Campaigners at Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) are challenging the involvement of profit-making companies in providing GP services in the county.
They have been collecting signatures and handing out leaflets ahead of a meeting on Friday (10 January) of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public campaigners collected messages for the ICB about the involvement of for-profit companies in GP surgeries
“Our new leaflet describes the case study of East Barnwell Health Centre, a thriving GP practice with excellent standards run by well-loved staff, serving generations of patients in one of the most deprived areas of Cambridge,” said KONP campaigner Jannie Brightman.
“Their contract was handed over to Malling Health. Their profits come out of the NHS budget and will not go back into primary care delivery.”
GPs at East Barnwell handed back their contract on 10 October, 2024, saying they could no longer afford to run the practice.
They blamed “increasing financial challenges” stemming from “an exponential rise in the service charges required to work out of our current NHS Property Service-owned building; inadequate local health funding to meet the needs of our patients; and a national contract funding increase well below inflation”.
Angela De Burgh, a patient at East Barnwell and KONP member said: “I tried to get involved with the re-contracting of our East Barnwell service but we were not empowered as patients to have a voice. Our questions have still not been properly answered.”
Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public deliveres cards to the home of the ICS in Ely. Picture: Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public
The ICB handed a seven-year Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract to Malling Health worth £7,764,179.12. The Cambridge Independent was told this was £40 per patient per year higher than the previous GP partners had been receiving
Penny Morris, a patient at Lensfield Road GP practice in Cambridge, added: “One passer-by who stopped to talk with us while leafleting is a patient at an Eaton Socon GP practice, which was similarly handed over.”
Cambridgeshire KONP members plan to ask questions of the ICB at its meeting from 10am on Friday, while further pop-up actions will include the hand delivery of bags of signed cards to the ICB offices in Ely.
Signed cards from those concerned about outsourcing of NHS services. Picture: Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public
ICB meetings can be viewed online by requesting a link from cpicb.icsgovernanceteam@nhs.net.
Meeting details can be found at cpics.org.uk/board-meetings-and-papers.