NHS patient records have been placed under the control of a US private equity firm in a \u00a3300 million deal that has sparked alarm from doctors and\u00a0campaigners.<\/p>\n
They called for greater public scrutiny over the transfer of millions of NHS patient records to investment firm TPG as part of it buying Optum UK \u2014 the healthcare technology business behind the electronic patient record system used by most GP practices in\u00a0England.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the campaign group Doctors\u2019 Association UK said: \u201cPrivate equity now owns the plumbing of English general\u00a0practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe GP records of more than half the country sit on a system controlled by a firm whose business model is returns for investors, not care for patients, and the public found out after the\u00a0fact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been here before with Palantir. The difference is that this time the buyer is a private equity giant whose overseas hospitals stand accused of pushing patients into\u00a0debt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want the government to set out what safeguards exist, what happens to the data if TPG later sells the asset, and why none of this was put to\u00a0Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lib Dem MP Helen Morgan warned that such deals leave sensitive NHS data \u201cdangerously exposed\u201d as she called on the government to \u201cstart backing British tech\u00a0instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Oxfam health policy lead Anna Marriott added that the deal should \u201cring major alarm bells\u201d due to TPG\u2019s \u201chighly controversial track record in healthcare\u00a0internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) suggested hospitals linked to the firm in Africa had pushed patients into poverty through excessive medical\u00a0bills.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for TPG said that it strongly disagreed \u201cwith the facts and characterisation of the allegations in the ICIJ\u2019s\u00a0report.\u201d<\/p>\n
TPG acquired Optum UK from the New York-listed healthcare corporation UnitedHealth Group. The business includes EMIS, whose software is used by more than half of GP practices in\u00a0England.<\/p>\n
EMIS said that the acquisition \u201cwas reviewed and approved by the government through the applicable channels in accordance with the National Security and Investment Act\u00a02021.\u201d<\/p>\n
TPG said: \u201cAssertions that TPG could in any way access, control, maintain, or utilise NHS patient records are entirely\u00a0false.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keep Our NHS Public lead Dr Tony O\u2019Sullivan said: \u201cThis is a perfect storm where key areas of the NHS are being outsourced to private corporations, putting strategic control of our NHS into the hands of US major tech and hedge\u00a0funds.<\/p>\n
The Department of Health and Social Care did not provide a\u00a0comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHS patient records have been placed under the control of a US private equity firm in a \u00a3300…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-726123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}