Centene: Open Letter from London local leaders (MPs, Peers, Councillors & Assembly members) to CCGs
Dear Clinical Commissioning Groups,
We have recently been made aware of the takeover of 49 NHS GP practices by US healthcare company, Centene. These GP practices care for communities across London.
We are writing to you to express our disappointment that there was no consultation with the local communities that will be directly impacted by this change prior to approval being given to the takeover. We also want to put on record our strong opposition to the decision to allow the takeover and ask you to do everything in your power to end it.
The signatories of this letter disapprove of Centene's involvement in London GP practices for many different reasons, but whatever one's position on the involvement of the private sector in the NHS, it seems clear that Centene's track record over just the last 5 years makes them unsuitable to run GP practices.
In March just his year, they were sued by the state of Ohio in the US for allegedly creating "an elaborate scheme to maximize company profits at the expense of the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) and the state of Ohio”. And the state of Mississippi has just announced that they are investigating Centene for similar schemes.
Last year, they were found guilty of systematically underpaying emergency room doctors who worked for them in the US state of Arkansas.
And in 2018, they were the target of a class-action lawsuit by people who bought health insurance from them because Centene allegedly failed to provide them with “adequate access to doctors in 15 states” despite taking premiums from those people every month. The year prior (2017), Centene had been fined $1.5 million by the state of Washington for, by Centene's own admission, failing to provide a sufficient network of doctors for people who bought health insurance from them.
Their questionable activities have not been limited to the United States. In 2018, Centene was called "profit-greedy" by the Daily Mail after the company was also implicated in the closing down of a GP surgery in Harlow, Essex, here in England.
We have no reason whatsoever to expect that they will behave any differently in London. Such behaviour would undoubtedly have a profound impact on the quality of care Londoners, especially the elderly and vulnerable, receive as well as on the pay and conditions of the staff at our GP practices (including doctors).
We hope that you will heed our call to do everything in your power to end Centene’s involvement in London GP practices on which our local communities depend.
Signed by...
- Emma Wallace Green Party candidate for Brent and Harrow
- Ken Clark Councillor, Manor Park
- Susan Masters Councillor
- Patricia Holland Councillor
- Karen Jewitt Councillor
- Tony Belton Councillor
- Eldridge Culverwell Councillor - Haringey and Woodgreen
- Geof Cooke Councillor
- Nurullah Turan Executive councillor for Health and Social Care, Islington Council
- June Nelson Councilor
- Luke Sorba Chair of Children and Young People Select Committee
- Sara Hyde Chief Whip, Islington Council
- Janice Long Councillor, Dudden Hill ward, LB Brent
- Daniel Kennelly Councillor, Preston Ward, LB Brent
- Geoff Barraclough Councillor, Maida Vale and patient at one of the surgeries affected
- Gilbert Smyth Cllr - Hackney
- Jumbo Chan Councillor (Brent)
- Peter Carpenter Councillor
- Suga Thekkeppurayil Councillor
- Sandra Kabir Chief Whip, Brent Labour Group
- Gloria Omotoso Community Activist
- Gabriela Salva Macallan Councillor, Tower Hamlets
- Jon Marks None
- Adam Hug Councillor and Leader of the Labour Group
- George Crane Councillor Fryent Ward, Kingsbury. Brent
- Claudia Hector Councillor, Kensal Green ward, London Borough of Brent
- Mohammad Aslam Choudry Councillor
- Dee Martin Labour Councillor, Northolt West End, LB Ealing
- Liz Dixon Local councillor
- Orleen Hylton Backbencher
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- Harbi Farah Cabinet Member for Adult and Social Care
- Abdifatah Aden Councillor
- Councillor Tariq Dar MBE A
- Erica Gbajumo Councillor Brondesbury Park ward, Brent
- Joii Nelson none
- Anne Brown Councillor, Southgate Green Ward, LB Enfield
- Chris Kennedy Cabinet Member for Health, London Borough of Hackney
- Robert Johnson Councillors Northwick Park Ward Brent
- Councillor Trupti Sangani Councillor
- Lynne Allen Local Councillor
- Parvez Ahmed Councillor, Dollis Hill Ward, LB Brent
- Krupa Sheth Councillor
- Sonia Shah Councillor
- Thomas Stephens Lead Member for Education, Business, Employment and Skills, LB Brent
- Vivienne Littlechild Elected member for the Ward of Cripplegate,
- Anjna Khurana Councillor, LB Islington
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- Peter Mitchell Councillor, Haringey
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- Sasha Das Gupta Councillor
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- Anita Thakkar Preston Ward Councillor (Brent)
- Tom Miller Councillor for Willesden Green, Brent
- Rowena Bass Councillor and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group
- Eleanor Southwood Cabinet Member, Housing and Welfare Reform, LB Brent
- Stephen Kapos None
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- Christine Lightbody Co founder of IOW Save Our NHS
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- Maureen Riddell Social Worker
