Care UK

Care UK is a British company providing health and social care. The company works with councils, primary care trusts and doctors to deliver care and support for older people and those with learning disabilities or mental health problems, as well as a range of healthcare services for NHS patients.

History

The company was formed as Anglia Secure Homes in 1982, becoming Care UK PLC in 1994.

In 1997, the company acquired Care Solutions Limited, a learning disabilities provider responsible for 59 homes in Newcastle, Bradford, Staffordshire and Guildford. In 1998, it took on a further 7 care homes in Hampshire and the south coast with the acquisition of The Care Partnership.

Care UK delisted from the stock exchange in 2010 following a management buyout. Since 2010 its major shareholder has been Bridgepoint Capital.^[1]

It bought Harmoni in 2012 from ECI Partners for about £50 million.^[2]

In January 2014 it was announced that Philippa Slinger, the former chief executive of the troubled Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is to join Care UK.^[3]

Since the Health and Social Care Act 2012 came into force in April 2013 Care UK has won three contracts worth £104m.^[4]

In 2014/5 its turnover was £728 million.^[5]

Services

Care UK operates 85 care home facilities for older people as well as supporting over 17,000 older people and those with disabilities through home care services.

The company runs 4 clinical assessment and treatment centres (CATS) and 7 NHS treatment centres, offering a range of procedures for conditions such as cataract surgery and hip replacements. In 2011, independent research organisation, Dr Foster, named Care UK as the best performing provider for hip operations.^[6]

Care UK also operates 12 GP-led health centre facilities providing walk-in services and a range of specialist mental health services including 18 homes and hospitals and residential treatment programmes for young people who have serious eating disorders.

In 2013 a joint venture with Sussex Partnership NHS Trust was created to purchase a 32-bed mental health rehabilitation unit in Gosport, and to create a 24-bed self-contained accommodation unit later in the year.^[7]

The company strategy is to concentrate on the provision of primary and secondary NHS health services.^[8] In May 2015 the company sold its mental health assets, consisting of 322 beds, to Partnerships in Care and its learning disability services group to Lifeways Group. In June 2015 the home care service which generated revenue of £72.2 million and looks after approximately 13,000 people across the UK and employs around 6,000 staff members was sold to Mears Group.^[9]

It is the largest firm providing Out-of-hours services in England services with more than ten million patients.

Controversies

Political donations

John Nash, the chairman of Care UK, made a donation of £21,000 to the private office of Andrew Lansley, who would later become Secretary of State for Health, but was at the time the health spokesman for the opposition. Lansley has since been accused of a conflict of interest, as Care UK would be a major beneficiary of the proposed changes.^[10][11]

In 2014, Care UK's former chairman Lord Nash became a government minister and Care UK took over services for people with severe learning disabilities in Doncaster, south Yorkshire - where they immediately cut wages of staff who had been on NHS terms by up to 35% while bringing in 100 new workers on £7 an hour. Fifty carers for the disabled began strike action in protest and by August 2014, had been on strike for 7 weeks - making it one of the longest strikes in the history of the NHS. Care UK won the supported living contract from the council after telling officials that it could deliver it for £6.7m over three years. Yet the wage bill alone for the service was £7m.^[12]

Alleged tax avoidance

A report in The Guardian of 17 March 2012 stated that Care UK "has a reduced tax bill by taking out loans through the Channel Islands stock exchange and coming to an agreement with HMRC".^[13] Another report by the same newspaper in August 2014 stated that" Care UK has not paid a penny in corporation tax since it was bought by the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital in 2010.^[14]

Ealing Hospital

ITV’s Exposure programme in July 2015 highlighted the urgent care centre run by the firm at Ealing Hospital. It produced a catalogue of atrocities:

• Pregnant women with ectopic pregnancies waiting 3 hours before being seen by a GP;
• Empty medicine cabinets and doctors admitting they frequently run out of painkillers and antibiotics;
• Work experience students checking up on patients because doctors and nurses are too busy;
• GPs admitting they can’t understand X-rays ‘for s***’ and may miss fractures;
• Clinics dealing with 50 per cent more patients than they can manage;
• Patients told to take their own temperature.^[15]

It is also alleged that staff register the discharge of patients before they have been treated to avoid breaching the 4 hour wait target.^[16]

Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group and Healthwatch Ealing both investigated the situation. Ealing Council considered the service at a meeting of its scrutiny committee in September 2015. The CCG agreed to pay for an additional GP and said that the service was still considered safe.^[17]

See also

Private medicine in the UK

References