Practice Plus Group

Practice Plus Group is a healthcare company based in Reading, which claims to be England's largest independent provider of NHS services. It split off from Care UK in October 2019 and controlled by Bridgepoint Group.[1]

The company had a contract to run health services in 6 prisons in the South West of England. In April 2022 NHS England procured contracts divided into four lots, runs for seven years from October 2022, and collectively are worth a total of more than £273m. The company won the contract to provide services in a women’s prison in South Gloucestershire, but the others were awarded to Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust. The company lodged a High Court claim against NHS England for breaches of the procurement rules and accused the bid evaluation team of a conflict of interest, as one of the officials had previously stated she would not work for PPG “because she could not possibly work for a private provider that is all about money”.[2]

It runs the out-of-hours service in Gloucestershire. It was judged to be neither safe, effective, responsive nor well-led according to the Care Quality Commission in 2021. Patients were reported to be waiting between 12 and 24 hours to be phoned back when they should have been contacted within two to six hours.[3]

It has a contract for integrated community urgent care services in Devon, including NHS111, to start in October 2022.[4]

The Wakefield Coroner produced a report after a suicide in HMP Leeds, one of 45 prisons where the company provides mental health services, about the “meagre provision of psychiatric consultant availability” by the company. The victim's mother said Practice Plus Group had changed its name because it wanted to rid itself of a reputation earned under the old name.[5]