Trust me, I’m a doctor: the curious case of Dr Ahmed, Dr Allinson and eHarleyStreet

Sonia Behr

Running a GP practice is no easy task – balancing patient care, financial management and NHS bureaucracy requires skill, dedication and, ideally, the ability to pay one’s bills.

Unfortunately, Dr Jalil Ahmed and Dr Jonathan Allinson, the dynamic duo behind eHarleyStreet, seem to have taken a more creative approach to practice management.

With 19 GP surgeries in England and Wales to manage already, they secured a lucrative contract with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board to run a further five GP surgeries in south Wales from April 2024. Within weeks, these two medical entrepreneurs quickly became known – not for their clinical brilliance, but for their apparent aversion to paying anyone:

* £150,000 owed to HMRC (because who needs to pay tax?);

* £250,000+ owed to locums (who, inconveniently, expected payment for their work);

* Substantial sums to suppliers, who eventually tired of sending medicine and equipment without receiving anything in return;

* Staff pension contributions, which they apparently treated as ‘nice to have’ rather than a legal requirement.

Mass exodus

This financial wizardry led to predictable consequences. Locums, upon realising they might never see a penny, staged a mass exodus. Medical suppliers, rather unreasonably, decided that unpaid invoices meant they should stop delivering essential items like vaccines, syringes, oxygen and, well, everything. The GP surgeries, instead of thriving, found themselves in administrative and financial meltdown with patients and politicians increasingly vocal in their outrage.

Whistleblowing, litigation, formal complaints, conduct and other scary things

Staff were outraged too but muted when a brave practice manager, worried sick about staff and patient safety, stuck her head above the parapet and dared ask, “Shouldn’t someone be responsible here?” Her disclosure of the huge HMRC debt ruffled more feathers than it stirred reforms. It seems that at eHarley, speaking up about financial mismanagement is less likely to lead to accountability and more likely to result in a swift exit interview. She was summarily dismissed, losing her home to boot.

Since then, it’s become something of a badge of honour to receive a ‘cease and desist’ letter or a Standards Committee referral from the good doctors’ solicitors. Local councillors were advised that just asking innocent and obvious questions like, “where’s the money gone?” could result in defamation proceedings by this litigious pair.

So who the hell are they?

Dr Ahmed and Dr Allinson are not merely practising doctors responsible for over 160,000 patients; they are also prolific company directors. They preside over 72 largely dormant companies, many proudly bearing the eHarleyStreet name whilst being nowhere near Harley Street. Their corporate portfolio features intriguing titles such as:

ADHD Certify Ltd

Trustukdoctors Ltd

Guardia Pharma Ltd

EHarley Street Property One Ltd to Property Twenty-Four Ltd

Harley Street Health Online Ltd – the clue’s in the name.

Autism Detect Ltd

Ozempic4U Ltd – oops, that last one was made up, sorry.

Adding extra intrigue to the mix, influential figures like Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi and Dr Nabeela Siddiqi exercise significant control over some of these companies, meaning they have more than 50% of the shares. Faizul Siddiqi is said to be a barrister and trustee of Hijaz College aka Jamia Islamia (Islamic Studies Centre) Trust, a registered charity which has funds of over £2.5m.

Dr Ahmed is also one of the trustees, along with Dr Mohammed Mohbeen who is simultaneously a practising GP, medical director of the eHarley Street team and medical advisor of ADHD Certify Ltd – clearly a very busy chap.

Why the Siddiqis are involved at all in EHarley is something of a mystery.

A Growing Empire of Surgeries and Unalloyed Ambition

Not content with 24 NHS GP contracts (£3.5m a month?) our energetic duo and chums naturally like to own the actual surgeries. No rent to pay whilst building up a property portfolio – what’s not to like?

Since 2019 they have bought at least six surgeries ranging from £350,000 to £1.8m, all with mortgages. Two surgeries are owned by Dr Ahmed alone with the others owned as companies by Dr Ahmed, Dr Allinson and their strangely silent partner Dr Nabeela Siddiqui.

Ever optimistic and in spite of proven financial incompetence, there are still ambitious plans to expand evermore throughout Wales, ironically the birthplace of the NHS:

“Due to our continued growth, we are confident in extending our network of practices across Wales and in the benefits that our central management team can offer you.”

Well, good luck with that.

The eHarleyStreet Management Team – if it seems too good to be true ……

At the helm of this sprawling operation is eHarleyStreet – a management brand that promises innovative healthcare solutions through its team of experts. Experts such as the ever-smiling Sam Clare, chief operations manager. Together with his Mum Julie Clare (HR) and others they manage the GP practices remotely from offices above a disused pub and betting office in Hinckley, Leicestershire. So remote, that initially practice managers in Wales had no telephone contact at all with the Team.

EHarley’s sleek AI-style website promises to revolutionize primary care by handling all the admin stuff centrally, removing the onerous administrative burdens from GPs who in turn can concentrate on actually practising medicine – resulting in happy patients, happy doctors and a happy Health Board. Well, that was the promise.

Alas, eHarleyStreet soon turned into eShamblesStreet as unpaid invoices piled up and a humiliating re-payment schedule with HMRC was agreed. Doctors issued court proceedings whilst employees struggled to find out where their pension payments had gone. Some had difficulties with DWP as they were assumed to be unemployed. Credit checks and mortgage applications are similarly affected, possibly for years to come.

The Health Board’s Selective Vision

Enter the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, the esteemed body that awarded these contracts and continues to publicly deny any breach thereof.

The Board appears to fully back the two doctors’ insistence that they have done nothing wrong – nowhere in the contract does it explicitly state, “You must pay your staff, your suppliers, HMRC and pensions on time”.

This is a bold legal argument, akin to saying, “The restaurant contract didn’t specify that we needed to cook the food before serving it”. But the Health Board swallowed it whole, studiously ignoring the law on implied contract terms.

Still, Health Boards in England have also fallen for the slick EHarley patter, so Wales is not alone in feeling hoodwinked. A recent BBC report on three surgeries in Northampton tells of similar staff shortages and unpaid bills. Brook Surgery even went for months in winter without heating and hot water. Staffing levels are said by one unnamed employee to have been reduced by 30-40%.

Even as eHarley hands back contracts in Wales and comes under ‘enhanced monitoring’, the Health Board’s unwavering stance suggests a level of optimism that borders on the delusional. They are still supporting eHarley in three remaining Welsh practices.

Rumour has it the Health Board is even still paying out the contract monies until the contracts ‘formally’ end next month, whilst also paying for locums. Shocked doctors are asking, ‘doesn’t this mean they’re paying out twice?’

Good question, but it’s public money so who cares?

The Senedd’s Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee might – or it might not.

Cllr Sonia Behr is a Welsh Labour member of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council