Campaigners are calling for Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS} contracts to be abandoned

IT feels like a long time ago now, but back in 2007 the idea that a profit-seeking company – not least one owned by the biggest health giant in America – might win NHS contracts and take over GP practices caused national outrage.

The arrival of UnitedHealthUK in Camden sparked a placard-waving march down Camden High Street and a string of packed and angry public meetings.

It had been made possible due to legislation, brought in under Tony Blair when Alan Milburn was health secretary, that paved the way for “alternative providers” to bid for NHS contracts for the first time.

This new NHS marketplace was justified through the idea that competition between surgeries would drive-up standards across the board.

Almost 20 years later, how do patients feel this experiment has worked out?

Barely a day goes by without some form of complaint about access to GPs. They appear to us more stretched than ever.

The fact is that the system of allowing NHS contracts to go to “alternative providers of medical services” (APMS) contracts has done nothing to significantly improve the service to patients.

It has led to a more business-like approach to healthcare, where time is money. It has sowed division and fragmentation.

There is a kind of soullessness in something that once made this country proud.

Many patients will feel like the NHS is somehow to blame for this decline. But what chance did it stand under Blair, Cameron, Johnson and co?

UnitedHealth ditched its Camden surgeries a few years after gaining their foothold in the NHS. The contracts have been tossed about like commodities from one company to another, and then another, and another, until the most recent custodians Operose Health – a company owned by the Centene Corporation.

Take a look at Centene’s history and you will find pretty much what you would expect from a company that makes its billions through selling health insurance in America.

Few tears will be shed when it and its subsidiaries get out of Camden. But those NHS contracts will only be snapped up by another firm – perhaps one that fancies shaving off a little bit more profit, or is happy running a loss leader just for the prestige and influence that comes with being an “official NHS partner”.

Companies profiting from the NHS may not trigger marches and mass meetings any more, but it is still worth shouting about.

It is why campaigners are calling for APMS contracts to be abandoned this week. But with this government and the opposition singing from the same hymn sheet on NHS privatisation, this is unlikely to happen any time soon.