Camden News - By TOM FOOT Published: 27 August 2009
Patients urged to boycott new private super surgery
Health campaigners warn of slippery slope to privatising NHS
ANTI-PRIVATISATION campaigners are calling on patients to boycott a new “super-surgery” in Euston. Private company Care UK as been named the preferred bidder to run the GP-led health centre ahead of a consortium of south Camden doctors and without any consultation.
NHS Camden, the borough’s Primary Care Trust, believes it does not have to consult on the centre, which is expected to open in Hampstead Road in December.
But lawyers disagree and are poised to launch a legal challenge that could stall the process and land NHS bosses up in the High Court.
Candy Udwin, chairwoman of Camden Keep Our NHS Public, said: “A privatised GP health centre is just the next step on the privatisation road that threatens the National Health Service as we know it. We are telling patients at nearby surgeries to boycott the health centre.”
The decision to give millions of pounds of NHS funding to a private company, ahead of a consortium of local doctors, mirrors the decision last April to award the American healthcare giant UnitedHealth contracts to run three south Camden surgeries.
Decisions on who runs what are made by NHS Camden board members and overseen by the official patients’ representative group, Camden Link.
Link chairman Neil Woodnick, who sat in on the committee that awarded United Health a contract, said: “We asked, specifically about the GP-led health centre, how much weighting there was on value for money. I was told 70 per cent was quality of the service, and 30 per cent was value for money. “The big thing about United Healthcare was that value for money seemed to come in later. It was said that the PCT moved the goalposts during the consultation. Value for money suddenly became an important thing – UH bid £25 less per patient than the GPs. “The fact is that these contracts are set up as legal contracts obliged to offer it to other firms. You cannot say we are not prepared to take any bids from the private sector – it’s illegal to do that. The whole thing is about outcome. “Are the patients satisfied? If you look at United Health practices, the numbers of patients has increased r
oughly by 8 per cent. If they are not happy, patients will walk with their feet.”
