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Monopoly on Surgeries - B (14th Oct 2021 - 07:51:48) So the Swan buys up Liphook and Liss, no courtesy announcement from L&L to their patients and now no choice of Doctors for the residents of Liphook.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - C (14th Oct 2021 - 09:39:54) There was notification to L & L patients - both my husband and I received a text on 13 October with a link to the announcement on their website. Maybe more of a concern is that the two senior partners in L & L and Swan appear to be husband and wife? In whose interest is this merger?

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Pete (14th Oct 2021 - 10:13:02) Since a change of management last year Liphook and Liss have effectively been running down this surgery and now it all makes sense. Partners have left and staff members have been forced out of their jobs to make way for this takeover in a disgusting display of duplicity. C- you must have been lucky to get that text as I know I ,and many others, haven't. You are quite correct it is a husband and wife couple and should cause concern into exactly how this takeover was initiated and handled. Be prepared to lose the Liphook surgery as the plot is far more valuable for housing, can you really see the Swan keeping a surgery in Petersfield one in Liss and Two in Liphook open. I would encourage anyone who is a patient of Liphook and liss to make contact with the surgery and demand to know how this is going to effect you (if you can get through it seems that they have cut staff to the bone to force this through).

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Helen (14th Oct 2021 - 10:16:21) I am a patient at liphook and Liss and received no text or letter.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - BB (14th Oct 2021 - 10:36:28) Quite agree. Standards at Liphook & Liss have gone downhill. Was already fed up with having to go to Liss when there is a surgery in Liphook (not that you can get in to see anyone). Doubt that I'll travel to Petersfield when they start asking you to do that. Mass exodus on the horizon.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Pete (14th Oct 2021 - 14:16:34) Obviously in Liphook & Liss it is the patients duty to find out about a major change to their own surgery via social media, hearsay and the website. My reply to a request below. "Thank you for your recent eConsult request, all the details you will need are on our website, please check there. If we can be of any further assistance please let us know." Am I alone in thinking this is not the way we should have found out about this change.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Sue (14th Oct 2021 - 15:06:47) My husband and I received a txt each on Tuesday this week Regarding merger,let’s hope the merger is going to improve things

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - GR (14th Oct 2021 - 17:13:28) Been with The village surgery for over 50 years always been helpful I think there has been a couple of emails and notification on facebook etc. Not sure what else they can do to inform people There was talk of a combined surgery a few years back when the ground opposite Station road was being earmarked for development maybe this might be happening We will have too wait and see with combined resources thing should get better so dont write L&L Swan off yet

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Pete (14th Oct 2021 - 18:30:53) GR- It's interesting that you at the village which is Swan got a message but I who's doctor is Liphook and Liss didn't. Sort of bears out my point.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Tracy Cook (14th Oct 2021 - 19:37:47) I am a patient of L&L and received no notification of this so called merger. Swan Medical Group will take over not merge!!

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - paul (14th Oct 2021 - 23:42:27) Hi, What ever the right or wrongs of this merger between two NHS facilities in the same village (this is not always available for size of population in other area's). These locations are "businesses" run by Doctors partnership's using government budgets. The most important issue is health care to the our local community. The reality is fewer and fewer G.P. Doctors available, they can only provide a limited National Heath Service to patients locally going forward. What I would love to see is to close the National Health Service. It has not been fit for purpose for a very long time. A small insurance premium to young starting working people careers would provide a first class health service like other countries. When the institution started the U.K. in 1948 the population was much smaller, and now is a not manageable with 66 million U.K. populous. The attitude within the NHS for a long time, and staff, with all their work day stresses is "finger pointing blaming". This from top management down to the junior staff of any mistakes is their culture. Sadly Government, and politicians, will never admit the NHS is not working (not a vote winner). Throwing tax-payer fortunes at it every year's budget to an inefficient service to our future living is very wrong. Let's hope for a better future healthcare for our people.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - A (15th Oct 2021 - 06:49:47) None of my family who are patients at L&L have received any notification from the Surgery only heard via Swan's announcements. Sounds very much like Holden & Holden housing development on the station road site will do very well! I feel for the team of workers who behind the scenes keep the place running on not a lot more than minimum wage, capitalist society strikes again, sod the patients, sod your workforce, let's make lots of money.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - James (15th Oct 2021 - 07:47:51) Am I missing something? Does the merger mean we are no longer NHS patients, that we'll have to pay to consult a doctor, that we can't see a nurse, etc etc? Of course it doesn't. There's some truly vicious comments on this thread at a time when GPs are leaving the NHS like never before. They are battling to maintain the service which is FREE to us all. Pop over the Channel and it's a very different set up. So, to all you armchair know it alls, think on. Mass exodus Pete?!?! Where are you planning on taking your miserable anger to? Get over yourselves and applaud the Holdens for trying to take on this unenviable task to keep us all under the most efficient practice possible.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Pete (15th Oct 2021 - 08:14:39) Ok James- I won't question why the senior partner of one surgery is being taken over by another surgery whos senior partner is her husband. ok James I wont question why a very well liked and respected partner left the business when it became apparent this was happening. I wont question why two of the management team quit one of which was effectively forced out. I wont question why Liphook and Liss are so behind with administrative duties. I wont question if we will be left with one or two Surgeries in a village with an ever expanding population. Just so you know I am very well placed as to know exactly what has happened over the last 18 months at L&L and it has been disgusting, so no I wont be congratulating the Holdens for this grubby affair. Did you read my post where did you get the term mass exodus I advised people to ask how this was going to effect them. Oh and don't use phrases like get over yourself it makes you sound like a pompous idiot and an armchair know it all.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Helen (15th Oct 2021 - 08:15:18) I find it bad enough driving to Liss to see a doctor, they will encourage no face to face meetings, let alone Petersfield that has been the practical outcome of when they merged with liss. You can believe it is to do with savings not the benefit of the patients. They are run as private businesses. I doubt they are going to the expense of building us a new surgery in Liphook.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Gr (15th Oct 2021 - 13:00:36) Maybe this will help swansurgery.co.uk/swan-medical-group-will-be-merging-with-liphook-and-liss-surgery

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Penny Williamson (15th Oct 2021 - 13:43:03) James The NHS is not a FREE service. It is free on the point of delivery but the vast majority of us pay for this service through our taxes.

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - er (15th Oct 2021 - 15:56:07) A quick bit of general history on British GP surgeries, feel free to look for yourselves and correct me if I'm wrong on any points, I'm no expert but rely for my armchair research on Mr Google! Since creation of the NHS, GPs have always been privately owned businesses, but were traditionally very heavily tied to the NHS under strict contracts. It was an anomaly created because GPs needed to retain their independence and regulate themselves, whilst earning the new state money, although at this point the NHS appeared to have the upper hand and contracts were quite restrictive. Although there were frequent revolts by GPs seeking more money and lucrative, less burdonsome contracts, it was actually Tony Blair who in 2004 finally broke tradition and introduced Alternative Providers of Medical Services (APMS) contracts and surgeries were now able to bid for funds, negotiate and allocate funds and profits largely as they chose. This also allowed a backdoor into the buying and selling of practices in effect, by allowing businesses to trade their holding companies for profit but not the practices themselves. (yes read that again, you would need to be a lawyer to see the difference, it allows the govt to maintain 'you cannot trade practices', whilst allowing the trade of gp practice ownership as open market, businesses not partnerships!). Whilst in Liphook, this may well be just a merger of two local practices, rather than a sale of any kind (I wouldn't know any details or arrangements), nonetheless it is now possible in the UK in theory to buy and sell surgeries internationally, hence the largest provider of GP surgeries in the UK is now an American PLC Centene through Operose Health with half a million UK patients where the UK GPs no longer operate as partnerships and it is increasingly common that large profit making organisations are buying these lucrative businesses which are not thereafter always run by doctors at all, whilst also introducing the concept of shareholders, corporate profit and dividends into the equation. Apparently many of the new companies including Operose which operates in the London area (including the Labour hotspot of Highbury and Islington) are receiving higher level of complaints, such that ironically, Labour are now complaining and blaming, you guessed it, the Tories! Who knew? Is it better or worse or just different?

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - er (15th Oct 2021 - 16:46:56) Ironically just now received my text about the merger of the two surgeries, personally I have no problem going to Liss, Petersfield or wherever as long as I'm up to driving of course, it seems if one site is busy you will be given the choice of another, so for me this will work, but I could see how it might not for others, in which case I guess they would have to take your circumstances into account and you'd be a priority for a Liphook appt. I think with squeezed NHS and Council budgets there will be more travelling around for services from these under-resourced little dormitory towns outside of the cities!

Re: Monopoly on Surgeries - Da (16th Oct 2021 - 07:40:34) I haven't received any word from Liphook and Liss about the merger, I thought that they would have a duty to their own patients to advise of significant changes to the practice and not just rely on the Swan. The NHS is certainly not free, we as citizens of this country pay taxes for this service, each Surgery is run as a business and is accountable for how they treat and interact with their patients, something that has been severely lacking from Liphook & Liss. I agree with the original post, there is now no choice of Doctors for Liphook residents anymore, Haslemere and Badgerswood catchments don't include Liphook and I'm not certain of Grayshott. Liss patients have the choice of Riverside Surgery as Liss has always had two practices in their village. James - I can't see any vicious comments on this thread prior to yours at Pete, " miserable anger, get over yourselves.." freedom of speech is also a glorious entity in this country as well as protest, if patients aren't being advised correctly and services are that dire at the practice then yes people will and have the right to have their say, let's remember this private merger between a husband and wife team doesn't take effect until April 2022 there is still a lot of time for things to deteriorate further.

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