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Make health bureaucrats listen to us
• CONGRATULATIONS to Tom Foot for his article (Private firm wins £20m health centre contract, August 6) on NHS Camden’s decision to appoint Care UK to run the new Hampstead Road health centre, near Warren Street.
For the second time, our unelected borough health bureaucrats have taken a high-handed decision without full local consultation and appointed a commercial operator to run GP services for several thousands of Camden’s residents.
I know first-hand from my councillor surgeries that, for example, UnitedHealth’s performance in operating the Camden Road practice has resulted in all original doctors having left and tales of chaos and dissatisfaction with the new service.
There’s a mismatch between what NHS Camden says and does. Currently, there’s a plausible, cleverly designed borough-wide consultation document Primary and Urgent Care Strategy (available as a download at: www.camden.nhs.uk/ primary-and-urgent-care-strategy.htm.
For example, it fudges the issue of polyclinics by reporting that: “Our polyclinics will be systems not just buildings”. This consultation doesn’t close for two more months and yet at page 11 the implication is that the selection process for Hampstead Road’s centre is ongoing and the first principle of selection is that the operator “will provide the best quality of service and care...”
I fail to see how the venture capital-backed commercial providers of nursing homes can possibly be justified as more qualified to do this than the alternative consortium of experienced local GPs.
Once again, Camden residents have every reason to be suspicious of our health service’s autocratic behaviour which let’s not forget, not so long ago threatened our excellent out-of-hours service CAMIDOC.
When is NHS Camden’s top management going to engage properly with and listen to the community it serves?
Cllr Paul Braithwaite
Lib Dem, Cantelowes ward
Nye would not approve
• I AM concerned a private company, Care UK, has been chosen as preferred bidder for the health centre contract.
It’s incredible to think a firm with no experience, in a dubious consultation, could be handed such a contract, especially while sidelining the views of doctors with years of experience and knowledge in our area. Nye Bevan would be appalled.
Rob Higson, NW2
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