This uproar over a Brighton GP surgery shows how the NHS is slipping into private hands | Polly Toynbee
IT as a thunderstorm. Wellsbourne GP practice in Wattook, East BrightonIt was just said that she is losing her contract. NHS Sussex, the local integrated care council (ICB), temporarily delivers it to a company based in Leeds far from the work of its main business in owning and managing health real estate. This is a story on how parts of NHS are escaped To the profit makers, despite the government’s goal in setting society first. The company, one medical group, won the offer to reduce the price and suggest adding a walking center. It is not a single case: some other ICBS has incorrectly developed a good NHS community services for tender, and she feels that she is forced to take the slightest offer.
To give you a approximate picture, in 2019, Whitehawk was ranked among the top 10 % of the most deprived areas in England, and the most deprived in Brighton. According to a doctor from this practiceThe average life expectancy in the area is 10 % less than it is on the other side of the city. The famous Marmott review of health inevitability and its social causes underwent a study of deprivation. It is the type of place that needs GPS exceptionally committed.
In other words, you expect a private company to reap. In fact, the last private company that runs the practice of GP stops, leaving services in a state of chaos. GPS of Wellsbourne is now as part of a non -profit community interest company. “We are here because this is the type of work we want to do,” said Bossi Green, a surgeon. Although the new company will re -employ it, it tells me that they are likely to leave, because “working on a special profit provider is not commensurate with our view of NHS.” Greeny also wrote in a local publication, Sussex Pines: “A working model will dismantle. A deadly team will spread to gain confidence.”
Within days of news, a petition that opposes the delivery of this practice is more than 2000 signatures. Wilsburn is a cell of societal activity. It works closely with Wahtok Food Bank, Community Sports Center and Youth Center. Artists run community projects there and volunteers tend to a community park with patients. All of these services can now be in danger. The Welfare Quality Committee evaluates the practice as “good”, in an area where reaching all the goals of the regulator is difficult.
Here is the puzzle. The Malaysian Andrew Lansley system that opened NHS It is assumed that “any Ragheb provider” to compete for contracts was swept in 2022, and replaced by ICBS, which sought to cooperate in all NHS and social services in England. However, some ICBS still applies the old competitive motivation to NHS services, although they now have a commitment to ensure that bids help reduce inequality.
To be fair, the entire NHS is under the whip Canceling his deficit of 6 billion pounds. The government has issued instructions to ICBS to reduce operating costs 50 % by October this year; Sussex ICB must achieve it 30 % cost discounts By 2025-26. Some ICBS fades. The government presented “integrated neighborhood teams”, however A 10 -year plan Explanation of what he is still doing has not been published. In my decades, NHS has always been about to recover from the main reorganization. Regardless of the reasonable extent, this may seem, its true cost is not calculated. Reorganization “takes longer than you think, you end up cost more than you expect, leaving you with a dispersed and frustrated workforce,” The director of the King’s Fund policy writesSiva Anandakiva.
Providing costs in Whitehawk may be just an occasional repercussion for reorganization 2022. After all, the privatization of surgery is inconsistent with the next plan to transform health to society and emphasize social protection. Green told me that about 60 % of its patients have long -term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and mental health problems. They have a special Intensive care practitioners Give additional social support.
Sussex ICB told me that national regulations mean that they “should follow an open purchase, with all parties to pay attention to providing services to this community to submit a request.” Otherwise, its spokesman said, the private companies will challenge them in court. But the experts of the King Fund told me There is no commitment to ICBS to provide current NHS services – and that they can reject cheaper bids for the best “social value”.
The requirements of “social value” have sent most private operators to a decline. The large American company operates She sold her GP surgeriesand While Babylon has It collapsed. Becce Baird, an initial care expert at the King’s Fund, told me that the number of private companies that run NHS GP Grantes has decreased three quarters of its climax a decade ago: Now it runs only 63 practices by private companies, which reach about 1 % of all practices throughout Britain.
The Labor Party stressed its willingness to use special services to survey the waiting lists, but this proves costly. The profits are still ongoing: Immediately before the elections, ICB allowed a huge contract It reaches 1.3 billion pounds To the HCRG CARE (once CARE), all community services are covered via Bath, North-East Somerset, Wiltshire and Swindon. Meanwhile, long waiting lists lead patients to buy special treatments for once. According to the Health Corporation, the overall optional process from the private sector increased from 7.4 % in 2019-20 to 8.3 % in 2022-23.
Wellsbourne seems to have fallen into a warp in the era of competition in Lansley. With no experience in writing tenders, the current GPS had no hope against companies that have full teams of people who specialize in giving. GPS has resumed, ICB could change his opinion. If not, they can appeal to Whitol. Local MP, Chris Ward, defends them strongly. He told me: “I strongly oppose a profit supplier to replace a local community.” “This is a major issue, it is what exhaustion The party symbolizes. “
If this arrives at the Wes Streeting office, it will certainly reflect a decision that fly in the face of its societal policies. Determining this general example would stop ICBS other misleading that still transports community services to private companies, and quietly privatizing parts of our NHS.
