The Doctor Will See You Now: So Too Will the Advertisers

Patients are about to be targeted like never before by advertising companies as face recognition software merges with information screens to profile your interests as you wait for your doctor.

 

Lord Sugar is on the verge of selecting one more hard-nosed apprentice to his entrepreneurial stable as his Apprentice programme reaches its latest conclusion this Wednesday. Quite what work the eventual winner will undertake is unclear but a previous winner was selectedto run the sales of a project that profiles patients in the NHS as they sit and wait for their GP.

Amscreen Plc is part of Lord Sugar’s Amshold Group of companies, which is basedin the tax haven of Jersey and is overseen by his son Simon Sugar, who is the CEO. The company, which launched in 2008 when Lord Sugar bought Comtech M2M, provides T.V screens into places where there is a captive audience and places targeted marketing alongside the other content the organisation may use. These screens are placedin GP surgeries, hospitals and dentists throughout the UK and in Europe and also in petrol stations, convenience stores.

The way it works is like this. Amscreen will place a screen for free in say a GP surgery, which allows the surgery to inform patients on matters such as surgery opening hours or flu jab reminders. The money they get is by selling the other space on the screen to advertisers which will be part of a pre-packaged programme that will reach the captive audience waiting to be seen by their doctor.

Amscreen distributes its screens in two main ways:  by either funding the screen and installation at a client's premises, allocating some airtime to that client alongside the preloaded advertising, or by selling screens to a client and enabling  them to control their own media network (in return for a small monthly fee) where they have 100% control of the ad content.

Amscreen health has expanded their operation so that around 850 screens now exist in 695 GP surgeries, Pharmacies, Hospitals, and Dentists. Amscreen offer various packages depending on their target audiences, which are tailored towards over 55s, health charities, mother & baby, pharmaceuticals and private health. Amscreen is mainly in the UK, but is expanding into Europe and around the world.

In partnership

Three years ago, Amscreen and private hospital group, BMI Healthcare agreed a two-year partnership, which involved BMI Healthcare providing live weatherfeeds to advise patients on their ‘healthcare choice’. Quite how many meteorologists exist within the hospital network is unclear, but what is known is that this platform also allowed for the company to reach out to millions of patients advertising their services.

Nigel Moon, the Head of Marketing at BMI Healthcare said at the time “This advertising and sponsorship package provides us with a great opportunity to feature BMI Healthcare, our local hospitals and services to a highly targeted audience at a key time in the patient journey.” BMI Healthcare are just one of many other private health companies listed as ‘established relationships’, which include Baxter, GSK and Pfizer and Bayer healthcare, who are able to reach captive audiences in GP surgeries across the healthcare network. Apart from the healthcare corporates regularly cited on Amscreen's website, Care UK and Bupa have also been clients.

However, take up of the Amscreen product has not been as successful as he would like. In an interview with marketing company 'Campaign Live', Lord Sugar said ‘I don’t get them…I don’t understand why these people don’t say: ‘Bloody hell, I’ve got a captive audience of hypos [hypochondriacs] sitting there and I’ll bang my Anadin vs Panadol  [messaging] on the screens non-stop’. The Labour Peer, according to the marketing website believes ‘all over-the-counter drugs should use Amscreen’s screens in health environments.’ This method according to their own material, will drive an 'uplift in prescriptions.'

Face recognition

In order to improve the sales of Amscreen, the company has now teamed up with a face recognition company called Quividi. This technologywill be able to ‘determine the gender, age, date, time and volume of the viewers’ that look at the adverts and give real-time feedback to the advertisers. Lord Sugar’s son Simon reckons “brands deserve to know not just an estimation of how many eyeballs are viewing their adverts, but who they are, too.”

Alan Sugar, who was given his peerage in 2009, is a Lord largely in name only. In the last year he has taken part in 3 debates and has voted in 3.74% of votes, which given his outside interests is unsurprising. In addition when Lord Rea put forward a motion to shelve the Health and Social Care bill, Mr Sugar didn’t bother to turn up. However, he is of use to the Labour party who have gladly received £333,650.84 in donations from the ‘noble’ peer since 2001.

Privacy

Patients are surely entitled to be able to enter a GP surgery without being targeted by advertisers. Patients largely trust their GP and if drugs appear on the screen in front of them, then they may think that the GPs had control over the content.  This is certainly recognised by Amscreen who explicitly say the positioning of advertising in a GP surgery is a ‘perceived endorsement’ of a product by the GP.

The idea that you will be having your face analysed by advertisers as you sit waiting for your Doctor is surely an invasion of your privacy, despite assurances that faces are detected rather than captured. Many people going into the GP will presumably be concerned over their health, which is a matter not overlooked by Amscreen. In their promotion materialit points out ‘Our high impact screens will provide advertisers with an opportunity to communicate with a broad audience in a receptive mind-set when mental and physical wellbeing for themselves, their families and the community is top of mind.’

Breach of Trust

This all means that a patient without their knowledge or permission is providing information for free to advertisers in the perceived trusted environment of their surgery. Although other important information is imparted on the screens, the local surgery is acting in partnership with whoever the advertisers happen to be over the contractual period. All this amounts to a situation in which patients are being taken advantage of in a vulnerable moment, which is a clear breach of trust by the GP surgery, hospital or dentist, whether privately run or NHS. Such a practice should stop and if you see a screen when you're waiting for your appointment next, then you may need to assume you're being watched.

Tax Haven? No Contract

The message proffered by David Cameron when he spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos was tax avoidance would become a priority of the UK’s presidency for this year. In reality, the government acts in the opposite manner, rewards those companies who channel money to tax havens with further contracts paid for by the taxpayer.

The calls for the government to bring about an end to tax havens has continued to grow ever louder as the general public observe the stripping of the welfare state, whilst billions of pounds exits the county into offshore accounts. Many of these companies are in receipt of taxpayer’s money, which are handed contracts by cash-strapped councils who continue to work with the organisations despite their dubious tax practices.



Take Telereal Trillium, responsible for a £3.2bn 20-year deal to manage and provide property services for the DWP offices. Through a complex network of accounts, the group of companies have channeled over half a billion pound through a complex series of accounts via a company based in the British Virgin Islands. Now aside from the fact that one of the directors linked to the Bermuda trust part-funded David Cameron’s leadership campaign in 2005 with two £10,000 payments, they are an approved bidder for MOD contracts worth up to £4.35 Billion.

Care UK, which operates across large areas of the NHS is accordingto non-profit research project Corporate Watch, reducing its tax liability by routing £8m a year in interest payments on loan notes issued in the Channel Islands. Care UK, who through their former chairman John (now Lord) Nash funded Andrew Lansley’s office when he was shadow health secretary to the tune of £21,000. Care UK, who through Harmoni are the largest provider of Out of Hours service have come in for consistent criticism, yet none of this halts their expansion fueled by the general public.

Circle Health who have Conservative MP Mark Simmonds as an adviser, is owned by companies and investment funds registered in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and the Cayman Islands. The reward for this was for them to become the first company to run a NHS hospital.

Ramsay Health Care, Australia's biggest private hospital chain, bought Capio UK in 2007, acquiring hospitals and nine Independent Sector Treatment Centres for NHS patients. Ramsay according to Corporate Watch now has ‘22 hospitals across the UK and almost 60% of its work is from the NHS.’ Ramsay has the largest amount of healthcare provision contracts in the NHS, and used a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to finance the purchase of a French health company for its Australian parent company. This is important for they ‘borrowed £57m from RHC Finance Ltd, a subsidiary of its Australian parent registered in the Caymans, to finance the acquisition of a 57% share of the Proclif Group, re-branded as Ramsay Sante, a leading French private healthcare company. This led to £1m leaving the UK for the Cayman Islands in interest payments.’ According to a Guardianreport Ramsay Health Care is the third biggest supplier to the NHS receiving £30 million in revenue in 2010/2011.

In written evidencegiven to the treasury in 2011 on Private Finance Initiative, Dexter Whitfield, the Director of European Services Strategy Unit revealed an increasing number of PFI projects registered in tax havens. Equity in 91 PFI projects is owned by secondary market infrastructure funds located in tax havens. These include HSBC Infrastructure in Guernsey, John Laing also in Guernsey and Venture Capital company 3i, who are in Jersey.

Research conductedfor Tax Justice Network by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, estimated that at least £13 trillion is hidden in offshore accounts by the year 2010.  The government is of course aware of the behaviour of these companies; after all they created the system that allows it to take place. As the Tax Justice Network put it: ‘Tax havens and offshore financial centres have created an interface between the illicit and licit economies, corrupting national tax regimes and onshore regulation.’

The government’s response to tax havens has been pathetic and as far as the HMRC goes, they have weakened the organisation in terms of staffing. In addition, the Conservative special adviser and former corporate tax lawyer Edward Troup has been placed in charge of tax at HMRC. He is supported by Ian Barlow who was the former senior partner at KPMG who were fined$455 million a few years back for tax abuses. Furthermore the HMRC ethics committee is chaired by Phil Hodkinson, who is a director of the Resolution insurance company based in a tax haven.

The ultimate aim ought to be the end of tax havens, a unified tax that prevents competition and halts the harmful race to the bottom. In the meantime while this battle continues, there is one action the government can take to force companies to change their tax habits and perhaps for a campaign to be started?

Any company who has a tax haven in any part of their organisation will not be allowed to participate in any bid for a contract funded by the taxpayer. The government themselves won’t do this without pressure because they are funded by the City, who are the worst offenders of them all. However, now that they have decided to make this the main topic of the G8 presidency, then now is an ideal time to get them to justify why they pay taxpayers money in their droves to companies who avoid tax, whilst the welfare state burns.

Tax Havens: Outsource Company's Half Billion Transfer

A private outsourcing company who are in receipt of one of the highest government spends have channeled over half a billion pounds into an offshore tax haven.

The Pears family’s property empire began back in 1950 when the grandfather ran the humble business of three greengrocer stores in North London. Today however, they control Trillium Holdings which owns about a third of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) estate, including job centres, the pension service and child maintenance offices.

Trillium and its subsidiary companies - are responsible for a £3.2bn 20-year deal to manage and provide property services for the DWP offices.

This is where it gets complicated. The parent company of Trillium Holdings is owned by London Wall Outsourcing, which in turn is owned by London Wall Outsourcing Holdings Limited. This company is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The ultimate controlling entity is the B Pears family trust in Bermuda.

Since 2008, London Wall Outsourcing accounts reveal that the vast sum of £666.7m  has been sent in dividends to its Virgin Island based parent.

The British Virgin Islands appeared in the news recently in dramatic fashion, after a massive leak of over 2 million emails and documents revealed a host of political leaders and wealthy individuals whose fortunes are stored in the tax haven.

The Pears family control a property empire valued at £6bn through a labyrinth of companies. Until her death in 1999, the matriarch Clarice Pears was one of the country’s richest women, with a fortune that surpassed that of the Queen. The Pears brother, Mark, Trevor and David, have an estimated wealth of £1.7bn, which ranks them at 38 on the Sunday Times Rich List.

One of the Pears brothers, Trevor, part-funded David Cameron’s leadership campaign in 2005 with two £10,000 payments. The Prime Minister has said tax havens and avoidance will be key part of the G8 summit in June this year, yet here we have his leadership being part-funded by a director of a company who are involved in tax havens.

In a rare interview given to the Telegraph, director Mark Pears said“We have got nothing to hide, but we are a private company”.

The business empire is run by the William Pears Group, which has been built over the last sixty years and encompasses residential property, offices and fund management. The latest accountsreveal the family company quadrupled their profit over the last year. One of the family’s property coups has been the purchase of a vast chunk of the DWP estate.

In 1998 under Blair, the then Department of Social Security transferred the management and ownership of its estate to Trillium, which had been set up by two entrepreneurs and was later bought by the property company Land Securities. The government obtained £250m for its estate and agreed a £2bn contract for serviced accommodation until 2018.

In December 2003, the Land Securities contract - known as the PRIME agreement extended to cover the Employment Service estate. The company bought the offices for £140m and agreed a £1.2bn deal to provide serviced offices. A NAO inquiryconcluded that the deal was good value for the taxpayer and justified.

Six years later, Land Securities sold Trillium to the William Pears Group for £750m, which includedthe DWP estate and the government contracts. The changeover of more than 300 government offices to a company who’s ultimate ownership lies in an offshore company was not undertaken.

The DWP is paying about £464m a year for services to Trillium, but the company has also seen a steep increase in the value of the offices it now owns. Trillium, who are advised by Conservative Peer Lord Griffths of Fforestfach, values its DWP estate at more than £1bn.

The group’s use of tax havens will be even more frustrating for the taxpayer given the fact that the company’s revenue is hugely bolstered by British public spending; a situation that looks set to significantly increase. In 2012, the government made an announcement that a new organisation to manage Defence property was to be formed, called the Defence Infrastructure Organisation. The new programme will see contracts of MOD facilities across England and Wales drawn up, worth up to £4.35bn and Telereal Trillium, who are a member of free market think tank Reform, have been short-listed as part of one of three consortia approved for making bids for the MOD estate contracts.



See Telereal Trillium Holdings Accounts (scroll to bottom to see link to London Wall)
See London Wall Outsourcing Accounts (scroll to bottom to see link to BVI and Bermuda)