Latest news with #OneMedicalGroup
BBC News
6 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Possible private takeover of 'beloved' GP surgery halted
A private company's takeover of a community-run, not-for-profit GP surgery in Brighton has been paused, following local Healthcare Community Interest Company (CIC) currently runs the Whitehawk, but there was a possibility of it being handed over to Leeds-based One Medical Group when the NHS started procuring a new Sussex said it is now considering its options, after campaigners said it would be an "absolute travesty" to lose an "effective and well-loved" surgery. One Medical Group said it delivered NHS services to the "highest standards" and had a "deep-rooted commitment to improving access, quality, and outcomes in healthcare". 'Strong public feedback' Chris Ward, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, hailed the move as a "victory", having started a petition - Save Wellsbourne Healthcare - which got more than 4,000 signatures. "I'm so proud of our community for standing up and fighting back against the threat of a private provider replacing Wellsbourne," he said. The potential takeover was stopped following a report by the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel found that NHS Sussex had broken procurement rules. The trust added that it had also taken into account "strong public feedback" in recent weeks."Our ambition has always been to ensure that there is the best possible GP services offered to the local residents in this area of the city," said Amy Galea, chief integration and primary care officer at NHS Sussex. "We will now... see how best to achieve this," she added. Ms Galea said that the GP surgery will continue to run as normal. The Whitehawk GP surgery, which lies within one of the most deprived areas in Sussex, serves around 8,300 people, according to NHS Sussex.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Takeover of GP surgery 'concerning'
Campaigners are holding a tug-of-war to highlight what they say is the threat to a community-run, non-profit GP surgery in Brighton from a private company. The Whitehawk surgery is currently run by the Wellsbourne Healthcare Community Interest Company, but it could be handed over to Leeds-based One Medical Group after NHS Sussex started procuring for a new contract. NHS Sussex said it could not comment on the procurement process as it was still under way. Janet Sang, part of Sussex Defend NHS, said the campaign group was "extremely concerned" that an "effective and well-loved GP service" could be transferred to a profit-making entity. "We believe this is... not in the best interests of the people of Whitehawk," she added. One Medical Group, which said it had more than two decades of experience in "delivering high-quality primary care services across the UK", said it could not comment as the procurement process was ongoing. It added it had "consistently delivered [NHS services] to the highest standard across diverse demographics". "We pride ourselves on.... our collaborative approach with local communities, ensuring that healthcare is both reflective and responsive to local needs," it continued. NHS Sussex said it needed to procure a new contract for running the doctor's surgery, which serves around 8,300 people, as the current one has expired. It said the new contract had been designed to meet the needs of the local population in what it called one of the most deprived areas in Sussex. Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC took over the GP surgery several years ago after the previous private provider walked away, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Anger over uncertain future of GP surgery Brighton & Hove City Councillor David McGregor, who said he planned to attend the tug-of-war event, said the Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC had done a "fantastic job" and NHS Sussex should "reconsider". Chris Ward, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, has started a petition - titled Save Wellsbourne Healthcare - that has more than 3,000 signatures as of 5 June. Sarah Webb, business manager at Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC, previously urged NHS Sussex to talk to the people of Whitehawk. "Listen to residents," she told BBC Radio Sussex in May. Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. Anger over uncertain future of GP surgery NHS Sussex Local Democracy Reporting Service
BBC News
06-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Brighton GP surgery under threat from private company, says campaigner
Campaigners are holding a tug-of-war to highlight what they say is the threat to a community-run, non-profit GP surgery in Brighton from a private Whitehawk surgery is currently run by the Wellsbourne Healthcare Community Interest Company, but it could be handed over to Leeds-based One Medical Group after NHS Sussex started procuring for a new contract. NHS Sussex said it could not comment on the procurement process as it was still under way. Janet Sang, part of Sussex Defend NHS, said the campaign group was "extremely concerned" that an "effective and well-loved GP service" could be transferred to a profit-making entity. "We believe this is... not in the best interests of the people of Whitehawk," she added. One Medical Group, which said it had more than two decades of experience in "delivering high-quality primary care services across the UK", said it could not comment as the procurement process was ongoing. It added it had "consistently delivered [NHS services] to the highest standard across diverse demographics". "We pride ourselves on.... our collaborative approach with local communities, ensuring that healthcare is both reflective and responsive to local needs," it continued. 'Fantastic job' NHS Sussex said it needed to procure a new contract for running the doctor's surgery, which serves around 8,300 people, as the current one has expired. It said the new contract had been designed to meet the needs of the local population in what it called one of the most deprived areas in Sussex. Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC took over the GP surgery several years ago after the previous private provider walked away, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Anger over uncertain future of GP surgery Brighton & Hove City Councillor David McGregor, who said he planned to attend the tug-of-war event, said the Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC had done a "fantastic job" and NHS Sussex should "reconsider".Chris Ward, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, has started a petition - titled Save Wellsbourne Healthcare - that has more than 3,000 signatures as of 5 June. Sarah Webb, business manager at Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC, previously urged NHS Sussex to talk to the people of Whitehawk."Listen to residents," she told BBC Radio Sussex in May.
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
This uproar over a Brighton GP surgery shows how the NHS is slipping into private hands
It came as a thundering shock. Wellsbourne GP practice in Whitehawk, East Brighton, has just been told it is losing its contract. NHS Sussex, the local integrated care board (ICB), is provisionally handing it over to a distant Leeds-based company whose main business is in owning and managing healthcare properties. This is a story about how parts of the NHS can slip away to profit-makers, despite the government's aim to put community first. The company, One Medical Group, won the bid by undercutting on price and proposing to add a walk-in centre. It's not a lone case: some other ICBs erroneously put good NHS community services out for tender, and feel obliged to take the lowest bid. To give you a rough portrait, in 2019 Whitehawk was ranked within the top 10% of England's most deprived areas, and the most deprived in Brighton. According to a doctor from the practice, life expectancy in the area is 10% lower than it is on the other side of the city. The renowned Marmot review on health inequalities and their underlying social causes drew on Whitehawk as a study of deprivation. It's the type of place that needs exceptionally socially committed GPs. It's not, in other words, where you would expect a private company to make money. Indeed, the last private company managing the GP practice quit, leaving services in disarray. The GPs of Wellsbourne now work as part of a not-for-profit community interest company. 'We're here because this is the kind of work we want to do,' said Posy Greany, a doctor at the surgery. Although they would be re-employed by the new company, she tells me they are likely to leave, as 'working for a private for-profit provider doesn't fit with our view of the NHS'. As Greany wrote in a local publication, Sussex Bylines: 'It will dismantle a model that is working. It will scatter a team that has fought to earn trust.' Within days of the news, a petition opposing the handover of the practice gathered more than 2,000 signatures. Wellsbourne is a hive of community activity. It works closely with Whitehawk's food bank, community sports centre and youth centre. Artists run community projects there and volunteers tend to a community garden with patients. All of these services could now be at risk. The Care Quality Commission rates the practice as 'good', in an area where reaching all of the regulator's targets is hard. Here's the puzzle. Andrew Lansley's calamitous system that opened the NHS to 'any willing provider' to compete for contracts was supposedly swept away in 2022, replaced with ICBs that strove for cooperation across all NHS and social services in England. Yet some ICBs still apply the old competitive impulse to NHS services, even though they now have an obligation to ensure that tenders help to reduce inequalities. To be fair, the entire NHS is the under the whip to eliminate its £6bn deficit. The government has instructed ICBs to reduce their running costs by 50% by October this year; the Sussex ICB has to achieve cost reductions of 30% by 2025-26. Some ICBs are fading away. The government has introduced 'integrated neighbourhood teams', but the 10-year plan explaining what these do still hasn't been published. In my decades of reporting, the NHS was always on the verge of, or just recovering from, a major reorganisation. No matter how reasonable these might seem, their true cost is never counted. Re-disorganisations 'take far longer than you think, end up costing far more than you anticipate, and leave you with a distracted and demoralised workforce,' writes the King's Fund policy director, Siva Anandaciva. Cost-saving in Whitehawk may be just one accidental fallout of the 2022 reorganisation. After all, the surgery's privatisation goes against the coming plan to shift health into the community and emphasise social prevention. Greany told me that about 60% of her patients have long-term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and mental health problems. They have special focused care practitioners giving extra social support. The Sussex ICB told me that national regulations meant it 'had to follow an open procurement process, with the ability for all parties with interest in providing services to this community to submit an application'. Otherwise, its spokesperson said, private companies would challenge them in court. But King's Fund experts told me that there is no obligation for ICBs to tender out existing NHS services – and that they can reject cheaper bids in favour of best 'social value'. The 'social value' requirement sent most private operators into retreat. The large US company Operose has sold its GP surgeries, while Babylon has collapsed. Beccy Baird, a primary care expert at the King's Fund, told me the number of private companies running NHS GP surgeries has fallen by three-quarters since its peak a decade ago: now just 63 practices are run by private companies, amounting to about 1% of all practices across Britain. Labour has stressed its willingness to use private services to clear waiting lists, but this is proving costly. Profits are still being made: just before the election, an ICB let out a huge contract worth up to £1.3bn to the private equity group HCRG Care (once Virgin Care), covering all community services across Bath, north-east Somerset, Wiltshire and Swindon. Meanwhile, long waiting lists are driving patients to buy one-off private treatments. According to the Health Foundation, the overall proportion of privately funded elective operations rose from 7.4% in 2019-20 to 8.3% in 2022-23. Wellsbourne seems to be caught in Lansley's competition-era time warp. With no experience of writing tenders, its current GPs hadn't a hope against companies that have entire teams of people who specialise in tender-writing. The GPs have appealed, and the ICB could still change its mind. If not, they could appeal to Whitehall. Their local MP, Chris Ward, is defending them vigorously. 'I'm strongly opposed to a for-profit provider replacing a local community one,' he told me. 'This is a matter of principal, it's what the Labour party stands for.' If this reaches Wes Streeting's desk, surely he would reverse a decision that flies in the face of his own community policies. Setting that public example would halt other misguided ICBs wrongly still tendering out community services to private companies, and quietly privatising parts of our NHS. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Anger over uncertain future of Whitehawk GP surgery
Residents have expressed concern that a community-run, not-for-profit GP surgery in Brighton could be replaced with a private provider. Wellsbourne Healthcare Community Interest Company (CIC) currently runs the surgery in Whitehawk, but it could be taken over by Leeds-based One Medical Group after NHS Sussex started procuring a new contract. Patient Liz Mason told BBC Radio Sussex it would be an "absolute travesty" if the GP surgery that had "done so much for the community" was lost. NHS Sussex said it was aware of the concern being raised and would respond as soon as it could. It added that it was unable to comment further as the procurement process had begun. One Medical Group has been approached for comment. 'Why risk it?' Lacey, another patient, said it was vital that Whitehawk - which she said was "let down quite a lot" as one of the most deprived areas in the city - had a GP they could trust. "Things have been running so well for so long - why risk it [the change]?" she told BBC Radio Sussex. "This service is amazing." Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC took over the GP surgery several years ago after it was previously failing. NHS Sussex said the possible change was needed because the current contract to run the GP service for some 8,300 people had ended. Hundreds stuck in Sussex hospitals, BBC told They detailed that national regulations mean the procurement process has to be open, allowing all parties to submit bids that will be fully considered and evaluated. The healthcare provider added the new contract was designed to meet the current and future needs of the local Webb, business manager at Wellsbourne Healthcare CIC, urged NHS Sussex to talk to the people of Whitehawk."There is still time for them to be heard," she added. "Listen to residents and the community here."
