Four key members of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Health have financial links to companies involved in private healthcare

The Associate Parliamentary Health Group (APHG) was launched in November 2001 and according to its website was set up with the intention to provide: ‘information with balance and impartiality, on local as well as national matters, and is recognised as one of the preferred sources of information on health in Parliament.’  

However research conducted by Social Investigations has thrown the self-proclaimed ‘impartiality’ into question as it has been revealed three of the key parliamentary officers involved in the group, have financial links to companies involved in private healthcare.

The Chair of the APGH is Baroness Cumberlege, who has been exposed on this blog as having placed her company into a position where it can make money out of the development of the new GP Commissioning groups. The Alliance the Baroness’s company joined, is led by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has sealed several contracts involved in the development of the new GP led groups. Her company is involved in running training programmes, but also covers the topic of ‘Politics, Power and Persuasion’, in a tailored two-day programme which includes topics such as: ‘Managing the markets, the challenges of commissioning’, ‘who’s who’, and ‘brokering deals with other independent sector providers’. The last programme is delivered by the Baroness herself.

Next up is Lord Hunt of Kings Heath who acts as the groups’ treasurer and has received payment from Baroness Cumberlege for work as a trainer and consultant, making up one of five Peers and four MPs who have worked for her company. Lord Harris of Haringey who is listed as an APHG advisor, has also been remunerated by Cumberlege Connections for ‘occasional participation in training events.’ In addition, he is a senior adviser to business services giant KPMG, who are one of the ‘approved providers’, winning contracts for the new commissioning groups.

Last but by no means least is Mark Simmonds, who acts as Co-chair to Baroness Cumberlege on the parliamentary group. The Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness is paid £50,000 a year for 10 hours a month as a strategic advisor to Circle Health, the first firm to win control of an NHS hospital. The former shadow minister for health recently had to apologise to the House of Commons, for ‘inadvertently’ failing to declare his interest when talking in favour of the NHS reforms. Circle have connections to our ‘’person of the year’’ Andrew Lansley having recruited a former aide to the health secretary as head of communications. Christina Lineen spent two years working for Lansley prior to moving to Circle.

In addition to the parliamentarian’s interests in such an important and supposedly independent organisation, the APGH has a list of external Associate members from the private healthcare world.

The amount of members is capped at 26 and they pay an annual subscription fee to be part of the health group on a first come, first serve basis. This according to the manger of the parliamentary group Ella Jackson, being the fairest and 'most transparent' way to operate the group's membership system.' That however, is where the transparency ends. I asked Ela Jackson whether the group keeps minutes? 


Here's what she said: 'The APHG holds records of all its meetings in strict accordance with the Rules on All-Party Groups. In fact, the APHG goes further than that. Official rules dictate that each All-Party Group must keep sufficient records to enable it to prove that the group meets at least twice a year, whereas the APHG ensures that it audio-records every meeting it holds.

However, because meetings are held under Chatham House Rules the group does not produce written minutes.'

The Chatham House rule was created back in 1927 and has since been refined in 1992 and 2002, and exists according to the Chatham House website; ‘to allow people to speak as individuals, and to express views that may not be those of their organisations, and therefore it encourages free discussion.’ It continues: ‘People usually feel more relaxed if they don't have to worry about their reputation or the implications if they are publicly quoted.’

This lack of transparency applies to the list of attendees too, where it is forbidden to mention who attended.

Ms Jackson explained: 'It’s vital that parliamentarians and other speakers are able to speak freely in an open and frank exchange, without fear of having their thoughts reported out of context.'

In amongst the list of companies involved in the group are: Alliance boots, BT, Astrazeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer; who are all heavily linked to the Lords, and in some cases MPs.

Astrazeneca has 9 Lords with financial links to its company. GlaxoSmithKline has 17 Lords with shares in its company and Alliance Boots has a former chairman in Lord Blyth, and former MP Patricia Hewitt took a consultancy job with them 7 months after standing down as an MP. 

So here we are again, another government policy group, which is immersed in connections to private healthcare, and whose discussions are held in private. The Lords and MPs largely appear to be representing corporations more so than the public. It is time for change.

Sign the petition below to try and stop the Lords from being allowed to vote with conflicts of interest  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31991 - if you can please sign it and pass it on.

Complaint on Lord Hamilton Upheld: No Disciplinary Action Taken

A complaint made to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards on a Conservative Lord who failed to declare his interests has been upheld. 

In March this year, Social Investigations posted how Lord Hamilton appeared to have broken the rules by not mentioning his interests as a director of managing consultancy company, MSB Ltd. The company came to the attention of this blog, when it was found to be earning money from a private health care company serving the NHS.

The complaint filed by a member of the public Robert Wylie, focused on a statement made by the Lord on 13th February 2012.

'My Lords, surely one of the problems of the National Health Service is the wall of money that was thrown at a totally unreformed NHS by the last Government? Do we not need management consultants now to show us the way forward on the savings that need to be wrung out of the NHS so that it can survive into the future?'

Although Lord Hamilton had registered his interests in MSB Ltd, any Peer must announce their interest before speaking in a session.

Lord Hamilton who is one of 141 Peers exposed as having financial links to companies  involved in private healthcare, apologised for the ‘oversight’: ‘Mr Wyllie is correct in alleging that I contributed to the Private Notice Question on the NHS and management consultants without admitting that I was a director of MSB. I apologise for this oversight.’

An apology, is apparently enough when you are a Lord.

Paul Kernaghan the Standards Commissioner, replied to the Peer saying: ‘I am satisfied that the complaint whilst justified, highlights an oversight which you readily acknowledged. Thus, I feel it is appropriate that I propose the following course of action. I suggest that you write a letter addressed to Baroness Manningham-Buller (Chairman, Sub- Committee on Lords' Conduct) but forwarded via my office. That letter should, in essence, repeat the core facts contained in your letter of 21 February 2012.’ He continued: ‘Namely, that you accept the complaint was justified, you should have made a declaration and you apologise for not declaring your directorship. I am of the view that such a letter setting the record straight, is all that is required in this instance.’

So an apology is enough. Lord Hamilton blatantly promotes an element of NHS reform in which he is a director of a company involved in the same line of work. Even though he was forced to make an apology, he initially told the Standards Commissioner in a letter on the 21^st February: ‘Years ago MSB pitched for work with the NHS but I do not think that they have fulfilled a contract during the ten or so years that I have been a director.’

Wrong. In a follow up letter to the Commissioner three days later. He announced: ‘I have checked with MSB as the last time they indirectly worked for the NHS was as a sub- contractor to CARE-UK doing patient research. The contract ended in the first quarter of 2009 after 2 years.’

So as a director of MSB Ltd, he didn’t know they had a contract with a private healthcare company Care UK, whose director incidentally funded health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s office. He also forgot to mention his registered interests, but what he didn’t forget to do, was vote loyally on every division in the Health and Social Care bill, as it passed into Act.

An apology is not enough. The Lords is an open house for companies disguised as Lords, who have passed our health service into the hands of the corporations to which they are paid to serve.

Sign the petition to Change the House of Lords rules to stop Lords voting on bills where they have financial conflicts of interest.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31991

Write to your MP and demand a change in the rules.

Or better still when the opportunity arises; take to the streets.


To view the full complaint click here.

Letter sent to Lord Alliance on Conflict of Interest

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

Lord Alliance

House of Lords

Thursday 5 April 2012

Dear Lord Alliance,


I would like to ask you a couple of questions regarding a conflict of interest you appear to have.

I note in your registered interests you have shares in a company called Huntsworth plc run by Lord Chadlington.

Do you not think that having shares in a company run by a Conservative, who funded David Cameron's leadership campaign, and a company which gave £15,500 to the party in August last year, and has given money every year since 2008, crosses the boundaries of the coalition somewhat?

Furthermore, one company in the group that make up Huntsworth Health plc, and which you have shares in has involvement in private healthcare. Huntsworth Health's website states how the company ‘provides a full continuum of consulting and communications services to the healthcare and well-being industry.’ 



I consider this is a conflict of interest?

Also can you tell me if the vote you made rejecting Lord Rea's proposal to decline 'to give the bill a second reading' was influenced in any way by your shares in the company?

Finally, would you agree that such conflicts of interests could be avoided if Peers were not allowed to vote when such conflicts arise, as in this case? At local level councillors cannot vote with a prejudicial interest, Do you think this should apply to Lords?

I appreciate your taking the time to read this and would like to hear from you on this matter when you are able?

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Robertson


Baroness who ran private business interests from Lord Office positions her company to gain from NHS reforms

Baroness Cumberlege, one of the 141 peers exposed as having financial links to companies involved in private healthcare put her company into a position whereby it could make money from the reforms as she debated them in the House of Lords.

The former health secretary-turned-peer set up an organisation called  Cumberlege Connections, which runs training programmes across the NHS spectrum for consultants, GPs, NHS managers, Directors and chief executives. In addition to this service, part of their training programme covers ‘Politics, Power and Persuasion’, a tailored two-day programme which includes topics such as: ‘Managing the markets, the challenges of commissioning’, ‘who’s who’, and ‘brokering deals with other independent sector providers’. The last programme is delivered by the Baroness herself.

These are useful services, which enabled her company to become a partner in the PwC Alliance, set up to bid for contracts to develop the new Clinical Commissioning Groups.

One of elements of the bill is the transition of commissioning responsibilities from Primary Care Trusts to local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which could eventually lead to these groups being in charge of the £65 billion NHS funding.  

The transition process has already begun in earnest, with some CCGs already in existence. It is here where the private sector have already been making money out of changes, even before the bill became law, which was on the 27^th of March 2012.

In order to get GP groups into a position whereby they can commission properly, a national framework needed to be followed.

The framework is split into 4 separate areas called Lots. Each Lot has a series of ‘approved providers’, and falls into these categories:

Lot 1 - Setting up and leading a high performing Clinical Commissioning Group,

Lot 2 - Working collaboratively and across boundaries – promoting partnership working

Lot 3 - Managing and influencing local and national politics

Lot 4 – Engaging and leading colleagues in primary care through distributed leadership - ensuring that the organisation is clinically led

When any CCG wants assistance in any of the above categories, they must invite all the companies listed under each ‘Lot’ category to make a bid. PwC Alliance, of which Baroness Cumberlege’s company is a part, is listed in all four groups. Some of the other companies involved include: McKinsey & Co, Deloitte and Capita, and KPMG partnership, all financially benefitting from the restructuring of the NHS.

In short, Baroness Cumberlege and her company are in a position to make money from a bill in which she has voted in favour. This she certainly did, voting loyally with the coalition on every division on the Health and Social Care bill.

So what sort of money is being made? Well, according to Chair of the Royal College of GPs, Dr Clare Gerada, quite a lot. She told the leading General Practice magazine Pulse: 'Most of the resources for commissioning development went into the coffers of big private consultancies such as KPMG. In London alone £7 million of funding has gone into those companies.' The highest-earning firms were: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) (£1.61m), KPMG (£1.47m) and McKinsey & Co (£1.27m).

So is the Baroness making money out of the restructuring? It would appear so. In an updated report released in January this year, NHS Barnet announced that the NHS Harrow Clinical Commissioning board had chosen PWC Alliance for their organisational development. Minutes of a meeting held by the Lincolnshire GP commissioning Executive Committee confirms the Lincolnshire South-West Executive Team had met with PwC Alliance regarding the ‘future working and Governance’ arrangements for the CCG. A further contract for the PwC Alliance is revealed in the minutes of the Havering Clinical Commissioning Committee’s Chairman’s report, which involved the merger with the NHS outer North-East London cluster and states the PwC Alliance had been commissioned to undertake ‘their organisational baseline assessment,’ which was presented to the joint shadow CCG. All of these taking place before the bill had passed, and while Baroness Cumberlege was debating on the bill. 


Even if her company hasn't received money for this yet, she has put her organisation in a position to do so. 

The Baroness and Cumberlege Connections made the headlines only two years ago, when, in 2009, the peer was accused of misusing parliamentary facilities to promote her own business, admitting that she had failed to declare her interest properly during House of Lords’ debates. In addition, the Baroness faced other charges of using her Lords email address to recruit people to commercial courses her firm was organising. Cumberlege was forced to admit that the business was run from the House of Lords until "it took off". The complaint was made by lobbying transparency campaigners Spinwatch, who uncovered the case and made the complaint.

At the time, the Guardian reported Spinwatch's spokesman, David Miller, as saying: "No peer should be treating parliament as an office from which to do commercial business…" The Baroness however maintained that her company is not a lobbying company.

Despite being found guilty of breaking the rules with regard to declaring her outside interests, Cumberlege did not face any disciplinary action.

Her company is not only connected to parliament, but it utilises a plethora of other peers in its work. Aside from Baroness Cumberlege, there are five other peers who have offered their services to her company, either as a trainer or a consultant. Baroness Billingham, Lord Grocott, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Baroness Jay, and Lord Harris of Haringey. Indeed Lord Harris, who works as an occasional trainer, is also a senior advisor to KPMG, the lead body in one of the other partnerships vying for contracts to develop the new CCGs.

In addition to the Lords, Labour MP Rosie Cooper received payment of £300 for a focus group meeting with health professionals on ‘understanding MPs.’ David Lammy (also Labour) has received multiple payments throughout 2011 for participating in, amongst other programmes, the ‘Westminster experience’ conference. Stuart Gisela received two payments in 2011 for appearing in workshops, and Frank Dobson was paid £600 for a 4 hour presentation.

However, it was not just the Peer’s ability to vote when such conflict of interest is clear, but that she was able to influence the debate by speaking. No wonder then she should say: ‘I applaud the flexibility of the bill’, and it would appear the flexibility of the rules too. 

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For more on her former employer and fellow peer Lord Chadlington’s PR and lobbying firm Huntsworth plc. For more on Lord Chadlington, Huntsworth plc and their power of influence see here.

Note: In addition, Cumberlege Connections was listed under another partnership led by KPMG, until October 2011, where it appears she switched to the PwC Alliance. On asking whether she was part of both alliances; John Lewin a project manager of the NHS Leadership Acadamy confirmed to me ‘Cumberlege Connections are part of the PwC Alliance.’