Coercing GPs

Now readers might be asking:

‘’How does Virgin expect to convince the ‘’independent’’ GPs at the heart of their clinics to collude with them in these matters? Surely an NHS GP has more scruples than to go along with Virgin’s plans to undermine the ethos of the NHS?’’

Indeed, Virgin, on their web site and in public meetings with thousands of GPs across the country have painted their relationships with GPs as:

 “co-operative – not controlling” ventures.

But I think I may have the answer…

In a report to Gordon McCallum (who sits on the Virgin Board) Mark Adams wrote:

“The Taw Hill Medical Practice is an ideal showpiece Practice for the launch of the Virgin Healthcare Centre.  It is in all respects plagiarising the hard work put in by the existing doctors and the PCT but is opportune because it is currently loss-making and needs new activities and new patients to avoid serious consequences in the future. 

They are losing between £7,500-£10,000 per month with the challenge of running the Practice on their own, they have limited time to develop the auxiliary services that would reverse this trend.

The doctors are modern by most GP standards and understand the potential value that Virgin could bring to primary care.  They are anxious to reach commercial agreement with us quickly and are sufficiently in need of our support to ensure that quality programmes and re-branding decisions should not be met with too much emotional resistance.” (My italics)

The section of this report that is relevant reveals that Dr Peter Crouch, the GP at the heart of VHC’s plans, was under considerable financial pressure and so they did not expect ‘much emotional resistance’ to some of their suggestions.

In fact, as far as Dr Crouch is concerned VHC are all too aware of the fact that they can pressurize him into agreeing to decisions that he might otherwise have protested.

The plan for Dr Crouch, once the first Virgin Healthcare centre was set up, was for Virgin Healthcare to use him as a ‘poster boy’ (actual term used) to convince other GPs that Virgin were worth working with and were ‘OK’.

I think the phrase ‘Trojan Horse’ springs to mind – (beware Greeks bearing gifts you GPs out there.)

I am confident that any GPs that may be considering future involvement with Virgin (there are 300 of them) would be very reluctant to enter into such a relationship knowing how the first GP had been manipulated into offering ‘little emotional resistance’ to their plans to compromise him professionally.

I must say that Dr Smith is one of the nicest people you could ever want to meet. He has an excellent reputation as a GP and I have no evidence whatsoever that he would have colluded with Virgin on these matters.

In fact, in my conversations with Dr. Smith he was very defensive of his own independence and I suspect that GPs across the country have been badly underestimated by members of the Virgin Board.

This is an interesting point (for a later article perhaps) where two very different cultures have collided – that of a large corporation where managers believe money and pressure can achieve anything that of GPs (and other healthcare professionals) where individuals are driven by an altruistic bent to protect patients, not just from disease but from all sorts of unethical shenanigans.

Oliver James' books Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist are very good on this subject - that of Extrinsically and Intrinsically motivated individuals.

I am confident that, had this web site never been published (and believe me, it nearly wasn’t) eventually Virgin’s plans would have run aground on the rocky promontory of GP’s principles.

I hope this web site and the risks I am taking in publishing it provide ammunition for healthcare workers (in both public and private sectors) to encourage the government to establish a version of the Financial Services Authority for Healthcare.

We could call it The Healthcare Services Authority perhaps?

I suggest that any private company becoming involved in providing private services alongside or on contract to the NHS, in either Secondary or Primary care, are obliged to fund a Healthcare Services Authority which has wide-ranging powers to monitor and investigate how these private companies are behaving.

Surely, Mr. Brown, if you feel that the public should be protected from people selling financial services (credit cards, life insurance etc) we should also be protected from unscrupulous companies selling us healthcare provision?

Or perhaps your colleague, the Secretary of State for Health, Mr. Alan Johnson could contact me?

He seems to be reluctant to get involved as Clare Short, MP, kindly forwarded my concerns to him on the 9^th April but he hasn’t replied yet. (Thanks you Ms Short for your assistance, unfortunately many of your fellow MPs from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, SNP and Plaid Cymru parties do not come out of this affair covered in the same glory.)

Mr Brown - Your reply to my suggestions will be posted here.

Read next story about Virgin Healthcare.