Following our recent successful protest outside Operose Headquarters in central London we have detected a lot of media interest in the takeover of 58 GP practices by Operose, which is a UK subsidiary of US health insurer Centene.

As a member of Newham Save Our NHS I was interviewed three times and filmed on video networks alongside other speakers including Jackie Applebee, GP activist from Tower Hamlets, and Jeremy Corbyn as well as other campaign and trade union speakers. The message we were presenting was: this government has had close relations with Operose at the highest levels creating a potential conflict of interest.

We are now concerned that the current government White Paper, which pretends to rationalise and dismantle the 2012 Health and Social Care Act for the benefit of the NHS, will in fact act as a statutory instrument for further restructuring the NHS with a view to wholesale privatisation. At the heart of this is the necessity to give statutory backing to the setting up of integrated care systems (ICS) and the centralisation of health and social care delivery which will subsume GPs inside this system under a common contract.

The complexity of some of these issues frightens many people who are rightly concerned that what is happening is not just confusing but involves decisions being made at national level and at local level without consultation. Nobody asked patients or even local government about the takeover of 11 GP practices across north east London. Instead we were presented with a fait accompli at a primary care and commissioning committee (PCCC) where we presented the clinical commissioning groups (CCGs ) with over 13 questions involving due diligence, consultation and the involvement of US health companies in our NHS. This story has been replicated right across London and the country. That’s why the media have become interested. We are not going to let this go away.

Now this week the BMA and local GPs have expressed outrage at changes to their contracts being proposed under the government White Paper. Readers will recall that in a recent article it was pointed out that the APMS contracts associated with all the GP practices sold to Operose, had facilitated a takeover. These contracts effectively allowed, since 2004, for GP hubs to transform themselves into private companies. The rest was simple. They just sold the company to another corporation ( Operose) and then changed the directors. At the heart of all this, as the BMA has pointed out, is the commercialisation of primary care networks ) which will amalgamate lots of local health services including GPs, under a single contract and a single budget.

We have to resist this White Paper. If it goes through then huge integrated care systems under a single budget will begin to transform our local health services into corporate profit making partnerships involving more and more private companies. The end result is clear. It will be something resembling an American Health Insurance system. Samantha Jones, former chief executive of Operose Health, is now health adviser to prime minister Boris Johnson. Write to your councillors and MP’s. Follow our Facebook page and become involved in our protests and discussions. This is your NHS.

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