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Docs’ petition opposes private NHS
A WESTMINSTER GP will deliver a 45,000-strong petition to Downing Street today (Friday) calling on the Government to halt its use of private sector companies in running the National Health Service.
Dr Anoushka Hari, a sessional doctor working in Westminster, is leading a London-wide campaign calling for a rethink on plans to shut local practices and bundle doctors into bigger surgeries across London.
Polyclinics are expected to be run by private companies such as the American health giant UnitedHealth which recently won a contract to run the Brunswick Practice in Bloomsbury.
Dr Hari, vice chairman of the doctors’ lobby group Londonwide London Medical Committees, who organised the petition, said: “The concerns are it might cause general practice to dissolve. Patients will have further to walk and will demand home visits.”
No formal plans to open a polyclinic have yet been approved. But the Primary Care Trust has hired UnitedHealth to conduct a feasibility study. The move sparked outrage among local GPs who said the decision to employ UnitedHealth might put the private company at an unfair advantage when contracts come up for tender.
Labour MP Karen Buck said: “Many different ways of improving primary care are proposed, providing common support services to existing practices, for example.” |
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