And the 2012 Winners of the Healthinvestors Awards Were?

The Healthinvestor Awards 2012 have come and gone, and the results are in, so I thought I would match the winners to Lords and MPs to bring closure for now to this particular section of self-interest.

You may remember an article last week, which highlighted how several of the 2011 winners were attached to companies who have a Parliamentarian on their payroll, and who voted in favour for the Health and Social Care bill, helping it pass into Act. If you missed the article, then please read it here.

Now, the 2012 Awards have passed, and companies with MPs and Lords on their books, were heavily listed amongst the finalists with a chance to win an award.  The question was, would any of those companies win, and if so which of our so-called public servants would be raising a glass to their company’s victory?

The event, took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, and as the dinner jacket guests arrived, they were greeted by a collection of protesters offering an alternative title for their evening event, the’ bloodsuckers awards’. Guests lowered their heads as they walked by, before heading into the ceremony.

So onto the winners:

Transactional Consultant of the year went to KPMG, who have Lord Harris of Haringey as their connection to power, who is a senior advisor to the accounting giant. Lord Hastings will also be celebrating, in his role as Global head of Citizenship and Diversity, and maybe former MP Charles Clarke who was a consultant back in 2008.

KPMG are heavily involved in the development of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), and companies in the KPMG partnership for the CCGs also have links to parliamentarians. UK law firm Morgan Cole, have Conservative MEP Ashley Fox as their connection, who was an Associate to the company until 2009 when he was elected to the European Parliament. In addition, I.T. company McKesson Information Solutions Ltd, have Lord Carter as their chairman. The Labour Peer is also the chairman of the NHS Co-operation and Competition Panel (CCP), a conflict of interest, which in a statement made by McKesson to the Guardian is avoided because he: "steps down from any investigation where there is potential conflict of interest.” 

Finally, let us not forget what KPMG’s global head of health, Mark Britnell famously said in 2010, while discussing reforms to a private healthcare conference: “In future, The NHS will be a state insurance provider not a state deliverer”, and that “The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years.”

Santander won the lessors of the year, which will do Lord Elystan’s shares no harm, and the same will go for Lord Hollick, who has shares in ‘private hospital group of the year’ winners, HCA International, the largest operator of healthcare facilities in the US.

Bowmark Capital won the private equity investor of the year, securing Lord Powell of Bayswater in his job as chairman of the advisory board for the time being no doubt.

Tunstall Healthcare & Bridgwater Community Healthcare NHS Trust, won the Telehealth/Telecare award. Tunstall were bought out by Charterhouse development Capital Ltd in 2008 for £510 million. The investment company have Lord Patten (not the BBC one), as a senior advisor.

Winners of the residential Care provider of the year went to Barchester Healthcare. Baroness Ford is the chairman of the care provider, which has more than 200 care homes in the UK with 10,000 residents and 15,000 staff. Barchester recently appointed Goldman Sachs to refinance, insisting the new debt will not lead to a situation like that, which happened to Southern Cross.

All of which leaves us with the final award going to the CEO of Barchester Health, Mike Parsons, who won the ‘outstanding contribution by an individual’. In December 2011, Mike was voted the second most influential person in Healthcare in the UK at the HealthInvestor Power fifty awards, which commends those demonstrating ‘outstanding leadership with the power to guide and shape the healthcare agenda.’ Indeed Mr Parson’s is delighted with the changes to the NHS, stating: ‘All the reforms and changes with the NHS are making it a lot easier to recruit nurses from the NHS now.”

So there we have it, we can all celebrate the outstanding achievements of the private healthcare companies, and not least of all our public servants on their companies success.

Hip Hip pffffft…