A profiteering US health insurance company is grabbing our NHS GP surgeries.
Under cover of Covid 19 …
• A UK subsidiary of the giant US Centene Corporation has bought
up 49 London GP practices that look after 375,000 patients. This is
now the largest GP practice network in the UK.
• Two of the GP practices are in Hammersmith and Fulham Borough
– Cassidy Medical Centre in Fulham and Canberra Old Oak
Surgery in White City.
• The H&F CCG allowed the sell-off to be rushed through for
‘commercial reasons’.
• None of the conditions under which the sales have gone through
have yet been published.
• Residents and patients at the surgeries were not consulted on
the change of ownership.
• 12 London councils, including H&F, have signed a joint letter
raising concerns about these take-overs.
• In Parliament many MPs have put their names to a motion to
show their alarm at the sell-off of our NHS surgeries – including
Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith.
• Samantha Jones, the former boss of Operose – the UK arm of
Centene – has just been appointed by Boris Johnson as a health
adviser at 10 Downing St.
WATCH THIS SHORT YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp-9jqKCa6U
Centene is a for-profit company. Profit, not public health, is its prime
concern. In the US it is being investigated for allegedly inflating costs
and overcharging govt departments.
HAFSON says: It’s time to kick the private companies out of our NHS
and to reinstate it as a fully publicly owned health service!
Jim Grealy and Merril Hammer