GP practices in Camden operated by AT Medics Ltd will be reprocured over the next 18 months.

All GP practices will remain open and services for patients will continue uninterrupted. The Committee decided to end current contracts at Brunswick Medical Centre, Camden Health Improvement Practice, Kings Cross Surgery and Somers Town Medical Centre as well as the Mitchison Road Surgery. The NCL ICB said the 18-month extension period was agreed to ensure patient services continue uninterrupted while new arrangements are secured.

The NCL ICB ended the contract at Operose’s St Ann’s Road GP Surgery in Haringey in June, and awarded the contract for running Islington’e Hanley Road Primary Care Centre, one of the original AT Medics’ practices, to the Islington GP Federation. As a result, this association of local Islington GPs will look at the best way to run the practice.

These decisions come after the NCL ICB disclosed that they were not informed of, nor gave permission for, the takeover of Operose by the private equity firm Twenty20 Capital.

This is a victory for local campaigners from Haringey (in the photo above) and Islington Keep Our NHS Public who argued that this is a breach of contract that should have automatically been met with immediate notice of termination.

Operose runs GP surgeries around the country, and no other ICB has terminated contracts as a result of the ‘serious breach’ of contracts following Operose’s takeover. 

NCLs Primary Care Committee have bucked the trend where other ICBs have not acted on this breach of contract

Members of the committee took the view that they had lost trust in Operose, and a precedent needed to be set to other providers that contracts cannot be broken. They highlighted the importance of showing they were listening to voices of stakeholders ;and they had to act in the best interest of patient care. 

Representatives from Operose did not even turn up to the Committee to present their view.

Background

AT Medics /Operose have over  50 GP surgeries, mainly in London, previously owned by the US health insurance giant, Centene Corporation, operating in the UK under the name Operose. Centene sold the practices to HCRG Care Group in December 2023 without NHS pemission. HCRG is itself owned by a British private equity company, T20 Osprey Midco Ltd.