Who owns gp

A company is a separate legal entity in its own right. The shareholders own the company, and receive the profits as dividends, but the directors may not be the same people. They are appointed by the shareholders and run the company day to day — so who is in charge? It is wrong to think that the primary duty of the directors is to maximise profits for shareholders. The constitution normally the articles of association can state what the objects of the company are. While a trading company may not specify any particular objects, so it has maximum flexibility, many primary care companies have stated objects.

For example: To promote the provision of general medical practice in [name of place]. The problem with being too restrictive is that it may cut out opportunities in the future, and the directors would be acting outside their powers if they did enter into a contract which was to provide a service which in this example covered another place.

This article does not constitute legal advice, and no liability for reliance on its content is accepted by Hempsons, its partners or the author. Legal advice should be sought before you act on any matters outlined in this article. Name required. This was not the only issue, however, the CQC also found the surgery inadequate on four of the five key measures looked at by the CQC — the safe, effective, responsive and well-led categories — and rated it 'requires improvement' in the caring category.

A major problem of private companies have been that if c ompanies are not making sufficient profit on the contract then they walk away, leaving thousands of patients without a local GP.

The following are examples where this has happened:. The Practice Group gave several reasons for giving up the contract, including the need to relocate two surgeries due to redevelopment projects, rising demand for services, and a difficulty in recruiting and retaining GPs, however a major reason was a reduction in central funding for the surgeries, which made the venture non-profitable.

This put around 27, patients at risk of losing their GP. Greenbrook Healthcare said that their withdrawal was due to rising demand and problems with GP retention. Both of these companies went into administration. In addition, GPs already work long hours and inviting them to work through their lunch-breaks or after hours will make this worse, meaning that all patients will receive sub-par treatment if doctors work longer days. Other problems include, safety of the apps, cherry-picking of healthy patient populations, destabilisation of the local health economy, deskilling of GPs and problems with referrals.

For a full discussion of the problems associated with Babylon Health, the leading digital GP service, read an overview of the company here. Operose Health previously The Practice Group has contracts for primary and community care services with the NHS and lists 20 GP surgeries including walk-in centres on its website.

For details see our overview. Founded in by GPs in London, AT Medics now provides primary care services at 49 sites, across London, including urgent care services. In January , the company was acquired by Operose Health - see company overview for details. The latest batch of private companies in the GP sector are focused on the use of digital technology to tap into the need for fast access to primary care.

Since several new private GP services have been active — mainly using smartphone apps or online consultations. What they all have in common is that they offer rapid, convenient appointments for people who do not want the hassle of booking an appointment at their GP practice.

Several of these companies are using crowdfunding to raise money rather than seeking finance from banks and more traditional investment funds. The largest of these companies is Babylon, which came into the public eye in late when it launched its GP at Hand app in London under an NHS contract.

The coronavirus pandemic that began in early has led to the rapid uptake of digital technology by GP surgeries so that they can carry out video consultations and reduce the number of face-to-face interactions.

The changes taking place in GP surgeries have been primarily brought about by companies providing digital technology to existing surgeries, rather than the digital primary care companies, such as Babylon Health and Livi.

Founded in by Ali Parsa founder of Circle the company is focused on the use of artificial intelligence to diagnose patients. The company is privately financed and ultimately owned by Babylon Holdings based in Jersey. The company is working in several countries worldwide.

Full company overview here. But inevitably it was not perfectly formed and there were some contradictions from the start. One great achievement was the establishment of a universal general practice service through which everyone had their own GP, providing personal continuing community-based health care 'from cradle to grave'.

This proved highly popular and successful. However, the decision to keep GPs as 'independent contractors' to the NHS sowed seeds that would create problems in the future. This was partly because most GPs did not want to become state employees and partly because most practised from their own homes, which could not be nationalised. And the government of the day wanted to prioritise the expensive task of upgrading the hospital sector something still not completed rather than building primary care centres.

So it suited both sides for GPs to be independent providers and continue to operate from their own premises. Later, when purpose-built primary care centres came on the scene there was an opportunity to replace the independent status with direct NHS employee status, at least for those GPs working in the new centres.

But that did not happen as there was little enthusiasm for it either from GPs or from the state. Perhaps it was thought better to leave well alone as General Practice was doing quite well and in its heyday was often referred to as the 'jewel in the NHS crown'. In practice, GPs became integrated into the new NHS, in what can best be described as a hybrid model combining elements of a private business and elements of public service.

From the beginning, GPs were not allowed to advertise or to sell their practice as a business that is what the ban on 'sale of goodwill' means. These strict rules helped to prevent the commercialisation of General Practice and limited the money that could be made from it. GP practices were not companies. General Practice evolved into a medical speciality in its own right, and GPs saw themselves, and their patients saw them, as medical professionals rather than businessmen and women.

They were embedded in their communities for the long term, providing primary care for many generations of the same family. While quality could be patchy in some areas, overall what developed was an effective and popular system of primary care which had continuity of care at its heart. Quality issues were addressed by improved funding for premises, practice staff and practice development in the 60s, and the introduction of vocational training for GPs in the late 70s and 80s.

General Practice thrived and research showed much evidence for the clinical and social benefits of continuity of care from a known practitioner. The independent contractor status, which had hitherto been treated almost as an accident of history with little practical importance beyond being an administrative method of funding General Practice, revealed itself to be the Achilles Heel — the fatal vulnerability that allowed the commercialisation of General Practice, and its takeover by large private corporations.

Instead, there would now be contracts with GP practices as 'provider organisations'. After , GP practices had to have a contract with the state. A new breed of GP 'doctorpreneurs' and private companies took advantage of the new opportunities provided by the contract. They set up practices that employed fewer and lower-paid clinical staff and took a bigger share of the contract income for themselves — extracting profits that would far exceed the amount that could be considered a 'salary equivalent'.

Huge merged chains of practices under single company ownership allowed even great opportunity for profit extraction. Despite the contract changes most GPs did not commercialise and they continued to provide services more or less along traditional lines. For example, over several decades there has been a widening of the primary health care team to include other health professionals such as practice nurses, but most GPs also continued to provide personal continuing care to their patients alongside the new team members.