TY - JOUR T1 - Commercial confidentiality: a cloak for policy failure JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 893 LP - 894 DO - 10.3399/bjgp09X473114 VL - 59 IS - 569 AU - Allyson M Pollock AU - Liz Richardson Y1 - 2009/12/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/59/569/893.abstract N2 - The Department of Health in England is increasingly putting itself beyond the reach of parliament and public scrutiny when it makes fundamental changes to the NHS. Evaluations of six commuter walk-in centre pilot schemes published in this issue of the BJGP were limited because the researchers, despite being funded by the Department of Health, were denied access to both the contract and patient data. The Department of Health deemed the data commercial in confidence in one study and in the other study — despite having agreed to provide the data — withdrew permission on the same grounds.1,2 Since 2002 the government has argued that complete accountability of publicly-funded programmes will stifle innovation; so which stakeholder interests are being served by this latest exercise in policy secrecy?3The background to the research is the UK general medical services (GMS) contract of 2003, which heralded the major market-oriented reforms allowing primary care and GP services to be broken up and put out to tender to large multinational corporations and new alternative providers of care [Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003]. Among the new alternative providers of care are six commuter walk-in centres, which are paid for by NHS funds but provided by four private sector companies: Atos Healthcare, Netcare UK, Walk in Health, and Care UK. A seventh centre will be soon be opened in London. The centres, located near rail stations, were intended to provide primary care services … ER -