Haverstock Healthcare is a federation of all 35 GP practices in the London Borough of Camden established in 2008. It was formed to allow local GPs to form an organisation large enough to compete with firms bidding for NHS contracts in the borough. This was with a view to keeping services accessible, local and safe for the local population.
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It was formed by three local GPs (Drs Jeremy Sandford, Dr John Horton and Dr Caroline Sayer). Dr Sayer resigned her Director role 2 years later to pursue a role as Chair within Camden Clinical Commissioning Group. Dr Mike Smith is the chief executive, Dr John Horton is the Chairman and Dr Vijay Rawal is the medical director.
General Practice
The organisation challenged the decision by North Central London Primary Care Trust to transfer the Camden Road Practice and two others to UnitedHealth without a tender process. This decision was later subject to public scrutiny by Camden Council when the practice closed.
It has a contract from NHS England to provide GP services at the Ordnance Unity Centre in Enfield Lock.
It took over the management of the Soho Square General Practice, which was threatened with closure, in June 2015. Campaigners described it as a “social enterprise-type” business that was “very much community orientated” and would see surpluses reinvested in the surgery.
It runs the Diabetes Integrated Practice Unit, with several providers in Camden at St Pancras Hospital.
Urgent Care
In 2012 North Central London Primary Care Trust refused to let the organisation bid to run Camden’s out-of-hours GP service.
It now operates the Urgent Care Centre at the Royal Free Hospital and at Barnet General Hospital. All of the GP practices in Camden use EMIS Web, and it is also used in A&E. This enables many patients to be quickly discharged from A&E without unnecessary investigations. It won the GP Enterprise Award in 2014 in the category "Improving Quality and Productivity" for this project where 58% of attendees at A&E were treated by the GPs, who successfully redirected a further 20% either back to the community or to other more suitable healthcare providers. They also established a case-finding model for at-risk elderly patients to pro-actively manage patients in the community before they present at the A&E. This has been identified as a contributing factor to saving nearly two wards’ worth of beds.
The organisation opposed plans to create an integrated urgent care 'super contract' covering much of north London because it would lead to a loss of local services and local knowledge. It was considered too small to even bid for the last contract for Out-of-hours service and NHS 111.
The organisation took over the management of the Cheshunt Minor Injuries Unit from Virgin Care Cheshunt Community Hospital in May 2015.