NHS members' links to private healthcare

Over a quarter of the governing members of the Tory designed NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which have responsibility for a budget of £65 billion, have links to a private company involved in healthcare.

A comprehensive study carried out by Unite, has uncovered how financial interests are “running amok” threatening the trust between GP and patient and the NHS following the introduction of provisions contained in the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

The Act gave CCGs responsibility for commissioning services and in doing so opened the door to conflicts of interest on a massive scale. CCGs are clinically led groups with GP representatives from their geographical area, managers and lay persons.

Of the 3,392 CCG board members, 932 or 27% were found to have a link to a private company involved in healthcare including: 513 company directors, 140 business owners, 105 external work, 17 partners, 15 chairs, 10 company secretaries, five chief executives, one trustee, one financial officer and 125 others, including consultants.

The study also found 409 (12%) board members are shareholders in such companies; a combination of businesses they own and external private companies, including providers of “Out of Hours Services”.

www.unitetheunion.org/news/quarter-of-clinical-commissioning-group-board-members-linked-to-private-healthcare