Forum – How we can all profit with the NHS

Main Image : 

Care UK  boss Dr Mark Hunt headed the bid to run a new GP-led health centre planned for Hampstead Road, right Here he puts the company’s side of the argument  ‘…to put the record straight’

AS both a practising NHS GP and the person who led a bid to provide the people of Camden with a new GP-led health centre, I’ve been saddened to read some of the misinformation that has spread throughout Camden about your new health centre and I hope that this column will help to put the record straight.

Many local people are not registered with a GP, either because they simply can’t find one locally able to add them to their lists or because their nearest GP surgery is not open when they need it.

We fully expect that the consultation process will bear out this need for additional GP resources.

A walk-in centre will address a different need: medical conditions and minor emergencies  often crop up at an inconvenient time; you trip over the doormat as you arrive home or you have a family member staying for Christmas who needs to see a doctor, but her GP is 300 miles away.

Do you drive to A&E and feel silly as you sit next to two blood-stained people injured in a road crash or do you stay at home and worry? NHS Direct may be able to help but sometimes you just want to see someone.

The proposed new health care centre would have met both these needs.

It would have provided a GP with whom local people would be able to register.

It could also offer a 365-day-a-year, walk-in, health service for people who aren’t registered patients, for example, those who haven’t got round to registering or your visitors.

In bidding for the chance to offer this service, Care UK wasn’t trying to “take over” NHS services.
Quite the opposite. We very much want to be a part of the NHS; 100 per cent of the health services we provide as a company are NHS services delivered under contract to the NHS and free at the point of use. We have no private patients.

I accept that some people may want to sign up as patients at the new centre because it will offer appointments more suited to their busy lifestyle.

But experience elsewhere has shown that the vast majority will be those who are currently not registered with a GP anywhere.
A walk-in service would also relieve pressure on local A&E services, enabling them to see emergency patients faster.

I’m constantly surprised that involvement of private companies in the NHS is always contrasted with traditional GPs.

Yes, private providers do need to make a profit, but they will not be entitled or able to do    so unless they can demonstrate to the local primary care trust that they are able to provide better value than the alternatives available. And let’s not forget that traditional GPs also contract their services to the NHS and they too need to generate a profit to invest, just like we do, in their practices to grow their services.

I want to reassure you that throughout the country, Care UK’s most important priorities are quality of patient care and patient satisfaction.

If you want to see a successful, and well-liked local health centre you might like to find out more about Care UK’s Broad Street Health Centre in Dagenham.

It has a good local reputation for patient satisfaction and it provides high-quality care. The patients we see have no argument with the sign over the door; they come back each time because we deliver what they want – great quality NHS care.

Of course, it’s vitally important that the local community in Camden shows that it wants and needs a new health centre.

That’s why we support any further consultation.

But the arguments for and against must be based in the realities about what a new centre would actually mean for local people, not hearsay and myths.

• Dr Mark Hunt is a practising NHS GP and managing director of Care UK Primary Care

The government believes 60 per cent of hospital casualty admissions could be treated in GP-led health centres like the one proposed in Hampstead Road. In July, NHS Camden announced Care UK Ltd has won a five-year £20million contract to run its GP-led health centre ahead of a bid from a consortium of local doctors.

In November, campaigners launched legal proceedings claiming the decision to award the contract without public consultation was unlawful. Days before the High Court hearing, NHS Camden admitted defeat and in December announced it had “terminated negotiations” with Care UK until after the general election, when a full consultation is expected to begin.