Chris O’Connor
Virgin Care Examined
designers such as Paul Smith, Matthew Williamson, Philip Treacy and Giles Deacon, each artwork has been created using the iconic red ribbon, the international symbol for HIV awareness and support, as its central motif. The online auction will run from 30 October until 7 December 2012. To bid: http://tinyurl.com/c6h69tu
took a long time to make this decision but decided that it was not practical to keep the line operating. It is becoming more and more difficult to raise funds at a time of great financial hardship for many people.” However, The Trust now has a Facebook page which is updated daily with HIV news from around the world and a mobile contact number for anyone wanting help or support. Peter Shapcott told BASELINE that “enquiries from Facebook are already higher than the helpline and there is no cost to the trust at all.” For the past 15 years Peter along with a small team of dedicated volunteers has answered the helpline every day of the year. The Trust will continue as The Eddie Surman Trust & Positive Online and will continue to run The Midmonth Group, in London, a social support group for HIV positive gay men. www.baseline-hiv.co.uk
Virgin Care’s move into managing sexual health services is increasingly in the spotlight. Channel Four’s ‘Dispatches’ programme looked at claims that Virgin Care were reducing access at one of its GP health centres and had problems with a Chlamydia screening programme in Teesside. According to a statement by Virgin Care, ‘Channel 4’s report fails to make clear that many of the services taken on by Virgin Care were significantly under performing when they were taken on.’ Virgin Care’s latest large contract is for sexual health services in Surrey including, for the first time, GUM and HIV care, for a population of over one million. BASELINE understands that Virgin is not operating the Payment by Results (PbR) scheme in GUM clinics and that staffing costs at clinics are being reduced. According to the Department of Health, ‘Payment by Results (PbR) is the transparent rules-based payment system in England under which commissioners pay healthcare providers for each patient seen or treated, taking into account the complexity of the patient’s healthcare needs. PbR promotes efficiency, supports patient choice and increasingly incentivises best practice models of care’ says the NHS. A Virgin Care spokesman, Russell Elliott, told BASELINE that the decision not to have PbR was, ‘a ‘commissioners decision - we didn’t have a choice,’ He confirmed that the contract at the moment was ‘on a block’ with a specified costs and returns for the five year contract. A government target that all GUM services in England are operated on a PbR by 2014, could see a change of contract conditions but this was outside the terms of their contract, he said. The Virgin contract will run to 2017. In April 2013 new commissioning groups will begin contracting health services. As to staffing levels being reduced, Elliott of Virgin Care said that in Surrey, ‘they are appropriate for the care we provide, we have had nobody leave so nobody has had to be replaced.’ Dr Steve Taylor, a sexual health and HIV specialist from Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and Dan Hartland from the HIV awareness charity Saving Lives warned there were unique issues in allowing private companies run sexual healthcare. See: www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19991579 ++++
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