Article Roundup - Attacks on Society, Deceit and Dirty Business

Every now and again I do an article roundup to bring together key articles from a couple of months work.

The first roundup focused on the Lords research and the healthcare takeover of parliament
More...

The second roundup was dedicated to  lobbying following the discovery of a document from a healthcare lobbying group that told the tale of how Sir Stephen Bubb played his part in changing the face of the NHS. In addition it looked at the daily Telegraph’s role in helping promote the message of ‘competition’. More...

This roundup looks at the political connections of two Think Tanks that silently go about producing policy that the government so readily take onboard to leverage public resources into the private companies that fund them. Reform, the BBC, Policy Exchange, Wonga are all in here, as is David Cameron and how the government accepted the recommendations of the ‘Choice and Competition’ working group of the NHS Future Forum before they received the final report. Democracy in this country is in a fragile state.

Please pass on this blog to anyone you know.

1. ‘Just as I was signing off our Panel's report on " Delivering real choice" I get sent a copy of the PM speech announcing he is accepting many of our key recommendations (although we haven't actually given him the report yet!) More…

2. Sir Stephen Bubb was a key figure in ensuring private healthcare remained in the Health and Social Care Act following the so-called ‘listening period.’ Read about how he bumped in Lansley and got briefed before appearing on the Health and Social Care bill Committee. More…

3. Policy Exchange Links to the Conservative Party. They are a think tank with charity status, but predominantly dream up ideas for privatising. They are meant to be politically ‘independent’, but are linked solely to the Conservative party. More here…

4. Reform are according to their website 'keen to involve corporate organisations in our research because their expertise is often left out of the Whitehall policy discussion.’ – See why this is a lie with reports on Aviva, BMI Healthcare, G4Sand see why this makes them a conduitto privatisation. You can also see which of their corporate partners are linked to Lords and MPs. More…

5. The BBC failed the people of the UK for whom they are meant to inform. A new report analyses the key stories they missed including the Lords and MPs research. How the BBC betrayed the NHS. More…

6. A Complaint was sent to the Charity Commission over the free market think tank Reform. The complaint focused on their political independence and their linksto the Conservative party. The second part of the complaint looked at misleading statements made on their website. We await their response. More...

7. The government want to privatise probations, and it is all linked into the Police Commissioner elections, which will act as an opportunity to pressurise local leaders to outsource other areas such as the fire brigade, the police, ambulance services, of which Reform suggest Police Commissioners should be in charge. More…

8. It takes a certain kind of person to run a company that takes advantage of people in desperate times, to squeeze money out of them when they have nowhere else to go. The kind of person who would do such a thing, should be admonished by society for preying on the needy however, this government, who receives money from one of their main funders, sees him as a person to go to for advice and to send senior advisers to lobby on the company's behalf. More…

New report: How the BBC betrayed the NHS

‘The BBC has failed in its responsibilities to inform the British public about one of the most important pieces of legislation of the 21st century.’

This statement comes from a new report written and researched by OurKingdom, a democracy news website project of Open Democracy. The 8,000-word document, highlights a catalogue of failings by the corporation in its coverage of the Health and Social Care Act that include:

• Never questioned or explored the lack of democratic mandate for the changes to the NHS

• Consistently presented the bill using the government’s own highly contested description

• Financial links between healthcare firms, the Conservatives and the House of Lords were never reported

• Significant role of the private sector in Lansley’s new health market was never explored

• Censored key stories, particularly as the bill reached its final stages. On 19 March 2012 when the bill was finally passed in the Lords, BBC Online published not a single article of news or analysis on the bill

Amongst the failings listed is researchconducted by this blog, Social Investigations, which revealed the institutional corruption and corporate takeover of our parliamentary system by private healthcare. 140 Lords and 65 MPs had financial links to companies involved in private healthcare, a damning statement on our political system. The report rightly points out the BBC’s failure to report this, although they were certainly not alone in neglecting this story.

A further search of the BBC website revealed that throughout the passage of the Healthcare Act, the BBC failedto challenge Andrew Lansley on private healthcare donations his office received when he was shadow health secretary. These connections were well known and published in most other newspaper media. The BBC acknowledged this with a somewhat pitiful response:

‘Factors such as how much national interest there is in the subject matter will all play a part in deciding the level of coverage and where it falls within a bulletin.’

The OurKingdom report offers further condemnation of the BBC’s coverage under the title: ‘The unexplored role of the private healthcare industry’ the report states; ‘One of the most glaring absences of BBC reporting concerns the role of private health and consultancy firms.’

Monitor, the new ‘independent’ regulator, which is to be tasked with promoting competition, or as the marketing apparatchiks would have us believe, ‘promote patient choice’, is heavily linked to consultancy giants, McKinsey & Co. ‘Of the five members of the board, two, including the Chair, David Bennett, are ex-McKinsey staff’. Mckinsey were the company that recommended the £20 billion of savings the NHS must make over the next 5 years and were charged with writing large parts of the Health and Social Care bill.

The report reminds us of comments made by Mark Britnell, a senior adviser to David Cameron and KPMG’s Global Head of Health, when he spoke in a conference in New York: ‘the NHS would be turned into a “state insurance provider”, a “big opportunity” for the private sector; the NHS would be shown “no mercy”.’ Worth mentioning you might think, but ‘despite the story breaking on 14 May, the report tell us the ‘BBC did not mention the comments until 4 days later when they were mentioned in brief to explain a comment by Nick Clegg. It was not deemed a story in its own right, and it was never mentioned again.’

The BBC did however find time to quote the private healthcare lobby group, NHS Partners Network. The report tells us how the BBC ‘frequently cited’ the network but failed each time to mention the rather significant fact that they are loadedwith vested interests. Their current members list contains 7 companies with financialconnections to MPs, Lords or former MPs. They met with Andrew Lansley in 2007 and held a 'meeting with Lansley on the Conservative party's draft bill.' They were in fact involvedin a lot more than that.

Not in the report, but worth mentioning is the case of Oliver Letwin. In Nicholas Timmins book, ‘Never Again?’, we learn how a deal was struck between Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander as part of the coalition negotiations. The deal regarding the NHS was arrogantly - Give us the NHS and we will give you Lords reform.

In January 1988, the Centre for Policy Studies published a document written by a key member of Margaret Thatcher’ Policy Unit.  The publication was titled ‘Britain’s Biggest Enterprise, ideas for radical reform of the NHS’. The author was Oliver Letwin. The publication focused on two options for change in the NHS, both under the ‘principle of charging’, health credits or a national ‘health insurance scheme’. In June 2004, it was reported in the Independent that Mr Letwin had told a private meeting of construction industry representatives in his constituency in Dorset, that the “NHS will not exist” within five-years of a Conservative government. Take a look on the BBC website and there is no mention of any of these stories.
 

There are some important questions the BBC needs to answer. It is understood that the BBC is going through a nervy time. Like all public funded institutions it is being forced to make cuts to its service and with a government in place, which was so desperately trying to give more power to Murdoch.

There is no doubt that under a Conservative government and even one tempered by a largely submissive coalition partner, the BBC feels under pressure. Prior to getting into power David Cameron had called for the licence fee to be frozen for a year, by the time they got into power, this had becomesix years. Further support for this action came from Jeremy Hunt the then Culture secretary who said: "The BBC has to live on the same planet as everyone else." The same planet presumably that watched the unfolding hacking scandal with Mr Hunt waving the flag for Murdoch’s BSKYB bid.

Reducing the licence fee will naturally affect quality, there are to be fewer new factual programmes, which have already declined over the last few years. A total of 140 jobs are gone from the news division, which will hinder the BBC’s ability to produce the investigative journalism that it can do so well.

Attacking the BBC has multiple advantages to the Conservatives. It will weaken the service and help push the agenda of ending the licence. A tactic that is repeated across all privatisations; run it down, make the service so poor that people will cry less when it is finally dismantled. Indeed, the commercial arm of the BBC Worldwide service is certainlyin their aims.

The BBC is to be defended or else the likes of Murdoch become the more powerful force and nobody wants Fox news in the UK. Faith however needs to be restored, and not challenging Lansley on his healthcare donations and so many of the other failures of their Health bill coverage as highlighted in this report is simply sloppy journalism.

In addition it doesn’t help our confidence, when we learn via the Telegraph, (no angelsthemselves), that the BBC spent £2.2 million of public money on private healthcare for hundreds of senior BBC staff between 2008-2010. Neither does it help having Lord Patten of Barnesas Chairman of the Trust. The Trust is responsible for ensuring standards such as impartiality and fairness be maintained in the public interest. The Conservative Peer is a member of the European Advisory Board for a private equity investment company called Bridgepoint. The private equity firm which has been involved in 17 healthcare deals over recent years Eight of these companies remain as their current investments, which include four in the UK at a combined investment worth over £1.1 billion. One company acquired by Bridgepoint was residential care company Care UK, whose chairman was the person who donated to Lansley.

The report concludes with some recommendations to put the issues raised to rest.

-       release full data on the complaints it has received over its NHS coverage, if it has not done so already

-       formally address the concerns listed above

-       make available to the public, journalists and academics a full account of their coverage across all mediums so that it can be properly analysed.

The BBC is an important part of our society, and the NHS even more so. Are they intentionally not covering these important issues or is it simply poor journalism? If it is the former, then why and who is informing where they should be researching? If it is the latter, then what is the recruitment process for BBC journalists, because quite frankly, they are not doing their job?

Across its services, the BBC reaches a staggering 90% of people in every week. If the BBC doesn’t cover it, then a lot of the public will not know about it. There is so much more in the report by Open democracy and it is a vital and important read. Not least of all is the fact that blogs written by concerned members of the public, played a vital role in getting information out that the BBC and the media as a whole did not.

As Indymedia, the global volunteer activist media organisation have been saying for years:

You are the Media!

The BBC's failure to challenge Lansley's healthcare connections

The BBC have admitted to not challenging Andrew Lansley on two donations he accepted from individuals in private healthcare, yet fail to accept any wrongdoing.

When Andrew Lansley unveiled his plans to restructure the NHS and increase the opportunities for private healthcare providers, it would be reasonable to expect alarm bells to ring inside the heads of journalists. Yet as the Health and Social Care bill was being debated in parliament with accusations of privatisation shouted from all and sundry, the BBC remained silent.

His connections

When shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley accepted donations to run his office from two individuals connected to private healthcare. In 2008 he received a donation from Julian Schild, who owned hospital bed-makers Huntleigh Technology, the largest manufacturer of NHS beds. The other donation came from John Nash, the then chairman of Care UK, who gave £21,000 to fund Lansley’s personal office in November 2009. Hedge fund boss John Nash, now a Lord, is one of the major Conservative donors with close ties to the healthcare industry. He and wife Caroline have given £276,000 to the party since 2006. Mr Nash is also a founder of City firm Sovereign Capital, which runs a string of private healthcare firms.

In addition, Andrew Lansley’s wife, Sally Low, is founder and managing director of Low Associates (“We make the link between the public and private sectors”). A Daily Telegraph report in February reveals that the Low Associates website as having pharmaceuticals companies SmithKline Beecham, Unilever and P&G among its clients.

Yet, despite this information being published in other media, the BBC in an extraordinary journalistic failure, failed to highlight these clear conflicts of interest. The lack of exposure would have been absolute had it not been for one article written in 2008, which touched on the Huntleigh bed Ltd connection.

Response to complaint

The complaint came about following a search on the BBC site in all areas, and on the search engines for stories by the BBC on the subject of Lansley and the donations. There was nothing. Yet, this remarkable and gross dereliction of duty, was brushed aside by the BBC, who following a complaint made by Social Investigations, denied there was any issue over their coverage:

‘I understand that you believe we've neglected to highlight issues surrounding Andrew Lansley and allegations that he received money from Care UK Chairman, John Nash as well as Julian Schild…Although I appreciate your concerns, choosing the stories to cover is a subjective matter and one which we know not every viewer will feel we get right every time. Factors such as whether it is how much national interest there is in the subject matter will all play a part in deciding the level of coverage and where it falls within a bulletin.’

This response is appalling. The ‘allegations’ as this letter suggests, are actually facts that other newspapers were able to publish. In addition, surely when the health secretary and author of the Health and Social Care bill has had his office funded by individuals linked to private healthcare, he at the very least would expect to be challenged and disbelieved on his motives until proven otherwise. This is especially important, given the bill he wrote is about to substantially increase the amount of private healthcare involvement in the NHS. I think this can safely fall into the category of ‘national interest.’ As Media Lens pointed out in their alert titled: ‘People Will Die’ - The End Of The NHS. Part 2: Buried By The BBC – ‘The BBC has a duty, enshrined in its Charter, to report objectively on stories of national and international interest.’

Indeed, now that we see the likes of Serco and Virgin grabbing chunks of the service, it only amplifies what we the public suspected all along. Andrew Lansley, big business and the front men of the Conservative party, want to hand over the NHS to the corporations that sit in the House of Lords and Parliament. We now know that 1 in 4 Conservative Lords have financial interests to companies involved in private healthcare, who despite these conflicts of interest, were able to vote on Lansley’s bill. We also now know that over 50 MPs have these same interests, most of which are Conservatives.

It’s not as if there wasn’t any chance to bring it up. When Mr Lansley was confronted by campaigner Jean Hautot outside the gates to Downing Street, he was forced to defensively say: "The NHS is not for sale, there will be no privatisation." Yet, even in the article written on this incident, the BBC failed to challenge him. One of literally hundreds of missed opportunities to hold the Health Secretary to account.  

BBC lack of trust

Trust in the BBC is not improved when we learn from the Telegraph that the BBC spent £2.2 million of public money on private healthcare for hundreds of senior BBC staff between 2008-2010. Neither does it help having the Lord Patten of Barnes as Chairman of the Trust. The Trust is responsible for ensuring standards such as impartiality and fairness be maintained in the public interest. The Conservative Peer is a member of the European Advisory Board for a private equity investment company called Bridgepoint. The private equity firm which has been involved in17 healthcare deals over recent years Eight of these companies remain as their current investments, which include four in the UK at a combined investment worth over £1.1 billion. One company acquired by Bridgepoint was residential care company Care UK, whose chairman was the person who donated to Lansley.

The Executive Board, which oversees the ‘operational management’ for the delivery of services agreed with the Trust, has a Dr Mike Lynch sitting on the board. Media Lens revealed how 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.’  In addition he is on the advisory board of investment company Apax Partners, which is a leading global investors in the Healthcare sector’.

So the BBC could do itself some favours. Drop Chris Patten and Dr Mike Lynch from their respective positions. If the public say you are not doing a good job, don’t dismiss it as a belief and the next time Andrew Lansley speaks about the NHS, challenge him on his donations from healthcare company individuals set to benefit from the bill he produced. Indeed, by failing to challenge Lansley from when he became Health Secretary up until when the Health and Social Care bill became an Act, the BBC has let down not only the people they are meant to inform, but also themselves.

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?

As the Lords were sitting in the chamber debating the bill, I was unearthing and putting out the list of Lords and MPs who have these interests. The list went viral and although I accept you may personally have not seen the list, I am slightly aghast that the BBC didn't pick up on it, or think to make this connection yourselves.

The research found 142 Peers having financial connections to companies involved in private healthcare. The Conservative Lords have 1 in 4 with these conflicts of interest. Even now, despite the bill becoming an Act, this list represents a threat to our democracy and I alongside tens of thousands of others who have passed this around on twitter feel it must get some coverage. This list is not something of the past, but represents the present, and gives a glaring idea of why this bill was produced.

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. The coalition are littered with these connections, yet from the interviews and coverage the BBC has given, you would never guess this was the case. 

Is it not a dereliction of journalistic duty to allow Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary and author of the Health and Social Care bill, to repeat his various reasonings for the bill without constantly challenging him and his party's connections to the private healthcare industry?

Finally, i would be grateful if you could tell me if you think the matter of the Lords financial interests in Private Healthcare is now in your thoughts, and whether you will intend to highlight this in a future news item?

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.

Andrew Robertson

Social Investigations