Tag Archives: Care UK

Conflict of interest fears as Hunt appoints NHS adviser with big private healthcare interests

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Unite has today (Friday) called on the Secretary of State for Health to explain why he
has appointed a former M&S boss, with interests in a private healthcare firm that is
eyeing up stealth-privatised NHS contracts, to an influential role in the management of
the NHS.

According to the Guardian, the role is to advise on how to build up new management to
transform failing hospitals. Update: This remit was extended in early 2015 to include how best to equip clinical commissioning groups to deliver the Five Year Forward View.

Apparently what was good for Marks & Spencer will be good for the NHS.
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NHS England knows nothing of Care UK contracts for Todmorden and Halifax walk in health centres

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NHS England says it does not have information about the Care UK contracts for Todmorden and Halifax Walk In Health Centres.

When I put in a Freedom of Information request to Calderdale CCG last July, they passed much of it on to NHS England. This was because Calderdale CCG had inherited the Care UK contracts from the Calderdale Primary Care Trust but, unaccountably, didn’t have information about them and thought that NHS England would know.

NHS England has now replied that they too know nothing about the Care UK Contracts for the Tod and Halifax Walk in Health Centres, and has suggested that I contact the legacy team at the Department of Health.
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Todmorden and Halifax walk in centres – Freedom of Information reply

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At the end of July Upper Calder Valley Plain Speaker asked the question, What next for privatised walk-in GP centres in Tod and Halifax?

On behalf of NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit has now replied to my Freedom of Information request about the saga with Care UK over the contract to run the two privatised GP walk-in centres.
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How Care UK and Virgin Care gained contracts to run NHS GP services in Calderdale

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How did Care UK and Virgin Care end up with contracts to run GP services in Calderdale?  And after Calderdale CCG completes its review of  GP services and community unplanned care (ie urgent care that isn’t A&E), how many more privatised GP services are we going to end up with?
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Why is Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group buying NHS care from tax avoiders Care UK and Spire Healthcare?

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An example of the increasingly intimate merger of government and corporate interests, former New Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn recently joined Price Waterhouse Coopers to head up a board overseeing the consultancy and accountancy giant’s private health care business, which is moving in on the NHS now that the Health and Social Care Act is in place.

Milburn is also chairman of the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint Capital, the vulture fund investors behind Care UK, which runs the Todmorden and Halifax walk in health centres and also provides diagnostic services for Calderdale NHS.
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Care UK – the private company running Tod and Halifax Walk In Health Centres

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Thanks to local campaigning, the two GP centres run by Care UK (one in Todmorden and one in Halifax) will remain open until September, when Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) aims to have completed its review of how to provide primary and community unplanned health care (ie urgent care that isn’t A& E).

Care UK has been at the front of the queue for NHS privatisations. It was acquired by vulture fund company Bridgepoint in 2010, and according to Corporate Watch,

“carries huge debt, avoids tax, siphons money off to its private equity owners, and has been accused of negligence and abuse.”

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