New private health company ‘The Practice’ has taken over ChilversMcCrea Ltd to form a group that now runs 50 GP practices in England and Wales with more than 150,000 NHS patients.
Peter Watts, chief executive of The Practice, told GPs magazine Pulse that the company was discussing dozens of potential contracts with GP commissioners across England, on the back of the government’s White Paper.
He added that The Practice plans to form a national commissioning consortium, including its expanded empire of practices and ‘Darzi’ health centres.
He said the firm had begun a restructure to separate out the management of its commissioning and provider arms, which includes clinical assessment and treatment centres (CATs) across the country, to avoid falling foul of conflict-of-interest issues.
Watts added: ‘I’m relying on Andrew Lansley’s statement that there’s no set size for consortia and that there will be no practice boundaries.
‘We’re entitled to form our own consortium, a national consortium, and we’ve already had a number of approaches from PBC (practice-based commissioning) groups who are interested in working with us.
‘We’re on second or third meetings with a number of organisations. They are PBC groups that have gone to the next paradigm.’
He said GPs who have commissioning budgets in a number of PCTs had already commissioned its CATs service, which specialises in ophthalmology and sexual health.
Watts claimed that smaller organisations, both private and NHS, will no longer be able to survive under the government’s plans.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Sainsbury’s is offering GPs free space in 204 stores to set up surgeries and will market the service to shoppers.
Professional services manager for Sainsbury’s, David Gilder, told Pulse that the supermarket chain ‘is keen to explore and support local GPs and help them deliver everything from core NHS services to secondary care diagnostics to private healthcare to patients.’
Sainsbury’s rival, Asda already runs some in-store pharmacies.
• Prestatyn GP Eamonn Jessup has warned that lives will be lost if plans to reorganise maternity care in north Wales go ahead.
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board plans to downgrade maternity services at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Glan Clwyd, and Wrexham Maelor hospitals to provide midwife-led units.
Dr Jessup told the BBC’s Eye on Wales programme: ‘If we say there are ten women in Glan Clwyd that have to have caesareans performed in 15 minutes, they cannot have that done, and that will be five to ten babies who will die.
‘I’m sorry to put it that bluntly, but I really cannot see any way around that, and it will undoubtedly cause perinatal death, I’m afraid.’
