Which PR companies are actively promoting image of a failing NHS to facilitate privatisation?

[Bernie Gunther]

Pretty clearly there's a PR campaign to create extremely negative images of NHS care in order to justify privatisation.

Obviously the government are spewing propaganda directly, but I'd guess that there are also specific PR organisations working actively for those who stand to profit, placing such stories in the media, cultivating editors and journalists and all that stuff.

Anyone know who they are?

 

[yield]

Pretty clearly there's a PR campaign to create extremely negative images of NHS care in order to justify privatisation. Obviously the government are doing so directly, but I'd guess that there are also specific PR organisations working actively for those who stand to profit.

Anyone know who they are?

This Mirror article might be a good start.
DAVID Cameron’s bid to dismantle the NHS and open it up to greedy profiteers faces its final hurdle today with a House of Lords vote.

But as a worried nation puts its faith in peers they hope will bring the PM’s dangerous reforms to a shuddering halt, it was claimed yesterday 40 members of the chamber have a vested interest in seeing hospitals privatised.

People hoping for a fair and objective vote based on what is best for patients could be in for a disappointment over the revelations that lords and baronesses carry out a variety of work for health firms that could cash in on the changes.

Among them is former Tory Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley who is a director of Bupa and Lord Naseby, chair of Invesco Perpetual Recovery Trust – investors in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Mr Cameron’s Health and Social Care Bill could open the floodgates for a host of private firms to cash in on sickness, leaving poorer patients to make do with second-rate care. Spinwatch, a group which campaigns for more transparency in government, branded the claims a major concern and warned the impartiality of the vote is at risk.

Under the Lords code of conduct, peers must “declare when speaking in the House, or communicating with ministers or public servants, any interest which is a relevant interest in the context of the debate or the matter under discussion”.

But Spinwatch claimed that has not always been followed to the letter. It cited the example of Tory Lord Hunt of Wirral, who started the first NHS reform debate last October.

While he operated within the rules, by declaring his work for legal company Beachcroft, campaigners insisted he should have gone further.

Spinwatch said: “Hunt reminded his fellow peers during the debate only that he is ‘a partner in the national commercial law firm Beachcroft’.

“However, he does not mention that Beachcroft also offers lobbying services to private healthcare companies.”

Beachcroft says it provides “expert support for clients seeking access to key policy makers or developing campaigns to influence the development of regulation”.

A brochure advertising its health advisory services said: “In David Hunt and Charles Clarke, Beachcroft has two former senior Cabinet ministers with unrivalled knowledge of the workings of Westminster.” The Mirror yesterday approached the Tory party press office and left a message with the House of Lords switchboard as well as sending a message to an email contact on Lord Hunt’s web page, but he did not respond.

Lord Naseby also spoke in the October debate. He praised “the coalition Government’s strategy for the NHS” as “clear and very welcome”. There is no mention of Invesco Perpetual Recovery Trust in the Hansard record of the debate. Another Tory peer, Lord Higgins holds shares worth more than £50,000 in Lansdowne UK Equity Fund. It is a major investor in private hospital group Circle Holdings.

Circle, the first firm to get a contract to run an entire NHS hospital, is looking to expand its operations under the reforms.

Another former Tory health minister, Julia Cumberlege, runs a political networking firm that works “extensively” with the pharmaceutical industry.

Tony Newton, a Conservative health minister in the 80s, is an advisor to dental chain Oasis Healthcare.

Ex-Labour health minister Norman Warner was until September 2009 an adviser to Apax Partners, one of the leading global investors in the health sector.

He has since set up Sage Advice to provide “public affairs aid” to, among others, IT giant Dell, which is expanding its market share in British healthcare.

Lord Darzi, who was also a Labour health minister, is an adviser to medical technology firm GE Healthcare. Other Tory peers with an interest include Baroness Hogg, chair of Frontier Economics, a consultancy that advises private sector clients on the impact of healthcare reforms.

Lord Lang of Monckton is director of a group of firms that “help hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical firms, and industry associations understand the implications of changing policy environments and how best to respond to them”.

And Lord Wakeham is a paid advisor to a consultancy firm which helps private healthcare companies identify “Growth and New Business Development” and “opportunities with the Government”.

The peers

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone: The former Conservative Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley is a Director of BUPA, the health insurance, private hospital and care group.

Lord Naseby: Chairman of and a share-holder in Invesco Perpetual Recovery Trust. One fifth of their investments are in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Lord Wakeham: Advisor to L.E.K. Consulting, which specialises in helping private healthcare companies identify "growth and new business development" and "opportunities with the government".

Lord Hunt of Wirral: Partner in Beachcroft, a law firm that offers incisive analysis on the full range of government, parliamentary and regulatory matters in the health sector.

Lord Lang of Monckton: Director of Marsh & McLennan Companies that "help hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and industry associations understand the implications of changing policy environments".

Lord Darzi: Former surgeon drafted into government as a health minister by Gordon Brown when he was PM. Now an adviser to medical technology firm GE Healthcare.

Baroness Cumberlege of Newick: Former Tory health minister, runs Cumberlege Connections, a political networking firm that works "extensively" with the pharmaceutical industry.

Baron Higgins of Worthing: Holds in excess of £50,000 of shares in Lansdowne UK Equity Fund, backers of private hospital group Circle Holdings.

Baron Newton of Braintree: Advisor to Oasis Healthcare on dentistry and general healthcare matters.

Baroness Hogg of Kettlethorpe: Chair of Frontier Economics, a consultancy that advises private sector clients on the impact of healthcare reforms and how "to shape regulatory environments".

Lord Freeman: The ex-health minister is chairman of the Advisory Board of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which claims to have “been at the heart of shaping [healthcare] reforms and working with clients to respond to the opportunities they present”.

Lord Ribeiro: Adviser on hospital reorganisation to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Lord Blackwell: Chairman of Interserve, consultancy to NHS and private healthcare firms.

Lord Blyth of Rowington: Senior adviser to investment bankers Greenhill.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: Senior adviser to Evercore, bank involved in huge healthcare deals.

Lord Garel-Jones: MD of UBS bank, whose healthcare division earned the firm over $1billion since 2005.

Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach: Director of Goldman Sachs bank, provider of services to healthcare firms.

Lord Howard of Lympne: Senior adviser to Hawkpoint Partners, a corporate finance firm.

Lord Tugendhat: Adviser to Trilantic Capital Partners, a private equity firm “active” in healthcare.

Lord Coe: Director of AMT-Sybex Group, IT supplier to the NHS.

Lord Magan of Castletown: Director of the SISK Group of healthcare companies.

Lord Ballyedmond: Chairman of pharmaceutical company Norbrook Laboratories.

Lord Chadlington: Chief executive of Huntsworth communications group with several lobbying firms.

Lord Bell: Chairman of Chime Communications group, whose lobbying clients include Southern Cross, BT Health and AstraZeneca.

Baroness Hooper: Until July 11, chairman of Advisory Committee of Barclays Infrastructure Funds, one of the most experienced investors in hospital PFI deals.

Lord Ashcroft: Until 2010, held investments in two private healthcare groups.

Lord Leitch: Bupa chairman.

Lord Filkin: Adviser to outsourcing giant Serco, heavily involved in .

Lord Harris of Haringey: Senior adviser to business services giant KPMG.

Lord Hutton of Furness: Ex-health minister is an adviser to law firm Eversheds. Clients include care homes and private hospitals.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Self-employed “consultant on NHS and wider health issues”.

Lord Puttnam: Director of Huntsworth communications group.

Lord Warner: Former adviser to Apax Partners, one of the leading global investors in the healthcare sector. Current director of Sage Advice Ltd,

Lord Evans of Watford: Director of healthcare property firm Care Capital.

Baroness Morgan of Huyton: Ex-director of failed care home firm Southern Cross.

Lord Clement-Jones: Partner in DLA Piper, a global law firm providing lobbying services to “clients in the health and social care sectors”.

Lord Taverne: Chairman of private health insurer Axa Sun Life’s monitoring board.

Lord Patten of Barnes: Adviser to private equity firm Bridgepoint.

Lord Currie of Marylebone: Chairman of Semperian, an investment vehicle, which owns a portfolio of mature Public Private Partnership investments, including hospitals.

Lord Hameed: Chair of private secure mental health hospital group Alpha Hospitals, which is investing in a new acute private hospital in central London.

 

[Blagsta]

The Telegraph are up to their necks in this.

 

[yield]

See also

Spinwatch investigation: NHS reforms plunged into fresh turmoil
Monday, 05 September 2011

We’ll need to shout louder for Lansley to hear us
Monday, 28 March 2011
Both by Tamasin Cave

As well as directly courting politicians, General Healthcare Group (GHG)’s lobbying campaign to usher in this lucrative dawn has involved funding the H5 Private Hospitals Alliance, a lobby group for the big 5 private hospital groups in the UK (launched in Parliament); surveying MPs on the role of private healthcare providers; hiring extra hands with lobbying agency College Hill; and funding the free market think tank, Reform.

GHG’s sponsorship of Reform (a £6000 annual fee plus £6000 per event it sponsors), has bought the firm influence and privileged access to politicians: a 2009 GHG-sponsored conference, for example, called ‘The Future of Health’ saw (CEO) Fawcett share a platform with Lansley and other key health politicians.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Anyone notice that moves to bring in a register of lobbyists got dropped from The Queen's speech, because hammering migrants is way more important than mere corruption.

Separately, this is telling it like it is.

http://trueblueviews.wordpress.com/...-corporations-nurses-are-a-cancer-in-the-nhs/

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I was thinking more of the other end of the process.

Not so much lobbyists corrupting politicians, but PR shites deliberately misinforming the public about the NHS in ways that support the campaign to privatise it.

Obviously, wrecking the NHS means that the investors who stand to benefit need to pay for both activities, so no harm digging out lobbying info too.

Let's just be clear which is which.

 

[agricola]

Anyone notice that moves to bring in a register of lobbyists got dropped from The Queen's speech, because hammering migrants is way more important than mere corruption.

Indeed, despite that being something that Cameron himself repeatedly - and correctly, fwiw - pointed to as being where the next massive scandal in British politics will take place (or to more accurately put it, where it has been taking place for at least the past twenty years). The sad and deeply worrying thing is of course that even as something as mild and essentially useless as a register of them couldnt be brought in because there isnt the political will in the Commons to do so.

 

[Corax]

Damn good point. I've no doubt Circle, Virgin, Care UK etc have hired PR for just that purpose - and exposing it in lurid detail would be a good score.

If they were NHS trusts then an FOI request would do the job, but of course these private companies profiteering behind an NHS logo aren't covered.

Wonder if Roy Lilley might be able to get somewhere with it...?

 

[Blagsta]

I was thinking more of the other end of the process.

Not so much lobbyists corrupting politicians, but PR shites deliberately misinforming the public about the NHS in ways that support the campaign to privatise it.

Obviously, wrecking the NHS means that the investors who stand to benefit need to pay for both activities, so no harm digging out lobbying info too.

Let's just be clear which is which.

The Patient's Association. Ostensibly a patient advocacy group, but sponsored by private health care companies. One of the sources of stories attacking the NHS in the media.

http://www.patients-association.com/Default.aspx?tabid=78

 

[danny la rouge]

Pretty clearly there's a PR campaign to create extremely negative images of NHS care in order to justify privatisation.

Obviously the government are spewing propaganda directly, but I'd guess that there are also specific PR organisations working actively for those who stand to profit, placing such stories in the media, cultivating editors and journalists and all that stuff.

Anyone know who they are?

Good thread.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The Patient's Association. Ostensibly a patient advocacy group, but sponsored by private health care companies. One of the sources of stories attacking the NHS in the media.

http://www.patients-association.com/Default.aspx?tabid=78

Snippets from their CEO's CV.

Career 2007-present: chief executive, Patients Association (PA); 2001-07: director of communications, PA; 2000-01: helpline manager, PA; 1992-95: community care manager, royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea; 1988-91: deputy hospital manager, St Marks hospital, London; 1986-7: project co-coordinator, Australian Medical Association; 1981-1984: general nurse, Whipps Cross hospital.

Public life Member of prime minister's Nursing and Care Quality Forum, Medical Technology Group and numerous advisory boards for the Department of Health and regulators

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/25/patients-association-leader-nhs-paternalistic

The other two senior figures listed on their site both previously worked for MPs whose voting record shows them as strong supporters of privatisation policies.

Are they a genuine patient advocacy group that happens to be very convenient for privatisation advocates or a PR front group working against patient interests?

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party technique. For example, Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to choose to eat, drink and smoke as they please. In reality, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide all or most of its funding.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Front_groups

With these groups it's always interesting to know how they're being funded and Blagsta's link above makes it clear that this outfit is sponsored by people who stand to profit from NHS privatisation.

With a PR front group there's usually also a PR company involved in setting it up.

 

[yield]

It would be interesting to know how they're being funded ...

Charities Commision entry for the Patients Association

Based at an office block on the grounds of NHS Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.

The Big Lottery Fund - £10,000
John Ellerman Foundation - £38,000
South West Strategic Health Authority - £75,000
The Health Foundation - £161,492

During the year the Charity received:

- A grant of £10,000 from The Big Lottery Fund. The grant was restricted to funding a project to write, publish and disseminate a guide entitled "Going into Hospital - A Guide For Patients Families & Carers".

- A grant of £38,000 from The John Ellerman Foundation towards a fundraiser's post. Expenses of £2,520 were incurred toward this during the year.

- A grant of £75,000 from the South West Strategic Health Authority towards improving patient care in the South West. Expenses of £87,809 were incurred in respect of this during the year.

- A grant of £161,492 from the Health Foundation towards improving complaints handling in the Staffordshire area. Expenditure of £84,810 was incurred in respect of this during the year.

from the 2011 accounts

 

[Bernie Gunther]

That's interesting. Wonder what the relationship between 'sponsorship' and actually funding them is?

The biggest grant by far is from The Health Foundation, to target Staffordshire ...

 

[shygirl]

The bbc news at 10 last night did a scaremongering piece on 'never incidents' (incidents that should never occur) in NHS hospitals. Things such as surgical tools being left in people's bodies post-op, but it turned out that only 1 in 20,000 are victim of this in a year. Of course that one shouldn't ever happen, but the piece struck me as yet another attack on the NHS. There's bound to be equivalent cock-ups in private hospitals.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Indeed, despite that being something that Cameron himself repeatedly - and correctly, fwiw - pointed to as being where the next massive scandal in British politics will take place (or to more accurately put it, where it has been taking place for at least the past twenty years). The sad and deeply worrying thing is of course that even as something as mild and essentially useless as a register of them couldnt be brought in because there isnt the political will in the Commons to do so.

Many of them are too busy tickling their own nether regions while fantasising about their post-Parliamentary sinecures to act like turkeys voting for Christmas.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The bbc news at 10 last night did a scaremongering piece on 'never incidents' (incidents that should never occur) in NHS hospitals. Things such as surgical tools being left in people's bodies post-op, but it turned out that only 1 in 20,000 are victim of this in a year. Of course that one shouldn't ever happen, but the piece struck me as yet another attack on the NHS. There's bound to be equivalent cock-ups in private hospitals.

And of the 1 in 20,000, the implement most often left in accidentally? Swabs, which can't be detected except visually.

 

[Corax]

And of the 1 in 20,000, the implement most often left in accidentally? Swabs, which can't be detected except visually.

Not that it makes much difference, but I believe most swabs are manufactured to be x-ray detectable these days for just that reason.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not that it makes much difference, but I believe most swabs are manufactured to be x-ray detectable these days for just that reason.

Damn good thing too! Cool that it eventually got taken on board!

 

[The Pale King]

It's interesting (and quite disconcerting) to see the role Tory ministers play when they take over a department. I'm thinking especially of Lansley/Hunt and Gove. Rather than trying to run / improve the service they act like fifth columnists undermining the service from within, publicly criticizing it and running it down, to get it ready to be sold off to foreign companies (not that selling it off to british companies would be any better). Once they've reduced / ridiculed the service as much as they dare, privitisation is presented as the only option to 'save' the service.

The other thing is that they are totally unscrupulous in doing this - making up statistics and international comparators as they go along, knowing that the occasional reprimands from the government's statisticians won't get much traction (thinking of that cunt IDS in particular but Gove and Hunt do the same - the old 'we used to be third in the world and now we are seventh and dropping fast etc).

So: Destroy public provision to prepare the ground for privateers, and make up your own relity whenever fact become inconvenient. Straight out of the Republican (U.S.A) playbook.

 

[treelover]

Another former Tory health minister, Julia Cumberlege, runs a political networking firm that works “extensively” with the pharmaceutical industry.

never heard of her.

more threads like these please..

 

[agricola]

It's interesting (and quite disconcerting) to see the role Tory ministers play when they take over a department. I'm thinking especially of Lansley/Hunt and Gove. Rather than trying to run / improve the service they act like fifth columnists undermining the service from within, publicly criticizing it and running it down, to get it ready to be sold off to foreign companies (not that selling it off to british companies would be any better). Once they've reduced / ridiculed the service as much as they dare, privitisation is presented as the only option to 'save' the service.

The other thing is that they are totally unscrupulous in doing this - making up statistics and international comparators as they go along, knowing that the occasional reprimands from the government's statisticians won't get much traction (thinking of that cunt IDS in particular but Gove and Hunt do the same - the old 'we used to be third in the world and now we are seventh and dropping fast etc).

So: Destroy public provision to prepare the ground for privateers, and make up your own relity whenever fact become inconvenient. Straight out of the Republican (U.S.A) playbook.

The latest Eye (1339, the UKIP Clowns one) has a particularly nefarious example of this with regards to the forthcoming selloff of East Coast trains, in which the minister Simon Burns claimed that East Coast was the worst performing of all 19 franchises, based on the "latest data" in terms of punctuality and reliability.

This turned out to be the statistics from one month, the statistics for the year to March 31st actually showed that EC was the best performing (61.1% of trains punctual to within a minute of the schedule compared to the next best (Virgin) with 49.4%). EC also claims - by some distance - the least amount of subsidy of any franchise.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Julia Cumberledge is associated with the King's Fund, who in turn are fingered by Red Pepper and Spinwatch as a key think tank involved in pushing the privatisation agenda along with the Nuffield Trust and the management consultancy firm McKinseys.

Besides penetrating the government McKinsey also plays a key role in the King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust, the two dominant healthcare think tanks that have pushed the privatisation agenda. Both have senior McKinsey partners on their boards, and while they portray themselves as ‘independent’ they routinely endorse models of care that replicate the US health system – especially the concept of ‘integrated care’, which, while sounding progressive, points towards the US model of ‘managed care’, with its high insurance premiums, exorbitant CEO salaries and denial of care.

Among other key McKinsey initiatives leading up to the health bill – much of which is thought to have been drafted by McKinsey staff – were the Department of Health’s ‘World Class Commissioning’ initiative, and the ‘Framework for External Support for Commissioners’. These made it clear that private firms, not GPs, would end up spending the budgets of the new clinical commissioning groups – and McKinsey would be one of them. It was also a McKinsey report for the department in 2009 that called on the NHS to find ‘efficiency savings’ of £4 billion every year for five years, leading to the cuts now being imposed – another topic on which the media have been culpably silent, as the report was full of fallacies.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/mckinseys-unhealthy-profits/

 

[Bernie Gunther]

More stuff on McKinseys involvement here.

More recently, a Freedom of Information request about NHS North West London Hospitals Trust revealed that some £7 million, including £3 million in fees to McKinsey, had been spent by NHS officials on constructing a case to justify the closure of four of the nine accident and emergency departments in north west London

Dr. Onkar Sahota, chairman of the Save Our Hospitals campaign, said, “I am truly appalled. Not only are NHS NW London proposing to shut some of our most needed services, but they are spending £3 million of our money on McKinsey consultants. They are spending taxpayers’ money on this firm so that they can tell NHS NW London that local residents do not want this to happen, I could have told them that for free.”

McKinsey representatives have found their way into the highest levels of government. Ian Davis was chairman and worldwide managing director of McKinsey (2003-2009) and previously managing partner of McKinsey’s in the UK and Ireland (1996-2003). He is a non-executive member of the Cabinet Office Board, traditionally seen as the control room of government. The chairman and worldwide managing director of McKinsey therefore holds an unelected position in a body that decides government policy, how it will be implemented and who benefits.

Another regular visitor to Number 10 is Nicolaus Henke, head of Mckinsey’s Healthcare Systems & Services Practice in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and chairman of the McKinsey Health Institutes.

McKinsey special advisor Christina Lineen has been hired by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as his personal adviser. Lineen was also formerly head of communications at Circle Health, the first firm to be allowed to run an NHS hospital at Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire.

Dominic Casserley, a senior partner at McKinsey for 29 years, donated £10,000 to David Cameron’s personal office during Cameron’s bid for leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005. He made two donations of £4,000 to Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, in 2006 and 2008, and a donation of £6,000 to the Conservative Party in 2009.

Under the Health and Social Care Act, the supposedly “independent” NHS regulator Monitor, established in 2004, “will have a continuing role in assessing NHS trusts for foundation trust status, and for ensuring that foundation trusts are financially viable and well led, in terms of both quality and finances”. Its chair and chief executive, Dr. David Bennett, was a senior partner at McKinsey for 18 years.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/12/19/nhs-d19.html

 

[coley]

It's pretty unbelievable how much of the NHS has been infiltrated by these parasites but surely the process has been going on since before the present lot was elected?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It's pretty unbelievable how much of the NHS has been infiltrated by these parasites but surely the process has been going on since before the present lot was elected?

I think most of it goes back to late Thatcher/Major era. That's when they started getting their hooks in. Some pretty clear evidence for that around the ATOS/Unum stuff going back to Peter Lilley's tenure for example.

nuLabour generally kept those relationships going as far as I can tell.

 

[coley]

So, not exactly extinguished under Blairs time? An ongoing process encouraged by all at Westminster ?

 

[Dan U]

Given the huge involvement of private equity in health and adult social care providers, this will continue apace.

I know for a fact that private equity backed adult social care providers lobby organisations like Laing and Buisson who in turn have the ear of ADASS regarding care home fees. Essentially asking ADASS to prop up their short termist, debt laden southern cross esque business models.

Be very very interesting to see how robust the supposed new financial stability test is for adult social care providers. Or isn't.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

So, not exactly extinguished under Blairs time? An ongoing process encouraged by all at Westminster ?

Well, presumably they'll all do pretty well out of it financially, with a few honourable and hence marginalised exceptions, so why wouldn't they?

 

[coley]

Given the huge involvement of private equity in health and adult social care providers, this will continue apace.

I know for a fact that private equity backed adult social care providers lobby organisations like Laing and Buisson who in turn have the ear of ADASS regarding care home fees. Essentially asking ADASS to prop up their short termist, debt laden southern cross esque business models.
Won't give them any problems, they have been giving CQC the runaround for years now.

Be very very interesting to see how robust the supposed new financial stability test is for adult social care providers. Or isn't.

 

[coley]

Well, presumably they'll all do pretty well out of it financially, with a few honourable and hence marginalised exceptions, so why wouldn't they?

Says it all, pack of rats lining their collective pockets, not just health though,the rot is there in all govt depts, pardon me for stating the obvious.