US-style healthcare decision is not about patient choice

Published: 12 August, 2010

• I WAS disgusted but, frankly, not surprised to read that NHS Camden has failed to sign the contract it awarded to Camidoc, the locally-based non-profit “clinicians on call” out-of-hours service and, instead, signed a contract with Harmoni, a “private health company” based in Hertfordshire. 

The grounds stated were concerns over Camidoc’s “ability to manage its finances”. 

If Camidoc could not provide the right quality of service at the price agreed, how could a for-profit company, not based in London and with many other irons in the fire, do so? 

The answer is simple: either by increasing the price or, if the price stayed the same, by cutting services, spreading cover more thinly and using non-local doctors, perhaps those flown in from Europe for the weekend.

One of the great mantras of the new NHS is supposed to be patient choice, but I cannot see that those of us likely to use this service have been given any choice at all. 

Rather this is all about politics, a desire to sub-contract out our NHS to for-profit companies. 

The model seems to be that of the USA and the goal is profits for those healthcare companies who have managed to insert themselves into the market for healthcare services.

I have used the services of Camidoc and I was completely satisfied by the prompt and high-quality services provided by a GP from a local practice.

NHS Camden has long wished to get rid of Camidoc and now it has done so… 

Would you buy a used car from these people? 

No, but we’re buying healthcare from them.
Meta Zimmeck
Queen Alexandra Mansions
Judd Street, WC1

Privatisation?

• TOM Foot reports (No guarantees for GPs and NHS staff, August 5), about Camidoc having summarily lost the four boroughs’ out-of-hours contract that it serves. 

Like most New Journal readers I had been very pleased to read the news in March that NHS Camden acting chief executive Liz Wise had announced that Camidoc had been reawarded the contract. 

Now Harmoni Ltd, a big private Hertfordshire healthcare company, is to take over running the service in just 50 days time. 

Tom Foot reported “…NHS Camden had not signed the contract leaving them in the clear to cancel the deal.” 

Where is NHS Camden’s moral integrity?

Like many others I hugely admire Camidoc and its dedication to a local doctor-led service. I’ll be hard to persuade that it should be unilaterally ditched by our primary care trust. 

I finally did received a very brief briefing note the day after the New Journal story, which did not even have any named source. 

The suggestion was that Camidoc was losing money as a victim of its own success because it attended 30 per cent more patients in the last year than expected and in consequence the revenue it made from the price demanded by NHS Camden left it in the red. Further, the new White Paper has supposedly influenced the speed of the decision. But White Papers are not necessarily implemented in full. 

If this one were to be, NHS Camden would be abolished and £500million of procurements will be devolved to GP consortia to make the purchase decisions. 

Two comments: First I’d be amazed if Camden GPs would be happy to endorse a decision to ditch Camidoc. 

Second, as Jacky Davis, a local doctor spokesperson, has warned the creation of new buying consortia look to be a back-door to privatisation. 

But how many Camden citizens would shed a tear if NHS Camden, with its lack of regard for residents, is no more, as a result of the White Paper? 

I wonder.  
Cllr Paul Braithwaite
Lib Dem, Cantelowes ward