Private Healthcare Article roundup from Social Investigations

This is a roundup of the research articles that link the Health and Social Care Act to the public servants who are meant to represent our interests. The research has covered their connections to the private healthcare companies, and individual research of particular Lords and MPs. This is an ongoing process, which will carry on until the elections, when those Parliamentarians who voted for an expansion of privatisation into the NHS, will be held accountable.

1. The Lords - The investigation into the registered interests of the House of Lords members has revealed serious flaws in our democracy whereby Lords who have outside financial interests are allowed to vote on a bill that may benefit them. 

The investigation into the registered interests of the House of Lords members has revealed serious flaws in our democracy whereby Lords who have outside financial interests are allowed to vote on a bill that may benefit them. Full article.

Conservatives: 1 in 4 – see full list 

Liberal Democrats: 1 in 10 – see full list 

Labour: 1 in 6 – see full list 

Crossbench: 1 in 6 – see full list

2. Special Report | Selling the NHS: how parliament and the healthcare industry got cosy - examines the network of vested interests that runs between Parliament and the private healthcare industry. This cosy, toxic relationship, he warns, threatens not only the future of the NHS but that of democracy in the UK. This article appeared in Ceasefire magazine.

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

4. Into the heart of government: Key health group have four key members of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Health have financial links to companies involved in private healthcare, and discussions are held in private. Full article.

 5. Meet Lord Chadlington: He's about to vote on the Health and Social Care bill – Lord Chadlington has funded the Conservative party, and David Cameron’s leadership campaign. He has four Lords connected to his company, which is heavily involved in private healthcare communications. None of which, prevented him from voting on the Health and Social Care bill. Full article.

6. BBC chief Lord Patten of Barnes: Bridgepoint and the Conflicts of Interest. Lord Patten, the current head of the BBC has direct links to a company heavily involved in private healthcare. Lord Patten of Barnes is a member of the European Advisory Board for a private equity investment company called Bridgepoint. Full article.

7. Letter sent to the BBC on NHS coverage

Dear Ms Boaden.

I am writing in relation to the BBC coverage of the NHS Health and Social Care bill, that has now become an Act.

As an organisation that has huge resources, I am curious to know whether you had thought to invest time and money into uncovering some of the vested interests of our parliamentarians in private health care? Furthermore, why, when Andrew Lansley has been outed as having been bankrolled by the chairman of CareUK, was this not raised with him whenever he spoke of the bill? Surely every reasoning he gave as a justification for the bill should be linked to his healthcare financial supporters. Read full letter.

8. National Clinical Commissioning Conference Links Multiple Private Health Companies to Lords and MPs - A national conference for CCG leaders to air their ‘concerns’ over the implementation of clinical commissioning, is littered with companies who have financial links to Lords and MPs. The event, which is titled ‘Defining Our Future’, is sponsored by Capita, a private company winning contracts for developing the CCGs. Read full article. 

 

9. Finalists of Private Healthcare Award Ceremony raise glasses with Lords and MPs: An annual award ceremony, promoting the ‘excellence’ and ‘innovation’ of the independent healthcare sector is taking place in London, Thursday, the 31st of May. However, on close inspection, the finalists of this year’s event are notable for their connections to our so-called public servants, many of whom played some part in passing the Health and Social Care bill into an Act. Read Full article.

10. I keep saying ‘we’, but I’m not really part of the industry anymore, but I still feel it.’ When is an MP a spokesperson for big business, and when is big business an MP? If you can’t tell the difference, then you’re not alone, because some MPs are not so sure themselves. Read full article.

11. 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. Read full article.

12. Russia Today: Wealthcare: A bill restructuring the UK health service has been passed by parliament in spite of mass protests against the controversial reforms. Opposition accuses MPs of pandering to private interests, signing the death warrant of free healthcare in the UK.

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…

Chris Skidmore states he will defend NHS in abolition panel discussion, but will he?

Abolishing the NHS is a provocative turn of phrase, and one that would not pass the lips of any Conservative politician in public, even if that is their ultimate intent. Yet, a Conservative MP is attending an evening panel discussion today June 13th, with that very theme: ‘Should we abolish the NHS?’

The discussion, will be hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs, (IEA) as part of their ‘big steps to a smaller state series.’ The IEA, is a free market think tank, and have already made their feelings on the NHS clear, in an article written by their deputy editorial Director Richard Wellings, titled: ‘How to abolish the NHS.’ The article, published in January this year, bemoans the ‘strong support’ that the public has for the NHS, and suggests that the powers that be ‘bypass the NHS by liberating the private healthcare sector so that the NHS became less and less relevant as more and more people opted out of state provision to avoid long waiting lists and substandard care.’

Panelists

Leading the debate will be 5 panelists all of whom come from a position of supporting Andrew Lansley’s Health & Social Care bill, which is now an Act.

Panelist No1, is Dr Stephen Davies, who is the Education Director at the IEA. He has spoken widely on the benefits of privatisation in the NHS, including on BBC One’s the Big Questions, in February this year, explaining the ‘advantages’ of healthcare ‘liberalisation’. According to the IEA website, he claimed more commercialism in healthcare provision means ‘greater control over costs’ and that profit incentives lead to more efficient use of resources.’ The BBC has come under fire for their lack of coverage and challenging on the NHS and MPs vested interests, and they didn’t disappoint here, failing to demand the evidence to back up Dr Davies’s claims.

Panelist No2 is Professor Julian Le Grand of the London School of economics, and is also a fan of the bill, having spoken widely in favour of the changes. In a letter to the Guardian, in February this year, Mr Le Grand, stated: ‘With respect to the NHS bill, it is important that even those who generally prefer to rely upon their intuitions should avoid muddying the waters by accusing the bill of doing things that it does not, like privatising the NHS.’ The professor must be horrified then, when he sees companies like Serco becoming the single bidder for NHS support services, and the private companies controlling the CCG development process.

Panelist No3, is Mathew Sinclair, the Director of the right-wing, lower tax campaign group, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA). ‘Britain’s non-partisan’ and ‘independent’ tax lobby group were the author’s of a 2008 report titled, ‘Wasting Lives’, in which it states the priority the government should place on private involvement in healthcare: ‘Perhaps the most important priority for reform of British healthcare is to increase the amount of competition within the health service.’  The TPA are consistently cited in newspapers, highlighting negative efficiency in the NHS, offering competition as the solution. For more of the TPA, view Spinwatch powerbase page here.

Panelist No4 is Julia Manning, the Chief Executive of another self-proclaimed ‘independent’ think tank, called 2020health. However one look at their list of patrons quickly reveals what side of the healthcare fence they are on. In total, they have 4 patrons, all Peers from the House of Lords, and all with financial links to companies involved in private healthcare. In one case, one of the Peers, Baroness Cumberlege, put her company into an alliance led by accountant giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who were winning bids to develop the new Clinical Commissioning Groups before the Act had been passed.

Just in case you have any lingering doubts about their independence on NHS matters, then a blog article in the Daily Mail written by the think tank’s Chief Executive Julia Manning, should dispel any of those thoughts. The article titled: ‘Andrew Lansley must spell out the importance of private enterprise to the NHS’, tells us how ‘a significant problem for the economy is that confidence for investors in healthcare in the UK is being massively damaged both by the short-sighted, protectionist opposition to competition that is being driven by the health unions…The NHS has a track record of making flawed policy work, and it wouldn’t be where it is today without competition and private investment.’

Public servant Chris Skidmore

We can be grateful at least that panelist No5 is a public servant, who by definition will be standing up for the people and their NHS. In fact, that’s exactly what Chris Skidmore the MP for Kingswood told me via a Twitter on my account. He replied in response to a request I put asking someone in his constituency to contact him to see if, ‘he wants NHS abolished?’ His response was reassuring: ‘I will be defending NHS during debate and its vital principle of free at point of use regardless ability to pay’.

Given the other panelists in attendance someone will need to; however, I question his authenticity. After all, Mr Skidmore voted for the Health and Social Care bill, which included an increase of up to 49% of NHS hospital bed and theatre time being given to private patients. On a personal level, he received a payment of £3,500 for 4 hours work - giving speeches to STAC Consultancy which specialises in the launch of pharmaceutical products, strategic branding and medical education. Chris Skidmore's family also owns a company called Skidmore Medical, which appears to be solely selling a physiologic Vascular testing equipment. The company made a donation to him of £7,500 in June 2010.

Mr Skidmore often cites former New Labour MP and secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn, for his support of reforms, as a way of suggesting other Labour MPs and in particular current shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, are opposing the reforms for the sake of it. What he never mentions, are the connections Alan Milburn has in private healthcare. In 2008 his registered interests included being a member of Lloydspharmacy's Healthcare Advisory panel for which he was paid in the region of £30,000. In addition, Mr Milburn was a member of the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint Capital Limited, the private equity firm which acquired Care UK, whose chairman John Nash bankrolled Andrew Lansley’s office just prior to the takeover. Mr Milburn, is hardly a flag-waver for a public sector NHS.

The changes imposed by the Health and Social Care Act, which had no mandate from either of the coalition parties, not only weakens our democracy, but speaks volumes about the attitude of today’s politicians. Sidling up to Murdoch, abusing their expenses, has done nothing to humble them. Now we are told the increase in private healthcare is necessary for the NHS to survive, and now Chris Skidmore is attending a panel discussion loaded with pro-reform panelists, where the debate is whether to abolish the NHS.

Do you believe Chris Skidmore will stand up for the NHS as he says he will?


Quotes on the bill: "One of the best bits about the Bill for me was the element of Any Qualified Provider"

Watch this space…

2020health Patrons and their vested interests

2020health claims to be an 'independent', think tank. It isn't. In total, they have 4 patrons, all Peers from the House of Lords, and all with financial links to companies involved in private healthcare. In one case, one of the Peers, Baroness Cumberlege, put her company into a position to make money from the reforms before the Act had been passed.

2020Health Patrons

The Four Peers are Conservative Peer, Lord McColl, was a paid a fee as a consultant to a new private healthcare company that provides a fee-paying rival to the National Health Service’s family doctor service. Endeavour Health, which was set up by two hedge fund advisers, and claims to be Britain’s first comprehensive GP network, offering opportunities to ‘beat NHS queues’ and have appointments at any time they want.’  

Baroness Cumberlege, who will be familiar to readers of this blog, runs her own training and consultancy company called Cumberlege Connections, the Conservative Peer moved herself into an alliance led by PwC, developing the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, prior to the Health and Social care bill becoming an Act. In addition, the former health secretary is chair of the Associate Parliamentary Health Group, which holds meetings under the Chatham House rules, which means no minutes are taken, even though the quarterly meetings are attended by multiple private health companies.

Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Rennard is another patron, who is also a Director of British Healthcare Trades Association, (BHTA) a trade association set up to ensure the market for healthcare and assistive technologies is competitive, profitable and well-regulated. They work in partnership with industry, government, and other stakeholders. The Coalition Peer set up a communications company with his wife called Rennard & McTegart Ltd, and through this company they provide public affairs advice to the BHTA.

Lord Tim Clement-Jones, and Liberal Democratic Peer, is the final patron, of the ‘independent’ think tank, who is a partner in DLA Piper, a global law firm providing lobbying services to “clients in the health and social care sectors”. DLA Piper counts Southern Cross amongst its clients. Lord Clement-Jones nominated Lord Hameed for his peerage, a nomination supported by Lord Dholakia. Lord Hameed sits on the board of Alpha hospitals, part of the Alpha Healthcare (C&C Alpha/C&C business solutions) group. The Alpha group has made significant donations to the Liberal Democrat party. In 2008, Lord Clement-Jones was the party treasurer. The Times exposed Lord Clement-Jones as being the man who nominated Lord Hameed, after the peer had originally said he had 'no idea.'

Just in case you were in any doubt about the independence of 2020health’s position on NHS matters, then a blog article in the Daily Mail written by the think tank’s Chief Executive Julia Manning, should dispel any of those thoughts. The article titled: ‘Andrew Lansley must spell out the importance of private enterprise to the NHS’, A significant problem for the economy is that confidence for investors in healthcare in the UK is being massively damaged both by the short-sighted, protectionist opposition to competition that is being driven by the health unions… The NHS has a track record of making flawed policy work, and it wouldn’t be where it is today without competition and private investment.’ Andrew Lansley is a fan, endorsing the website with this quote: 2020health '"Providing valuable impact on policy."

Finally; former 2020Health Chairman, Tom Sackville – a former Conservative minister – is the current CEO of the International Federation of Health Plans, which represents one hundred private health insurance companies in 31 countries. Not only this, they also have a hidden membership list, which I have suggested contains health insurance companies. They haven't denied this and despite repeated requests for them to publish their members, they have not.

'Independent' eh!