Two brothers are the landlords of 13 NHS GP surgeries in Wales. The pair have links to businesses that were embroiled in scandal over massively inflated medicine prices.
Amit and Dipen Patel, 48 and 46 respectively, came to attention after an analysis of a map of “hidden UK property owners”. The map was created by Tax Policy Associates, a non-profit that says many businesspeople appear to have been ignoring rules on declaring their ownership of property.
Property ownership rules
The rules state that when a foreign entity owns property in the UK, it must declare the human owner – also known as the “beneficial owner”. This law was introduced four years ago to improve transparency on who actually owns British real estate, long notorious for being shrouded in secrecy.
One of the businesses that has failed to stick to the rules (in what it described as an “administrative oversight”) is Medical Impact Properties, which is registered in Jersey and owns 73 properties on the map. Almost all are GP surgeries, and 13 of them are in Wales. The firm is not involved in running the surgeries; it just owns the buildings.
Rather than declaring a human being as its beneficial owner as it is required to do, Medical Impact lists another company, Lakeside Leicester Holdings. There’s not much of an online footprint for either of those companies, no email address or phone number, but they have connections to a huge pharmaceutical firm called Waymade.
Connections to pharmaceutical firm
When asked why Medical Impact didn’t properly register its ownership, a lawyer for Waymade told there had been an “oversight” which would be “corrected in short order”. She also insisted there had been no attempt to hide human ownership, pointing out that Companies House records show who Lakeside’s owners are – Amit and Dipen Patel, two brothers from Essex with a controversial past.
Accounts of either Medical Impact or Lakeside are not visible – they don’t need to file any on Companies House because they are registered in the tax haven of Jersey (at the same St Helier office building, in fact, as Waymade). However, the lawyer told the companies are “fully tax-paying in the UK”. Asked why they are registered in Jersey, she replied: “Due to the ease of transacting and less rigid corporate law framework.”
Family's controversial past
Vijay Patel, father of Amit and Dipen, was at the centre of a media storm in 2019 when he was awarded an OBE for services to business and philanthropy. “Millionaire rip-off drugs businessman Vijay Patel given OBE,” ran the headline from the Times, which in a major story three years earlier had accused his firm Atnahs (since rebranded to Pharmanovia) of overcharging the NHS for medicine.
The company was founded by Vijay and his brother Bhikhu, and co-run with Amit and Dipen. Its strategy involved buying the rights to older medicines which were out of patent but still in use by the NHS. It would then hike the prices the NHS paid for those medicines by as much as 2,500%. At the time, Vijay and Bhikhu were estimated to have a combined fortune of £675m.
According to the Times, the overcharging cost the NHS some £80m. A pack of Sinepin antidepressants increased in price from £5.71 to £154, while a pack of Welldorm insomnia tablets rose from £12.10 to £138.56. MPs slammed the “obscene profits” and “utterly despicable” behaviour. Following the backlash, the UK Government introduced a law in 2017 to cap such prices.
The scandal also resulted in a judge ruling it was necessary for the UK Government to explain why the “highly controversial” OBE had been awarded. It turned out the civil servants running background checks had failed to find the Times article, and by the time they did it was deemed too late to act on their concerns. An official later said lessons had to be learned from the episode.
Both of Vijay's sons were directors of Atnahs from when it was founded in 2013. Dipen resigned in 2019 and Amit did so earlier this year, at which point annual revenue was at £247m.
Waymade PLC fined
Atnahs was never investigated or charged with wrongdoing by a regulator. However, the same cannot be said of Waymade PLC, another company controlled by Vijay and Bhikhu Patel, which last year turned over £47.8m. In 2021, Waymade PLC was handed a £2.2m fine by the Competition and Markets Authority for taking payments from competitors to stay out of the market so that medicine prices could be raised.
Waymade Capital, which bills itself as the “family office” of Vijay and Bhikhu Patel, told via its lawyer that Vijay's sons “have no connection to Waymade PLC and have never been directors or employees or shareholders of that entity”. However, as learned from records on Companies House, Dipen was its company secretary for four years until 2016 – coinciding with the illegal activity.
The lawyer also told Waymade Capital is not part of the same “corporate group” as Waymade PLC. When pointed out the latter had described itself as the “pharmaceutical division” of the former, the lawyer replied: “I’m not clear what is meant by division from a technical perspective.”
One businessman who was involved in paying Waymade PLC to stay out of the market was banned from being a company director for five years. He happens to be called Amit Patel but is not the same person as Vijay's son Amit Patel. The latter Amit Patel still has a financial connection to Waymade Capital, which is listed as having “significant control” in a care home operator that he co-runs – Highgate Care Holdings.
One of the companies in the Highgate group has assets of nearly £9m. Five years ago, before Amit Patel became a director, Highgate was heavily criticised for buying and then announcing plans to demolish a care home in Haringey, London. The National Pensioners Convention said it was “appalled at the behaviour” of Highgate, which it claimed had “purchased the home with residents aged from 85 to 104 years old in situ, having made a commitment to retain both the staff and the home as a going concern”. Days after the sale was concluded, the residents were given a notice to leave within three months, it was alleged.
HMRC response
As for Medical Impact, the company that owns the Welsh GP surgeries, HMRC was approached about the failure to properly declare human ownership. The authority told it “continues to identify and target tax non-compliance of offshore corporates and trusts owning UK property”.
The Waymade Capital lawyer responded: “Medical Impact is fully tax-paying in the UK. As clear from HMRC’s response to your query, it would indeed be following up if this was not the case.” Asked how Medical Impact came to own the GP surgeries, she said the investment portfolio was acquired in 2022 from a firm called Assura. According to the lawyer, Waymade itself has no financial interest in the GP surgeries. Asked why, then, she was responding on behalf of Medical Impact, the lawyer said: “I responded since your initial enquiry was sent to [Waymade’s email address].”
