Say NO to Virgin Care making decisions on our NHS

Virgin Care have been given a seat on the top regional NHS body in Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon AND Wiltshire, meaning it will make decisions about what NHS care is provided (and what isn't) locally.

This is a very dangerous precedent. The NHS legislation that the government is bringing in soon will allow private companies to sit on top NHS bodies, deciding care regionally, exactly like this, if we don't stop it in it tracks now.

Write to the top local NHS bodies in Bath and Somerset, the Clinical Commissioning Group and the Integrated Care Services Partnership, to demand they kick Virgin off NOW and send a message across the UK: NO to a Virgin Health Service.

Email the BANES CCG - Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group

Email the BSW ICS Partnership - Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Partnership

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Subject

FAO all members of Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Partnership Board Members, I am writing to you today because I am extremely concerned about Virgin Care Ltd being invited to join the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Partnership Board. As members of the two most important NHS bodies regionally, I understand you make the decision about membership of the partnership board. I am writing to demand that Virgin Care Ltd are taken off the board and all local and regional NHS boards. 
<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-nhs-privatisation-hospital-survey-a9598826.html%C2%A0">3 out of 4 of us</a> want our NHS <a href="http://www.nhsbillnow.org/the-bill/">reinstated</a> as a fully public service after the pandemic according to polling last year.
Yet instead, you have decided to place a private company - who by its DNA will, in the long term, prioritise profit over patients - on to the most important decision-making body for our NHS regionally moving forward. Virgin’s ‘care’ has already put local patients at risk. Hundreds of people had to quit the GP services the company ran in Essex due to <a href="https://www.gponline.com/hundreds-patients-quit-inadequate-virgin-practice/article/1465808">inadequate</a> care, and in another area, Virgin Care Ltd ‘asked staff not to report safety concerns’ <a href="https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/local-news/virgin-care-asked-staff-not-589270">to a health watchdog</a>.
All the while, Virgin has shown time and again it will do whatever it can to maximise profits. When Virgin Care Ltd didn’t get a contract in Surrey, the company successfully <a href="https://leftfootforward.org/2017/12/virgin-care-just-sued-the-nhs-for-a-fortune-but-the-tories-and-lib-dems-made-it-possible/">sued the NHS</a> for £2 million. In 2018 Virgin paid no corporation tax on the £200 million turnover it had <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/health/virgin-care-no-corporation-tax-paid-profits-nhs-contracts-rise-8m-200m-turnover-115823">from NHS contracts.</a> We’re already seeing the effect of the company being at the decision-making table. In the minutes for the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Partnership (soon to be Integrated Care Service) board meeting, discussion was had regarding the ‘extent of their [the private providers] financial transparency toward system partners’. It’s no surprise that Virgin Care Ltd ‘had <a href="https://bswpartnership.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/BSW-Partnership-Board-meeting-28-May-2021-combined-papers.pdf">reservations about sharing information in public</a>’. However it is shocking to me to see that the board took away an action to investigate how it could go about 'protecting those providers’ corporate and commercial interests'. This is completely unacceptable. I'm writing today to demand that you as a partnership take Virgin off of this vital regional body making decisions about health care, and furthermore agree to keep all private companies off of any NHS decision making bodies now and in the future.

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