Britain’s largest GP chain has been accused of putting the benefits ahead of proper care by getting non-fully qualified family doctors to assess patients.
An investigation by the BBC’s Panorama program found that Operose Health used associate doctors to make appointments because they are cheaper to use than GPs.
An undercover Panorama journalist also revealed that there was a shortage of GPs and a delay in clinical correspondence (medical reports, test results) at the Operose GP’s office in London, where he worked as a receptionist. and hospital letters) that had not been read. at six months.
The revelations led one of the NHS’s top GPs, Professor Sir Sam Everington, to express concern about the “massive risk” to patient safety and to accuse the US-owned company of ‘spirit.
Operose manages 70 GP surgeries in England, including 600,000 patients.
In Monday’s broadcast, Panorama said that the associate doctors in the unnamed surgery had told their journalist, Jacqui Wakefield, how they were doing the same job as the GPs, despite having much less training and experience.
Family physicians are intended to be closely monitored to ensure that patients receive high quality care. But one told Panorama, “You’re used to being a GP,” and “sometimes I almost never see a GP; when I started it was more, now I hardly talk to them.”
After looking at the Panorama footage, Everington said he was concerned that associate doctors had said they were not getting the supervision they needed. “They’re articulating it clearly, but they don’t understand it. And that’s a problem.”
On the backlog of medical correspondence, Everington said: as serious as his death before. ”
He urged ministers to ask the Commission for Quality of Care (CQC) to investigate the operation of Operose surgery, which is owned by U.S. private healthcare company Centene. “They are putting the benefits, the money, ahead of the quality of care. And that will have an impact. “
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, also demanded an urgent investigation. “Conservatives have broken their manifesto promise to hire thousands more GPs, but surgeries cannot be allowed to compromise the quality of care as a result,” he said.
Panorama said Operose manages its surgeries with six times more associate doctors and half the number of fully qualified GPs than the NHS average.
The company denied Panorama’s claims, including that it put the benefits before the patients. He said 97% of his internships were rated “good” or “exceptional” by the CQC. He said he had increased the number of GPs working in the London practice and, in his portfolio of surgeries, had hired 38 GPs over the past year and was hiring 12 more. Patients received safe care, he said.
David Rowland, director of the Center for Reflection at the Center for Health and Public Interest, said: keep costs as low as possible – this often means using fewer staff or less qualified staff with a potential impact on patient care.
“This model of healthcare goes totally against the founding principles of the NHS, which has tried to isolate healthcare in the UK from for-profit.”
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Dr Richard Van Mellaerts, of the British Medical Association’s Committee of General Practitioners in England, said: more patients per GP than the national average.
“It is very worrying to hear reports that Operose Health associate physicians are being treated as equivalent to GPs and have been working without proper supervision.”