A village community has lost its High Court bid to block plans for a US company to be awarded the contract to run local GP services.
NHS patients and villagers at Langwith, on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border, told a judge that they were not properly consulted before United Health Group was declared the “preferred provider” by the local health authority.
Mr Justice Collins, sitting in London, agreed the consultation process had been flawed, but said the patients should have used an “alternative remedy”.
Putting right the failure to consult properly “would not have been likely to have made any difference,” he said.
Langwith Council backed a local doctor’s plans to open her own surgery and offered land for the scheme at a favourable rent. But Dr Elizabeth Barrett’s proposals never made the shortlist of seven bids drawn up by the North Eastern Derbyshire Primary Care NHS Trust (PCT).
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On December 23, 2005, the PCT announced that “preferred provider” status had been awarded to United Health Group, one of the world’s largest providers of healthcare services.
Eleanor Grey, representing the Langwith residents, told the judge that the lack of consultation with local people over how they wanted their GP services provided betrayed Government promises that NHS patients and the public would be “listened to - rather than talked at”.
She said Langwith residents had suffered from poor and inadequate GP services since 2004 and were “vociferously active” in trying to find a solution but the PCT had failed to conduct proper consultations before rejecting Dr Barrett’s proposals.
The failure to consult was a breach of Section 11 of the 2001 Health and Social Care Act and also ignored Health Service guidance, which stated that patient and public involvement in NHS decision-making was “a priority”.
Today the judge ruled the PCT had failed to comply with Section 11 as there had been “no proper involvement or consultation with those to be affected by the decision”.
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But he said: “Essentially I have decided that, despite that failure to comply with section 11, the patients had an alternative remedy, and therefore judicial review is not an appropriate route.
“In addition, for reasons set out in the judgment, the failure would not have been likely to have made any difference.”
The judge refused the patients leave to appeal, but they can still apply to the Appeal Court to hear their case.
Today’s ruling contains guidelines from the judge on the duty to consult, which are likely to have a wide-ranging effect across the NHS.