{"id":29350,"date":"2021-07-01T15:56:13","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T14:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=29350"},"modified":"2021-07-01T15:56:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T14:56:15","slug":"london-gp-practices-takeover-challenged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=29350","title":{"rendered":"London GP practices takeover challenged"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The takeover of GP practices in London by US health insurance giant Centene Corporation could be the subject of a judicial review, Unite the union has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaigners, including members of Doctors in Unite (DiU), have \u00e2\u20ac\u0098crowdfunded\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 about \u00c2\u014140,000 towards a possible judicial review regarding the recent takeover by Centene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s UK subsidiary Operose of the privately-owned AT Medics set up in 2004 by six NHS GPs and which runs 37 GP practices across London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaigners are waiting to hear if all the legal hurdles have been crossed and the case can proceed on the basis of the lack of transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To drive the message home, campaigners will be staging a socially-distanced demonstration over Centene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s takeover outside the Department of Health and Social Care, 39 Victoria St, London SW1H 0EU at 6pm on Monday July 5 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the NHS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 73rd birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scheduled to attend the protest are former Labour leader and MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn; Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy; and Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health spokesperson on the Greater London Authority Dr Onkar Sahota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctors in Unite chair Jackie Applebee said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMinisters and senior NHS executives have repeatedly mouthed the mantra that the NHS is not being privatised, but that is patently not true as the awarding of lucrative contracts to private healthcare firms continues apace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are now hoping to test this policy with a judicial review as to why a huge swathe of English general practice, including the data of nearly half a million patients, was\u00c2\u00a0 handed over to US health insurance giant Centene \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with a breath-taking lack of transparency and openness,” she added. “We have been told by the lawyers that we have a strong case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe new health and social care secretary Sajid Javid needs to be made aware of the strong groundswell of public opinion against the accelerating pace of\u00c2\u00a0 NHS privatisation presided over by his disgraced predecessor Matt Hancock and he should immediately reverse the hiving off of NHS services to profit-hungry healthcare companies, such as Centene,” Applebee continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere is a world of difference between a multinational corporation that operates to make a profit, often by cutting staff and services, so that it can pay dividends to shareholders; and local GPs who are very much part of the NHS \u00e2\u20ac\u0098family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and provide services from a budget fixed by the Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe public needs to wake-up to the fact the NHS, whose 73rd anniversary we celebrate on Monday (5 July), is being steadily sold off to profit-hungry healthcare companies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in this case one whose headquarters is in America,” she went on to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe public values the NHS deeply, especially given its pivotal role in the successful roll-out of the Covid vaccination programme, so now is a time to draw a line in the sand to preserve and cherish the NHS as an organisation free at the point of delivery to all those in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf we are not vigilant, these founding principles of the NHS in 1948 will become mere ghosts of themselves.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Shaun Noble<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pic by Mark Thomas – from DiU protest in April<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The takeover of GP practices in London by US health insurance giant Centene Corporation could be the subject of a judicial review, Unite the union has said. Campaigners, including members of Doctors in Unite (DiU), have \u00e2\u20ac\u0098crowdfunded\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 about \u00c2\u014140,000 towards a possible judicial review regarding the recent takeover by Centene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s UK subsidiary Operose of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1676,669,81],"wps_subtitle":"Takeover of London GP practices by US health insurance giant Centene could face judicial review","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29350"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29352,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29350\/revisions\/29352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}