Category Archives: NHS (local)
Virgin – propped up by British Government
“As Britain’s best-known businessman, seen by millions as a buccaneering role model, Sir Richard Branson has produced bookshelves of advice about “relying on yourself”, creating a “nation of go-getters” and “standing on your own feet”.
As he wrote in his self-help manual, Screw It, Let’s Do It: “If you want milk, don’t sit in the middle of the field in the hope that the cow will back up to you.” This year, however, is likely to be one where Branson gets most of his British milk from the taxpayer teat.
Using recently published company accounts and regulatory disclosures, The Sunday Times has established that Branson’s Virgin Group is on course to join what critics call the “corporate welfare state” — with the majority of its UK revenues coming from work subsidised, or wholly funded, by the public purse.
More than 80% of revenues at Virgin UK Holdings, Branson’s main holding company in Britain, already come from operations dependent on public funding, mainly rail and the NHS, the accounts show.
Branson’s companies received £320m from taxpayers in 2016 for running public services. Some £262m of this was from the health service or local councils for medical and social care through his Virgin Care business. Then there was a net government subsidy of £58m for Virgin’s share of the East and West Coast rail franchises, a joint ventures with Stagecoach.
Virgin UK Holdings does not own all Branson’s British businesses, such as his stakes in Virgin Money and Virgin Atlantic, his biggest cash cow in 2016. And the tycoon — who lives mostly in his tax haven personal island of Necker in the Caribbean — now has substantial international interests, not least his space venture.
Nonetheless, in the UK, the balance of his income is shifting more towards public services. In a deal likely to be completed this year, Branson will slash his interest in Virgin Atlantic, from 51% to 20%. He has already cut his stake in Virgin Money to 35%.
Even in 2016, with the airline still on board, healthcare and rail accounted for about 40% of Virgin’s total UK revenues. By comparison, the now-collapsed Carillion earned about 45% of its UK income from the government that year.
Virgin Care has more or less doubled its NHS work in the past two years. If that growth were to continue, it is easy to imagine that more than half of Virgin’s UK revenues could be derived from public sector work — particularly in light of the likely reduction of Branson’s airline holding.
“Branson poses as a champion of competition, but has always been reliant on getting government-granted contracts and monopolies.” said Branson’s biographer, Tom Bower. “But as that sort of work grows, so does the risk that political controversy over it contaminates the brand loyalty, which is Virgin’s only real asset.”
Branson’s recent deal to escape up to £200m in future payments to the Treasury for his 10% share of the East Coast rail franchise drew that sort of political flak. Lord (Andrew) Adonis, a former transport secretary and chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, called it “scandalous” — though Virgin points out that it has lost money on East Coast, and paid a £2m premium to the government last year.
On the far more lucrative West Coast line, Virgin’s 51% share generated revenues of £1.1bn, profits of £34m and it paid £7.5m in tax in 2016-17. The franchise also netted Branson £60m in state subsidy that year — and almost £1bn since 2008, according to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) regulator.
Virgin says most of this money was paid to Network Rail to maintain the tracks its trains use. The ORR, however, defines it as a subsidy to Virgin, since the operator would otherwise have to pay Network Rail itself.
West Coast is much improved under Virgin — though Branson cannot claim all the credit, as he often does. The £9bn upgrade, allowing today’s faster, more frequent trains, was funded by further Treasury cash.
Despite all the subsidies, Virgin now charges £338 for a standard peak return from London to Manchester, up 50% since 2008. The morning peak period, during which such fares apply, finishes as late as 10.40am, while the evening peak for most English destinations starts at 3.01pm.
However, it is the NHS that has the potential to cause Branson the greatest political grief. Tellingly, in the 400 NHS and social care contracts now run by Virgin, its branding is extremely low-key. The Care Quality Commission, the health regulator, strongly praises many of its services. Yet middle England may not always agree. In Somerset and Yorkshire, where Virgin runs NHS contracts, there have been controversies about care standards. In Surrey, Virgin was criticised for suing the NHS, winning a multimillion-pound settlement. There is also controversy about tax. Branson’s core health and social care company, Virgin Care, made more than £8m profit in the year to March 2017. Its accounts, published on December 28, show a liability for corporation tax of £1.6m.
Across the web of companies that make up the Virgin Care group, however, “administrative expenses” of £31m were set against profits, reducing tax liabilities to nil. Virgin Care claims on its website that “we have always paid our UK taxes in full and will continue to do so”. In fact, it has never paid any UK tax — because, it says, it has never made a profit.
Virgin declined to respond to detailed questions about what the administrative expenses were, though it said they were less than in the public NHS.
Branson says Virgin Care has “saved the NHS and local authorities millions” and insists he does “not want or intend to profit personally from the NHS”. If and when a dividend was taken from the work, a spokesman said, all the money would be invested back into NHS services.
Virgin said last night that it had “many successful businesses across the world”, and continued to “start and invest in new ventures”. It said the publicly funded businesses accounted for a smaller share of profits than of revenues, and pointed out that it might no longer run West Coast after 2019, when its current deal ends, though it is bidding for a 30% share in the new franchise.
Branson’s trajectory in Britain seems clear, however. While Virgin’s name still adorns many UK businesses, it no longer owns most of them, including Virgin Mobile, Virgin Media and Virgin Radio, instead licensing other companies to use the Virgin brand. “Virgin is increasingly living off the state,” said Bower.
Yet even as it does so, new questions are being asked over the model, and even the very principle, of private involvement in public services. With the collapse of Carillion, the rise of the hard left, and a scathing National Audit Office verdict on the Private Finance Initiative, could Branson, for once, have misjudged a trend?”
Source: Sunday Times (paywall)
Who fights for the NHS in East Devon? Your Independent councillors!
At today’s Save Our Hospital Services demo in Exeter today. East Devon Alliance and Claire Wright make their mark but not an East Devon Tory (including our two East Devon MPs) to be seen!
East Devon Alliance DCC Councillor Martin Shaw
East Devon Alliance EDDC Councillor Cathy Gardner
DCC Independent Councillor Claire Wright
East Devon Alliance Councillors Marianne Rixson with East Devon Alliance Councillor Cathy Gardner
One of the many interviews the independent councillors did on the day.
“Hundreds protest NHS crisis in Exeter as councillor warns: ‘Only Derriford and RD&E will be left’ “
Brilliant coverage of today’s NHS demo in Exeter including interviews with EDDC East Devon Alliance councillor Cathy Gardner, DCC East Devon Alliance councillor Martin Shaw and DCC Independent Councillor Claire Wright making excellent points about the destruction of our NHS.
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/hundreds-protest-nhs-crisis-exeter-1162119
“Fix the NHS: Protesters rally in London [and Exeter] to call for government action
“Health workers, activists and unions are marching in central London on Saturday to protest against government inaction over the NHS winter crisis.
Hospitals have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by a surge in admissions that has led to delays of up to 12 hours on emergency wards, patients left on trollies for hours and thousands of patients forced to wait in ambulances before receiving urgent care.
Two pressure groups, the People’s Assembly and Health Campaigns Together, have organised the rally to call on the government to plug funding and resource gaps in the health service. …”
“Autocratic top-down management” fails NHS and leads to mediocrity
“Autocratic management is a leading cause of poor NHS care, according to the compiler of a European health service league table that ranks Britain 15th.
The UK trails Slovakia and Portugal while the best performers such as the Netherlands and Switzerland pull away, according to the Euro Health Consumer Index. Treatment is Britain is mediocre and there is an “absence of real excellence” in the NHS, the report concludes. Only Ireland does worse on accessibility measures such as availability of same-day GP appointments, access to specialists and waits for routine surgery.
The findings come after a global study this week found cancer survival in Britain still lagged well behind the best in the world.
Arne Björnberg, who compiles the Euro Health Consumer Index, said: “Cancer survival rates are one of the prime examples of NHS mediocrity.”
More money is needed to improve care, according to a study that finds a strong correlation between treatment results and how much countries spend on health.
However, Professor Björnberg said that the most urgent lesson the NHS could learn from other countries was about the corrosive effects of an “autocratic top-down management culture”. He said: “As a Scandinavian what strikes you when you visit the UK is British management is extremely autocratic. Managing 1.5 million using a top-down method doesn’t work very well. If you go and ask a secretary or a receptionist anything out of the routine in Scandinavia, the most negative response would be: ‘I’ll see what I can do’. But in the UK they will say: ‘I’ll have to talk to my manager’. Subordinate staff are not allowed to use their brains in the UK and managing a professional organisation like healthcare like that is not a good idea.”
The Netherlands has consistently topped the rankings, which some have attributed to a system of competing insurance companies. However, Professor Björnberg said that the main lesson to be learnt from the Dutch was not about market forces but the need to put doctors in charge and force them to take account of patients’ views.
“If you have intelligent people and make them talk to customers frequently, that is a good idea,” he said.
“You have 1.5 million intelligent and dedicated people working for [the NHS]. Liberate the medical profession and put politicians and amateurs at arm’s length.”
[Autocratic top-down] NHS bosses dismissed the findings, preferring an index compiled by the US-based Commonwealth Fund, which ranks Britain top of 11 global health systems. The NHS scores well on measures such as equal access, but ranks tenth at keeping people alive.”
Source Times (paywall)
Virgin: rewarded for failure
Virgin already run children’s services, many GO’s surgeries and other former public services in Devon. They will no doubt bid as aggressively as usual for more Devon health care services when Devon gets its (Un)Accountable (Non)Care (Non-scrutable) System which will allow wholesale privatisation of our NHS.
“Virgin Trains will be handed a lucrative new contract to run services on the west coast main line despite serious criticism of its owners’ handling of the east coast franchise.
The Department for Transport is expected on Monday to award the company a new deal to operate the line between London and Scotland for another two years. The contract will take the form of a “direct award”, when the incumbent is handed a short-term deal without other train operators being able to bid.
The announcement could prove awkward for Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, who has been criticised for his handling of Virgin’s east coast franchise. It is being scrapped in 2020, three years early, after the company overestimated passenger numbers and suffered a revenue shortfall. It is feared that the franchise could collapse even sooner, forcing the government to rewrite the contract or even renationalise the line.
The confirmation of the west coast deal could be seen as a “reward for failure” by critics of Britain’s privatised railway. The west coast is the country’s most profitable rail line, making £51 million for Virgin — a joint venture between Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Stagecoach — in 2016-17.
It will also fuel concerns over the franchising system, which has suffered a shortage of bidders in recent years. A third of rail franchises are let on a direct award basis. However, the DfT is preparing to mount a staunch defence of the deal, insisting that it merely represents confirmation of a contract announced more than a year ago, before the east coast fiasco.
Sources said that the west coast was well run, with the franchise delivering more than £200 million a year in premium payments to the government, reversing a previous position when it made a £75 million net loss.
It was also claimed that comparisons with the east coast were unfair. The east coast is 90 per cent run by Stagecoach. However, the west is 51 per cent owned by Sir Richard’s company, with Stagecoach holding a 49 per cent stake.
Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “There is a need for a fundamental review of franchising. We can’t keep the railway running on direct awards. We need long-term thinking.”
The existing west coast franchise had been due to end in April. The government announced more than a year ago that a direct award would be made, allowing Virgin to run the line up to April next year. At that point, a new franchise was expected to be created — “the west coast partnership” — to run both west coast trains and HS2 services when the high-speed line is built in 2026.
However, it is believed that Virgin will now continue to run the line for a further year — up to April 2020 — delaying the start of the long-term west coast partnership by 12 months.
The direct award is expected to require Virgin to improve its passenger satisfaction ratings, extend free wifi in carriages, introduce passenger compensation for trains that are at least 15 minutes late and accommodate work needed to prepare for HS2.
A DfT spokesman said: “As set out in November 2016, we intend to award a short-term contract to operate services on the west coast main line until the start of the new west coast partnership, which will run services on the west coast line and shape the future of HS2.”
Source: Times (paywall)
“Protest in Exeter [tomorrow, Saturday 11 am] will call on Government to ‘fix our NHS’ “
“Tomorrow (Saturday) will be a national day of action and Save Our Hospital Services Devon will be among those calling for:
An immediate cash injection to relieve the crisis facing the NHS, which has seen ‘unacceptable’ waiting times in A&E, delays admitting and discharging patients, deaths on trolleys and in waiting ambulances, and the cancellation of all routine operations.
An end to the closure of hospitals, wards and beds in Devon.
No imposition of Accountable Care contracts in Devon or any other part of the country, but a return to a fully public, fully funded, fully accountable NHS, free at the point of use.
Fair pay for NHS workers and the restoration of bursaries for student nurses.
The protest will begin in Princesshay Square at 11am tomorrow (Saturday).”
And another wobbly privatisation domino: Virgin Care
“IF Carillion was a financial wreck that had to be fed ever more contracts to keep going until it was too late, something similar can be seen in the UK’s outsourced health services.
The company now winning the most NHS contracts is Virgin Care, which provides everything from children’s services in Devon to urgent care in Croydon and adult social care in Somerset. Yet it has a balance sheet that makes Carillion’s look like a picture of health.
On a total turnover of £252m up to March 2017, Virgin Care companies recorded losses of £15.9m last year. Set against this, income from several joint venture partnerships with local GPs totalling £4.2m still left the group with an eight-figure loss. Having been in the business several years now, the fact that Virgin can’t make a profit on its healthcare contracts raises the awkward question of whether it, like Carillion, has been bidding too low for them – and in the process elbowing out the NHS organisations with which it often competes. (When it loses, recent legal action against health commissioners in Surrey showed, those elbows are pretty sharp – see Eyes 1439 & 1440).
Liabilities exceeding assets
The years of loss-making have left the Virgin Care companies, mainly Virgin Care Ltd and Virgin Care Services Ltd, with liabilities exceeding assets by around £28m, and most of what assets the companies do have are in the “intangible” form of technology Virgin Care has developed. The losses are replenished by loans from unknown sources within the wider Virgin group. Since its accounts also show that it doesn’t expect profits for the “foreseeable future” – which again questions the wisdom of low-balling bids – these will have to keep rolling in for some time yet.
The business is spared from insolvency by ultimate owner Sir Richard Branson promising from his bolt-hole in the British Virgin Islands to continue to provide support, allowing Virgin Care’s directors and its auditor KPMG (which checked the Carillion numbers!) to declare that the companies are “going concerns”.
So long as Beardie continues to plough cash into the healthcare companies, the contracts carry on rolling in (a record £1bn worth last year), and other parts of the business such as his rail group secure large taxpayer bailouts, all remains well. But relying on the kindness of strangers, ie taxpayers, and a proprietor with who-knows-what long-term plans to provide stable public services looks about as sensible as it was to rely on Carillion.”
“Special scrutiny meeting may be held over set up of shady Accountable Care System in Devon”
Again, Martin Shaw (East Devon Alliance Independent)and Claire Wright (Independent)to the rescue! From Claire Wright’s blog:
“A special health scrutiny session may be held in the next few weeks, if it transpires that a controversial Accountable Care System is to be established in Devon in April, it was agreed at last Thursday’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee meeting.
My Independent colleague, Martin Shaw, put together an excellent and very well researched paper on the subject – found here:
http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=13776 and presented it to the committee last week.
He asked for an urgent special meeting of the committee as the pace of change is looking very fast.
The main concerns about ACS’s (Accountable Care Systems) and ACOs (Accountable Care Organisations) are that they are the very opposite that their name implies, that they would not be set up in statute and may not be subject to the usual checks and balances that legally constituted NHS organisations are.
The language is the same as used in the United States healthcare system, which is quite understandably worrying many people.
There is also a great fear that such organisations will source much more work from the private sector over much longer contract periods.
Any such organisation or system may not be able to be held to account by the only legal check on health services – Devon County Council’s Heath and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee.
I formally proposed that the committee holds such a meeting in February preferably. This was agreed subject to the date when the Devon Accountable Care System may be established.
I am delighted to see that nationally, a judge has granted permission for a campaign group to pursue a high profile judicial review against the government on this issue.
So we will see.”
Claire Wright and Martin Shaw fighting heroically for our NHS
Thank heavens we have Claire Wright and Martin Shaw fighting so hard for our NHS on a daily basis and don’t have to leave the fight to Swire, Diviani, Sarah Randall-Johnson and East Devon Tories – or there would be no fight at all!!!
Holding NHS Property Services to account:
http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/nhs_property_services_and_nhs_managers_requested_to_fully_engage_over_commu
Getting those winter performance figures that Randall-Johnson was happy to wait months for:
http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/new_devon_ccg_to_provide_performance_winter_pressures_reports_within_days
Social care not working:
http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/latest_devon_social_care_survey_reveals_concerns_among_people_about_service
Ambulance service under intense pressure due to cost-cutting:
http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/devon_county_council_health_scrutiny_committee_records_its_concerns_over_am
Decisions on community hospitals:
Health Scrutiny hears there will be no precipitate decisions on community hospitals – local conversations with CCG and RD&E offer chance to shape ‘place-based health systems’ around towns
Declining performance:
Devon’s health system’s declining performance over last 12 months – and Health Scrutiny still waiting for winter crisis evidence
30 Devon health visitorsto be sacked in latest round of austerity cuts
From the blog of Claire Wright:
“The latest round of government budget cuts to public health is set to result in a loss of around 30 health visitor posts across Devon, it emerged at last Thursday’s (25 January) Health and Adult Care Scrutiny meeting.
During a presentation by Steve Brown, assistant director of public health for Devon County Council, I asked for clarification on the budget cuts as a result of reduction in funding of over £700,000 from central government ….
The narrative in the agenda papers stated that several of the budget lines are set to save mobey due to contract renegotiation. I asked for assurances that this meant only a renegotiated contract and not a reduction in service. Mr Brown confirmed that there would be no service reductions in those areas.
However, due to budgetary pressures in 0-5 children’s services, the contract currently managed by Virgin Care, it is anticipated that there will be a loss of 30 health visitor staff, due to ‘natural wastage’ (staff leaving and not being replaced), in the next financial year 18/19.
NHS funded mental health support in schools set to be lost
A cut of £223,000 to the public mental health in schools budget could mean that NHS funded emotional health and wellbeing service in schools will be scrapped, it was also revealed at last
Thursday’s meeting.
When I enquired, Mr Brown confirmed that the contract for the service was coming to an end and his department was searching for a new provider. He said it was a really valued service and if further efficiency savings could be made elsewhere, this service would be top of the list for funding.
I was completely dismayed at what I was hearing, given that anxiety and depression among young people is rocketing.
I proposed that the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee relay its grave concerns to Devon County Council’s cabinet about the impact of the cuts on the public health budget. In particular, the loss of 30 public health visitors and the potential significant impact on young people the cut of £223,000 to public mental health budget, especially at a time when anxiety and depression among young people is rising.
I also proposed that the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee writes to all Devon MPs, asking them to take up the issue with the Secretary of State for Health.
Another proposal from the chair on continuing the push for fairer funding for public health in Devon was also put forward.
All recommendations were supported unanimously.
You can view the speaker-itemised webcast here”:
https://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/315014
What Swire thinks of NHS: likes dementia tax, tax on pensioner perks and Hunt “open to all options”
Owl says: “Hunt open to all options” sends a chill through my wings. It not only means he has NO plans but also that the option to keep the NHS a public service is doomed.
“A political consensus is emerging here at Westminster about what has to be done to save the NHS, which we all know is in crisis.
The main cause that has been targeted is social care, which has been created by an ageing population and yes, cuts to local Government.
Jeremy Hunt has now persuaded the Prime Minister to bring social care into the NHS, which is a good thing, but in my books the budget, which currently sits at the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government also needs to be transferred.
The NHS rather than councils should be in charge of commissioning social care.
As we all know, old age is a condition lottery; one person might require £100,000 of care, another £20,000. Is it not a fairer solution to pool the risk between as many people as we can so that everyone loses something but nobody loses everything?
In my view, the so called ‘dementia tax’ was a good manifesto pledge because it suggested those who own their homes contribute to their own care rather than allowing our children and grandchildren, who are finding it difficult to get on the property ladder themselves, to pay for it. But it was flawed because it didn’t have a cap, which meant it failed to pool that risk.
Just how should we pay for it? Anyone I speak to seems to suggest that they wouldn’t mind paying a bit more in tax to sort it out. But how? Take money out of peoples’ estates after they die? Labour tried that, and it was quickly dubbed, by my side, as being a ‘death tax’.
Maybe the Government could raise tax by means-testing pensioners benefits such as winter fuel allowances and ending the pension triple lock, but again whenever this has been floated there has been opposition to it, most recently by the DUP.
Another idea floating around Parliament is turning national insurance into a ring-fenced health tax. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chairwoman of the Health Select Committee believes national insurance should also be extended to those beyond retirement age who are presently exempt.
I have spoken to Jeremy Hunt many times about social care and the truth is he is not wedded to any one idea, he is ‘open to all options’, including a dedicated tax, because he knows more money must be found and fast.
What is needed is courage and leadership to drive forward solutions, but integrating social and health care must be the right place to start.”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/how-can-we-save-the-nhs-1-5366945
DCC Councillor Claire Wright: “NHS REFUSES TO PROVIDE WINTER PRESSURES INFORMATION FOR DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL HEALTH SCRUTINY COUNCILLORS”
“I am really disappointed to report that despite me asking at the beginning of January for the winter pressures information to be available at the 25 January Health and Adult Care Scrutiny meeting, it is not going to be provided.
Given the avalanche of very worrying “NHS in Crisis” press stories I sent several emails to committee chair, Sara Randall Johnson, at the beginning of January asking for information such as delayed discharges, A&E waits, levels of norovirus, staff vacancies and various other pieces of information.
I was told it would be published as part of the performance review. However, when the agenda papers were published last week, the performance review charts gave information until the end of November only.
I have since been told by the committee chair that a representative from the NEW Devon CCG claimed that they weren’t in a position to provide the information because it would give councillors an incomplete picture.
If this isn’t infuriating enough, winter pressures data is updated on a daily basis and circulated to NHS and social care managers. They have the information. And it’s as up to date as today.
The health scrutiny committee chair indicated during a phone call with me on Saturday that she thought this was acceptable and that this data not being provided until the March meeting was fine!
When I asked (as per the email below) for the data to be provided under ‘urgent items’ I was told the issue wasn’t urgent and there wasn’t time to get the paperwork out in any case.
The refusal to supply this information, is in my view, a deliberate obfuscation. An attempt to interfere with the democratic and legitimate process of scrutiny and the NHS should have been pressed to provide it for this meeting.
Here’s my email to chair, Sara Randall Johnson, sent last Wednesday (17 January):
Dear Sara
I am very disappointed that there will be no specific written report on winter pressures at next week’s meeting.
I think that most people, given that ongoing national crisis that the NHS is experiencing right now, would find it inconceivable that our committee did not have this important information to assess how our major hospitals are managing during winter.
I see that there is an agenda item for urgent items at the beginning of the meeting.
Can I ask that this information as I previously asked for, is included in the form of written reports from the four NHS acute trusts, as an urgent agenda item. This to include delayed discharges for the winter period and up until next week, A&E waits and numbers, staffing vacancies, levels of norovirus and all the other standard winter pressures reporting that the trusts do on a daily basis for their managers.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes
Claire”
““CAMPAIGNERS REVEAL CASH-STRAPPED KENT NHS TRUST PAID MILLIONS TO A PRIVATE COMPANY TO FIND SAVINGS”
Dame Ruth Carnell is also leading Devon’s STP after her appointment os chief of the “Success Regime” on which her consultanct company worked prior to her appointment.
PRESS RELEAE:
“Two local Kent campaigners claim they had to mount a year-long investigation, involving numerous Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and a meeting with top NHS executives, in order to confirm that a small private consultancy firm had been paid over £6 million of local NHS funds to find cuts and “efficiency savings” in Kent.
Diane Langford and Julie Wassmer say they became concerned when they saw Dame Ruth Carnall, a former NHS executive who heads the private consultancy, Carnall Farrar, had been made Independent Chair of the Programme Board of the local Sustainability & Transformation Plan (STP) – one of 44 regional bodies put in place by NHS England to implement cuts and “savings” within the NHS.(1)
Author and campaigner, Julie Wassmer says “I raised concerns with former Canterbury MP, Julian Brazier, at a public (CHEK) meeting last March, questioning how Dame Ruth could possibly claim ‘independence’ when her own company was set to profit from the contract. At the same time, I was aware that my colleague, Diane Langford, had already been coming up against a wall of obfuscation in trying to discover how much that contract was worth and who was actually making the payments.”
Ms Langford, a writer and former Hansard transcriber says: “I actually submitted my first Freedom of Information request in December 2016, then dozens more to all eight Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in Kent and Medway as well as to Kent County Council (KCC) and NHS England in order to try to establish who was paying Carnall Farrar. As each respondent has up to 20 days to reply, it was an extremely time-consuming process and all the bodies denied having paid the firm though KCC had disclosed that the money came from ‘the NHS.’”
A complaint to the FOI Ombudsman against Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was triggered when no reply was received within 20 days.
Eventually the campaigners found that millions of NHS money had been paid to Carnall Farrar by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, of which Glenn Douglas was then CEO. Wassmer then obtained a meeting last month, at which the campaigners discussed with Douglas (now – CEO of the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Partnership) and Michael Ridgwell (its Programme Director) the huge sums that had been paid to Carnall Farrar and why they were not appearing on the Trust’s usual spending records for payments of £25k and over.
“Ironically,’ says Wassmer, “this was on 7th December, just before the local NHS was about to implode with the pressure of Christmas and New Year emergencies. Michael Ridgwell was unable to produce an exact figure of how much had been paid to Carnall Farrar, but suggested the sum of £2.2M. I then explained that with the help of research organisation, Spinwatch,(2) we had actually confirmed that a figure of £6,051,199 had been paid to September 2017 (3) – though only just over half of it had been logged in the Trust’s spending records, with no record of any significant spending on Carnall Farrar before June 2017 – and no trace of the remaining millions. At the meeting Glenn Douglas explained to us that as the STP is not an “organisation” it is not obliged to publish its payments, but Michael Ridgwell then agreed to publish the full expenditure on the Trust’s website and has since done so. These records show that Carnall Farrar has been paid well over half a million pounds a month since September last year, although it’s not known whether this money is on top of the £6m it has already charged the local NHS.“
The campaigners insist it is crucial to challenge the lack of clarity, transparency, and accountability surrounding such huge payments. Even more so as the government now seeks to introduce new bodies – Accountable Care Organisations – that could see billions of pounds of the NHS budget handed to commercial companies.
“This is public money,” says Wassmer, “NHS funds being diverted away from services and into the pockets of private consultancies. We know that over £6 million, and possibly more, has been paid from the local NHS budget to this one consultancy for barely 18 months’ work on the local STP. How much more is going to management consultants across the whole of the UK? It’s almost impossible to hold the system to account and I fear it will only be worse with the impending introduction of so-called Accountable Care Organisations (4). Paying millions to private companies, like Carnall Farrar to find damaging cuts within an underfunded service is not only senseless – it’s immoral.”
Diane Langford agrees: “This lack of transparency conceals not only the sums involved, but the role consultancies like Carnall Farrar play in axing services. At our meeting on 7th December, we mentioned that Dame Ruth Carnall had appeared in a 2011 list compiled by the Sunday Telegraph of the highest paid NHS “fat cats” – earning an annual salary of over £200,000 at that time.(5) Glenn Douglas was on the same list, and while he admitted he was still earning in excess of £200,000 a year, the point is that as an NHS member of staff he can be held duly accountable for his work, in a way that private companies like Carnall Farrar cannot.”
Dr Coral Jones, GP, vice -chair of Doctors in Unite and member of Keep our NHS Public commented: “As the campaigners Diane Langford and Julie Wassmer have uncovered, over £6 million has been paid to a single consultancy company run by a former director of NHS London to tell the Kent and Medway CCGs how to cut services. Downgrading of services at QEQM hospital in Margate, as proposed by Carnall Farrar, will put lives at risk. Patients in Thanet and all those in East Kent living miles away from Ashford will be at risk of death, or avoidable disability, after a review of Kent and Medway urgent stroke services plans to concentrate hospital treatment for strokes in three sites across Kent and Medway. There is no discussion of alternatives apart from the concentration of services in three hospitals, and none on how to avoid the poor outcomes for patients when treatment is delayed due to travel times. The use of management consultancy companies is widespread in the NHS. Their reports, costing many millions of pounds, all follow the same formula of cuts, re-configurations and concentration of services. On Saturday 27th January at 10.30 am there will be a community conference (6) at Queens Rd, Baptist Church, Broadstairs CT10 1NU to oppose downgrading of local NHS services and I urge everyone concerned about the NHS in Kent & Medway to come along.” ENDS
Source: http://www.spinwatch.org
“NHS protest march to be held in Exeter City Centre”
“Organisers say everyone concerned about their health service across Devon is welcome
Hundreds are expected to join a protest march through Exeter city centre to protest at hospital closures across the county.
The Save Our Hospitals Campaign is holding a march in the city on Saturday February 3 which is open to anyone who has concerns about the reorganisation taking place across Devon where four hospitals have already closed while beds have been closed at several more.
Spokesman for the group Mike Dallimore from Brixham where the minor injuries unit has been closed, cited the closure of hospitals at Dartmouth, Bovey Tracey and Ashburton and beds at Paignton Hospital.
He said the group feared Devon would ultimately be left with only two hospitals in Plymouth and Exeter.
It comes as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was understood to be pushing for an extra £100m a week for th NHS in England after Brexit.
The group organised a protest march in Totnes last month which hit the headlines when a mock coffin was left outside the office of Totnes MP Sarah Wollaston covered in posters saying ‘cuts cost lives’ with the figure 120,000 ‘ unnecessary’ deaths.
The protest will start at Bedford Square in Exeter at 11am and possibly march through the city centre, said Mr Dallimore.”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/nhs-protest-march-held-exeter-1104504
“The ‘temporary’ closure of birth services will now last nine months, and possibly longer, in Honiton and Okehampton”
“The ‘temporary’ suspension of birth services in Honiton and Okehampton is set to continue due to ongoing staff sickness and high patient demand in Exeter.
Today the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital has announced the two centres will be closed for a further three months – which means they will have been closed for nine months.
When the centres closed in July 2017, it was said at the time the suspension of the services was expected to last for three months.
The latest suspension means women will still not be able to give birth at either site. The suspension will be reviewed again in April.
The RD&E says that although good progress has been made to recruit staff into vacancies within the wider maternity service, ongoing staff sickness and high patient demand in the acute unit in Exeter means it has not yet been able to reach acceptable staffing levels in either centre.
All antenatal and postnatal clinics, midwifery support and home birth services at Honiton and Okehampton are unaffected and running as normal.
Zita Martinez, head of midwifery, said: “We are sorry for this continued suspension in inpatient services and understand it will be disappointing for women who had hoped to birth at Honiton or Okehampton.
“Patient safety remains our top priority and we are continuing to work hard to resolve this as soon as possible.”
Honiton and Okehampton Birth Centres are open for clinics and midwife care and support 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. Outside of these hours women should call the RD&E main maternity triage service on 01392 406616.”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/temporary-closure-birth-services-now-1102388
“We’ll live longer but suffer more ill-health by 2035, says study”
Owl says: Couple this with news today that child health care in England lags behind that of Wales and Scotland:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42746982
the result of which is likely to be MORE ill-health in later life, we have an perfect storm of ill-health about to descend on us.
“The number of older people who have at least four different medical conditions is set to double by 2035, in a trend that will put huge extra strain on the NHS, researchers warn.
Diseases such as cancer, diabetes, dementia and depression will become far more common as more and more over-65s develop them in their later years, a study at Newcastle University published on Tuesday found.
Health fears over boys as young as 13 using steroids for ‘good looks’
One in three of those diagnosed with four long-term conditions will have dementia, depression or some form of cognitive impairment, according to academics in the university’s Institute for Ageing.
They predict that over the next 20 years there will be “a massive expansion in the number of people suffering from multiple diseases, known as multi-morbidity”.
Those years will see a 179.4% increase in the number of people of pension age being diagnosed with cancer, a 118% rise in those who have diabetes and a big jump, too, in cases of arthritis.
“In the population over the age of 85 years all diseases, apart from dementia and depression, will more than double in absolute numbers between 2015 and 2035”, say the researchers.
The trend will mean that men and women will suffer from four or more diseases for two-thirds of the extra life expectancy that people can look forward to gaining by 2035 – another 3.6 years for men and 2.9 years for women – the authors estimate.
“These findings have enormous implications for how we should consider the structure and resources for the NHS in the future,” said Carol Jagger, professor of epidemiology of ageing at the institute, who led the study.
“Multi-morbidity increases the likelihood of hospital admission and a longer stay, along with a higher rate of readmission, and these factors will continue to contribute to crisis in the NHS”.
A large part of the increase in the number of people with four or more medical problems will come from an expected sharp rise in coming years in the number of people living until at least 85, which Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has warned will increase the NHS’s workload.
Jagger and her team also identified another age group whose health outlook is also very gloomy.
“More worryingly, our model shows that future young-old adults, aged 65 to 74 years, are more likely to have two or three diseases than in the past. This is due to their higher prevalence of obesity and physical inactivity, which are risk factors for multiple diseases,” added Jagger.
The research, part of the MODEM project, has been jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the NHS’s research arm, the National Institute for Health Research.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “This research absolutely underlines the importance of getting our health and care services right for older people. The increase in longevity over recent years has been a major achievement, but it also means we need to shift our focus to helping people to stay as well and independent as possible for as long as possible.
“As we get older, our health and care needs tend to overlap and become more complex. A more compassionate and intelligent approach to caring for older people must be a priority for us all.”
A spokesperson for NHS England said: “This study is further evidence of the need to integrate care, in the way the NHS is now beginning to do, so as to better support the growing number of older people with multiple health problems.”
Is Jeremy Hunt an NHS troll?
“Jeremy Hunt’s latest tweet will have the majority of Britain asking whether the widely-hated Health Secretary is just uncompromisingly incompetent, or whether he’s actively trolling the entire country.
The tweet is so inexplicably inept that it will have the entirety of Britain asking if Hunt is sticking two fingers up at every single doctor and nurse across the country, whilst simultaneously mocking the Prime Minister, who was too weak to sack him during her botched reshuffle, and who ended up giving the provably disastrous Health Secretary even more responsibility instead despite his many, many catastrophic failures.
The Tory Health Secretary just tweeted an NHS rota, in his words, as an example of a ‘really clever use of technology’ that NHS staff in Ipswich are using to ‘ensure safe staffing levels are maintained throughout the day.’
It seems Jeremy Hunt and his team either failed to actually look at what the rota was saying, or they just think dangerously low staffing levels are absolutely fine and definitely not a massive risk to patient safety. Let’s take a closer look at that rota:
Yes, like probably everybody else with even the faintest idea of what different colours mean on a rota, you’ve probably already guessed the problem: RED MEANS BAD!
Every red box on the rota Hunt tweeted means that staffing levels during that particular time of day, and on the corresponding ward, are considered at high risk due to understaffing.
For instance, on the early shift, the rota appears to show there are only two wards in the entire hospital that have adequate staff numbers and therefore a low risk level, whilst a staggering 11 wards have an inadequate number of nurses leading to these wards being labelled ‘high risk’.
It would appear that Hunt either wants to normalise this type of chronic and dangerously risky understaffing, or he simply hasn’t got a clue what the hell he’s doing.
[The article continues with some response tweets pointing this out]
And just remember, the person running the country just gave this man – a man whose professional history is littered with a catalogue of disastrous failures, missed targets and literal deaths as a result of his incredibly obvious incompetence – the task of ‘improving’ social care in Britain as well.
How people can actually justify voting for these people really is beyond me.”
Nurse explains why she has left a beloved profession
“An ”exhausted and despairing ” nurse has written an open letter explaining why she’s quit the NHS – and won’t return until changes are made.
The medic explains why she became a nurse, what she saw, how the NHS is struggling, how she felt after each twelve-hour day and why she’s quit. She also asks the public to be patient and not to blame staff after she read online comments made about doctors and nurses.
She says she was ‘inspired’ to join the medical profession but ”something has changed within the NHS” The nurse says ”…beds have been lost, smaller hospitals have been closed, mental health services have been starved of funding and jobs cut, funding has been cut year on year”.
She adds that ”the numbers of acutely unwell patients coming into the emergency departments is increasing but the services and facilities available to us is declining.”
The nurse says hospitals have ‘no space’ and ”no extra staff to help with the extra work load”. She adds: ”The demand is so much on so few that you are in a position that you are just trying to keep people alive and prevent harm.” She says they have no time to support patients or families and they have no time to offer emotional support and comfort.
She writes: ”You live with a chronic guilt as you cannot provide the care that you want to give every individual, basic tasks like helping someone wash or eat just cannot be done and it pains me to admit that there have been times I have not been able to help someone.”
The anonymous nurse says staff have no time for loo or food breaks and the workload ”has an effect on your own physical and mental health”. She added: Only at the end of your twelve-hour shift when your other nursing colleges take over for the next shift are you able to sit down and do your paper work, meaning having to stay an extra hour or two late (unpaid), you go home exhausted, despairing and listing all the things you haven’t done. You go to bed, wake up and do it all over again.
”The NHS should be the envy of the world but it has been treated so poorly that even with all the will and dedication of all staff involved it is struggling to provide even basic care.”
The letter was written by the nurse to her local paper the Plymouth Herald.”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/despairing-devon-nurse-writes-brutally-1097603
East Devon Watch 