How Americans grabbed a slice of our NHS

THE decision to close the Osler House surgery in Harlow has its roots more than 4,000 miles away in the US.

The surgery is part of The Practice Group – one of the largest GP providers in the UK with around 50 surgeries and health centres responsible for more than 200,000 patients.

But despite dealing with more than a million NHS appointments a year, the Group’s major stakeholder is a multi-billion pound health insurance company called the Centene Corporation – based in St Louis, Missouri.

Changes introduced by the Labour government in 2004, allowed companies to bid for short term contracts with NHS clinical commissioning groups.

Centene took advantage of this to buy into The Practice Group, later increasing its stake from 49 to 75 per cent in 2016.

It means the company, listed on the New York Stock exchange, now has the final say over a number of GP surgeries in England, and can close them if they are not profitable.

Its involvement has coincided with the closure of a number of surgeries by The Practice Group, often in areas of high deprivation where it is difficult to make a profit.

Two years ago, there was a similar public outcry when it terminated five contracts in Brighton leaving 11,500 patients looking for a new GP. It has also closed a surgery in Camden Road, London, the Maybury surgery in Woking, the Brandon Street practice in Leicester and the Arboretum surgery in Nottingham.

The latest, Osler House, will close on Monday after the company gave up its contract with the West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, stating that it was not ‘financially viable’ for them to continue to run such a small service.

Richard Vautrey, of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, said the closure of surgeries by private consortiums was a growing problem.

A spokesman for The Practice Group said: ‘The wellbeing of patients is central to every decision we make, which is why we have worked closely with the local NHS commissioning body, West Essex CCG and other local GP practices to ensure the handful of patients we have receive uninterrupted care provision.’