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via healthactivists@unionlists.org.uk We had a lively protest outside the Manchester Virgin roadshow. There were a couple of police and security - but they were very friendly to us. Nearly all the people who went in were happy to stop briefly to speak to us, many gave us the thumbs up, many said they were just there to see what Virgin was proposing, and some said if Virgin could do it why shouldn’t they (as GPs). At least three of us went in to the presentation - with no subterfuge (and had a good go at the buffet before the show started!) It was quite clear that if Virgin gets into GP practices it will be mainly for the purpose of setting up their private health gym, pharmacy, dental practice, botox treatment, osteopathy, physiotherapy, sports injuries clinic, laser eye treatment, etc etc - with the GP practice being the thing which draws people in. Of course, since it’s the private side they are interested in, it’s hardly likely they are going to set up in deprived areas! They said they already have one GP practice in the M4 corridor (I think Swindon) on line, and want another 19 within the next few years. They made a lot of play of their good ‘customer services’ (have they travelled on their trains recently - frequently late, no hot water for drinks, toilets broken and smelly - though the staff remain calm and professional in the face of adversity). They did make some slightly derogatory comments about the pickets outside, and said they were going to confine questions to GPs - but they didn’t actually stop me from asking a question about non-clinical staff, and why Virgin wants to take them over but not clinical staff, and what guarantees would they give about terms and conditions. They said that GPs often said they didn’t really want to manage non-clinical staff, the implication being that they would be doing them a favour. They said they would offer a good package, with Virgin discounts and a Virgin pension, which would be broadly comparable. Many of the GPs questions were critical - for example, that Virgin seemed to want to take the best bits and leave the difficult and less interesting bits for the GPs. Virgin also made a big thing of their charitable arm, Unite (not the union) which apparently does lots of good works in ‘poor/developing countries’. They said they would allow staff to take sabbaticals to work with Unite. I took this to be a way of enabling people to do a sort of VSO - but an interesting spin was put on it by a journalist I spoke to from ‘GP magazine’ (look out for articles in that journal). He said that other people had told him it sounded as though Virgin was offering ‘jollies’ to far flung places as incentives to GPs. Could be. Virgin are certainly trying to get GPs to see that giving up their practices to Virgin would be a nice little earner. It didn’t seem to me that Virgin won many of them over - there was a great deal of scepticism. But despite the scepticism expressed in Manchester (and elsewhere), I suspect that Virgin won’t have too much difficulty finding 20 GP practices in nice affluent areas who think this would be a good career move. Caroline Bedale |