Serco faces fresh allegations over Cornwall out-of-hours GP service



Serco (like Crapita, G4S and all the other troughers) seems to have its finger in every taxpayer-funded pie these days - healthcare, defence, even law enforcement - and yet it doesn't appear to be good at anything except, er, winning government contracts.

Some have suggested that a possible factor explaining BBC indifference is that many BBC staff don’t themselves depend on the NHS. The BBC actually spends millions of pounds on private healthcare for its staff. Under a Freedom of Information request, it was revealed that the BBC shelled out almost £2.2 million of public money on private healthcare for several hundred senior BBC staff between 2008-2010.

The Daily Telegraph reports that last year 506 BBC managers benefited from the £1,500-a-year perk. When challenged, the BBC responded that this is ‘common industry practice’ for senior managers, ‘although the BBC has recently announced this benefit will no longer be made available to new senior managers'. (‘Medical insurance for 500 BBC bosses’, Daily Telegraph, March 12, 2012; not found online). No word, though, on existing senior BBC managers having to forgo their private health insurance.

There are also ties that link BBC bosses with private health companies. Recall that the BBC is managed by an Executive Board while the BBC Trust is there to ensure that standards such as impartiality and fairness are maintained in the public interest.

Consider Dr Mike Lynch OBE who sits on the BBC's Executive Board. Lynch is a non-executive director of Isabel Healthcare Ltd, a private company specialising in medical software. He is also a director of Autonomy PLC, a computing company whose customers include Isabel Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield (a health insurance firm), AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and several other pharmaceutical companies.

He is also on the advisory board of Apax Partners, which describes itself as ‘one of the leading global investors in the Healthcare sector’ and has invested over €2.5 billion in the area. These medical interests all stand to gain from the new legislation. Is this the resumé of a man who would really insist on impartial reporting of controversial ‘reforms’ of the NHS? (For more info click here.)

The Chairman of the BBC, Lord Patten of Barnes, is similarly tied up in private medical and financial interests. Lord Patten is a member of the European Advisory Board for a private equity investment company called Bridgepoint. Alan Milburn, the former Secretary of State for Health under Tony Blair, is chair of Bridgepoint’s board. The company has been involved in 17 healthcare deals over recent years. Its current investments in the UK total more than £1.1 billion.

One company acquired by Bridgepoint for £414 million in July 2010 is the residential care company Care UK. As mentioned in Part 1 of this alert, Care UK chairman Jonathan Nash donated £21,000 in November 2009 to run Tory Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s personal office. Further transactions for Bridgepoint and a private healthcare company involved Alliance Medical who sold the MRI scan company for £600 million to Dubai International LLC in 2007.

Lord Patten was appointed to the Lords in 2005 and, before being accepted as the head of the BBC, was urged to cut back on his business activities. However this didn’t happen, and in addition to his advisory role in Bridgepoint, he remains a stakeholder of energy giant EDF, advisor to telecom business Hutchison Europe and a member of the advisory board of BP.

None of this is intended to suggest that BBC managers have been crudely leaning on BBC editors to suppress news coverage of opposition to the dismantling of the NHS. We are aware of no evidence to that effect. But the interests and priorities of senior managers certainly have a more subtle impact on the culture of the organisation beneath them. As even the Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger (no radical) once told us:

'If you ask anybody who works in newspapers, they will quite rightly say, "Rupert Murdoch", or whoever, "never tells me what to write", which is beside the point: they don't have to be told what to write.'

The observation, of course, generalises to the broadcast media. And anyway, surely the interlocking links between politics, the media and private financial and industrial interests should be exposed and widely debated.

A strong additional factor is likely that the Hutton Inquiry fiasco generated a climate of fear at the BBC that deters journalists from challenging the government too strongly. We will return to this point below.

Top-of-the-range motors leased for staff include 22 Alfa Romeos, 69 Audis, 27 BMWs, seven Mercedes, 39 Minis, two Volvo XC60s — and the new Range Rover Evoque.

Shock figures released under Freedom of Information laws reveal that South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust leased one Alfa Romeo, six Audis and a BMW in 2011/12. In the same year, NHS Blood and Transplant leased seven Alfa Romeos, two Audis and six BMWs.

Tory MP Chris Skidmore said: “Taxpayers will rightly be wondering why they are being asked to chip in so that NHS penpushers can get ferried around in Alfas, Audis and Range Rovers. With household budgets under pressure, people would expect the NHS to tighten its belt as well.”

Emma Boon of the TaxPayers’ Alliance branded the posh car leasing practice “disgusting”.

She said: “It’s bad enough that taxpayers pay for fat cats to drive fast cars. But it beggars belief we’re forking out for middle management to drive BMWs instead of on care for patients.”

The cars were leased by English primary healthcare trusts and strategic health authorities — all to be scrapped under Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s new Health and Social Care Bill.

South Staffs said employees usually got a Vauxhall Corsa 1.0 unless they could prove the need for a bigger one.

NHS Blood and Transplant said its rules did not allow luxury vehicles but staff could upgrade at their own expense.

However if an employee could prove a different car was necessary for their role they may be entitled to a different vehicle. South Staffordshire PCT continue:

"Should an Eligible Employee choose to have a Vehicle for which hire and/or insurance costs are greater than those for the Base Vehicle, then the additional cost will be borne wholly by the Eligible Employee" [emphasis added]

Furthermore, South Staffordshire impose other restrictions on which cars can be leased - such as those exceeding certain CO2 emission levels, two-seaters, four-by-fours, sports cars, high-performance vehicles, off-road vehicles, 'high cost vehicles' and convertibles.

The Sun article does not specify any more details on the type of cars revealed to have been leased by South Staffordshire PCT, but if these were leased legitimately by contract then none would have involved additional costs to the employee (and indirectly, the taxpayer) than those of a Base Vehicle.

NHS Blood and Transplant's response contained a similar explanation. They also kindly provided the details:

"We do not recognise these figures. NHS Blood and Transplant is a national organisation covering the whole of the UK. Staff with genuine business needs can use lease vehicles but they must comply with strict rules and regulations. Eligible staff can upgrade lease vehicles, but only at their own expense, and must pay for any private use of lease cars. The design of the NHSBT scheme means the cost to NHSBT for business use of lease cars is consistent with public transport rates."

Chris Skidmore, Conservative MP for Kingswood who sits on the Health Select Committee received a payment of £3,500 for 4 hours work - giving speeches to STAC Consultancy http://www.stac-consultancy.com/ which specialises in the launch of pharmaceutical products, strategic branding and medical education.

Chris Skidmore’s family also owns a company called Skidmore Medical http://www.skidmoremedical.com/, which appears to be solely selling a physiologic Vascular testing equipment. The company made a donation to him of £7,500 in June 2010 which also appears onregister of members interests.

Anyone else found that the majority of media outlets are putting a lot of negativity on the doctor's strike? It's all very antagonistic, yet there's rarely - if ever - mentions of it being their first in 40 years, which (IMHO) suggests just how bad the situation is in general.

Or is it like some have suspected? As in the strike is right but for the wrong reasons? Personally I would think they'd get more sympathy from the Dacre Drip'd masses if they were striking over the reforms, not the pension.

The fact that almost all the media, including the "left wing" BBC are calling it a strike, when its not, tells you all you need to know.

Virgin Care will be providing some outpatient physiotherapy ses sions at local clinics and GP surger ies from September.

The service, which will affect about 14,000 patients in the Hastings and Rother areas, was previ- ously run by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.

Is it Industrial Action, then? I'm not sure what the difference is.