Global healthcare company Operose Health is pulling out of the UK leaving questions over who runs three Newham practices, reports Aidan White

Campaigners hold up a banner saying '58 UK Gp surgeries now owned by a US health insurance giant - We want our NHS back' — Image via Newham Save Our NHS

Just over two years ago 58 doctors’ practices in the UK, including three in Newham – Carpenters’ Practice at sites in High St E15, St Lukes E16, and Lucas Avenue E13 – were the subject of a controversial health privatisation row when they were taken over by a global health company.

Now the company concerned, Operose Health, a subsidiary of the US-based private health corporation Centene, is turning its back on the British health-care business.

The company, in the face of a failure to deliver the hoped for profits, has decided to give up its UK health care holdings and quit the British market altogether.

Alan Cooper, Chair of the campaign group Newham Save Our NHS, says local health chiefs must intervene to ensure that service users are not affected by the decision to pull out.

“There was considerable opposition to this case of private finance being allowed to muscle in to what is left of our NHS,” he said, “including questions in the Commons and the Lords, a judicial review and an edition of BBC’s Panorama that drew attention to poor practice at one AT Medics/Operose practice.

“Now we learn that the company is walking away, not just from our surgeries but, apparently, the whole UK ‘healthcare market’.”

He told Newham Voices: “Centene’s actions prioritise profit levels over local health needs and they offer no continuity – not even for five years. It appears that they are not able to extract as much profit from GP services as expected.

He says that the proposed change of control of the surgeries has to be agreed to by the NHS North East London Integrated Care Board (ICB), which could intervene to ensure there are local solutions to this latest crisis.

The campaign group has written to the Newham Mayor and MPs, seeking full details on what is happening and urging them to:

strongly urge the ICB not to grant change of control automatically to the new owners of these general practice businesses;
insist that the ICB consults fully with the mayor, local MPs, patients, other local people, local authority councillors, neighbouring practices, Primary Care Networks and other local NHS bodies – to look for the best local solution for each of the sites, and
insist that any decision-making is transparent with local patients and NHS users being fully informed.

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