British National Party Public Services News Bulletin w/c July 2nd, 2007
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1. COUNCIL SHAKE-UP A WASTE OF MONEY

http://www.sundayexpress.co.uk/news/view/10243/Council+shake-up+a+waste+of+money

Labour pressed ahead with plans to rip the heart out of England’s historic counties despite knowing it would drive up council tax bills and damage services, new documents revealed last night. Letters leaked to the Sunday Express show ministers cynically approved bids to set up new unitary councils in towns and cities such as Ipswich, Exeter and Norwich even though officials said they were a waste of money. Shire authorities claim these three unitary councils alone will cost local taxpayers £71million. The move appears to be part of a plot to break the Tory and LibDem hold on England’s shires by setting up small unitary councils where Labour has a chance of winning control. In a letter to Local Govern­ment Minister Phil Woolas, one unnamed Labour activist from the South-west said: ‘Once the Tories have no more county council seats to fight for in a city their fighting force and resources are scaled back tremendously. ‘I very much hope you will be able to support this application from Exeter and from other cities that will also benefit from the powerful Tory shire groups having no further interest.’ Tory spokesman Eric Pickles said the documents showed Labour’s plans to shake up local government had been politically motivated. ‘This always looked like it was all about politics and nothing to do with better administration and now they have been rumbled,’ he said. ‘The Labour Party treats the British constitution as its own private Monopoly board and uses taxpayers’ cash like Monopoly money for its own political purposes. It has been a highly cynical exercise and a colossal waste of money.’ Brian Greenslade, LibDem leader of Devon County Council, said: ‘Party political advantage should have no place in crucial decisions affecting vital public services.

Alarm bells are ringing around Whitehall about the enormous harm proposed small unitary councils like Exeter’s will do to education, social services and transport. ‘It must be right that ministers make their decisions solely on an objective analysis. The public would expect nothing less.’ Leaked documents reveal some small councils were put forward for unitary status despite officials warning they would fail. In a letter to John Prescott in early March, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly said plans for unitary councils in Ipswich and Norwich should be ruled out because there was ‘little likelihood’ they would be successful. Ms Kelly said the Ipswich plan was not funded properly and was too expensive. She said the Norwich proposals were financially risky and could damage social services and education in the area. Doubts were also raised about bids from Chester and Bedford. In a separate e-mail, officials warned that the Department for Transport, Department of Health and Department for Education and Skills had all raised serious concerns about the possible impact on services if Exeter’s bid was allowed to go ahead.

But just eight days later Ms Kelly wrote to Mr Prescott again to say that all three bids were to be included in a list that had doubled in size from eight to 16. The Department for Commu­nities and Local Government last night claimed the move to unitaries would produce ‘clear benefits’, including improved services and cost savings. A spokesman said: ‘No decisions have been taken and the process remains ongoing, with all proposals judged strictly on merit and against clear, published criteria. This process has been entirely proper and on merit and we totally reject any suggestion to the contrary.’ Ministers have now had to launch another consultation to ‘prioritise’ the unitary bids after admitting they cannot afford to approve all 16.

2. NHS SPENDS MILLIONS
ON DRUGS THAT TURN CHILDREN INTO DRONES

http://www.sundayexpress.co.uk/news/view/10244/NHS+
spends+millions+on+drug+that+turns+children+into+'drones'

The NHS is spending more than £1million a month on mind-altering drugs designed to help to calm hyperactive children. Doctors now write almost 7,500 prescriptions a week for Ritalin tablets, known as ‘chill pills’. They cost about £200 a year per child and are likely to cost taxpayers a total of £12.48million this year, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed. The revelation comes as new figures show that Ritalin or similar drugs are being linked to at least 11 deaths in Britain. Last night the UK licensing authority, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), admitted that the deaths were likely to be an underestimate of the true figure because most doctors do not inform them of suspected cases. Dr Sami Timimi, an expert in child behaviour, said taxpayers’ money is being wasted on Ritalin, which he warned may cause serious long-term damage. ‘This is shocking and not a wise way to spend money,’ he said. ‘By using Ritalin, doctors avoid addressing the real issues that are causing a child’s behavioural problems. It is like putting a sticking plaster on a huge wound. ‘We could be storing up big problems for this generation of youngsters.’ New figures obtained by this paper also show that doctors have linked other serious side-effects with drugs such as Ritalin. These include 73 blood disorder reactions, 39 heart disorders and 80 stomach disorders. Ritalin or similar pills are given to children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a condition that affects mainly boys and includes problems focusing, controlling their actions and remaining still or quiet. Doctors wrote 97,224 prescriptions for the controversial drugs in the last three months of last year, at a total cost of £3.12million.

3. £2BN WASTED ON CONSULTANTS - COMMONS COMMITTEE

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/whitehall/story/0,,2106188,00.html

Whitehall could save taxpayers at least £500m a year by relying on advice from civil servants rather than paying nearly £2bn a year for the ‘profligate’ services of consultants, a committee of MPs recommends today. The Commons public accounts committee found that Whitehall departments often hire consultants before establishing whether in-house staff have the skills for the job. It called for a ‘more intelligent’ use of consultants, echoing new advice from Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, to all departments, following publication of a critical report from the National Audit Office, parliament's spending watchdog. Public sector spending on consultants in England has risen by a third in three years, from £2.1bn in 2003-04 to £2.8bn in 2005-06, largely due to increases in spending by the NHS. Of this, central government accounts for £1.8bn. The most frequently purchased consultancy was IT and project management skills, accounting for 54% of total spending on consultants. The all-party committee said central government was repeatedly using consultants for core skills and increasingly using a ‘select’ list. Four suppliers each receive business worth well over £100m a year from Whitehall.

The committee's Conservative chairman, Edward Leigh, said: ‘It is impossible to believe that the public are receiving anything like full value for money from this expenditure. ‘In fact, a good proportion of it looks like sheer profligacy. The consultancy firms are truly on to a good thing.’ Unions backed the MPs' findings. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said: ‘These are obscene sums of money being given to management consultants with little thought of value for money. ‘Rather than investing in its own workforce, the government has effectively given management consultants a licence to print money at the taxpayer's expense. You have the ludicrous situation of departments such as Revenue & Customs seeking to save £105m in the last year by cutting staff, but spending £106m on management consultants who often do the same work as civil servants.’ The Liberal Democrats' shadow chancellor, Vince Cable, said: ‘This is a scandal which has been widely recognised for several years, but which the government has still done nothing about. It is very clear that the excessive use of consultants is driven not merely by laziness but by the excessively close relationships between some government departments and the consultancy industry. ‘We need greater transparency so that once consultancy agreements have been reached the details are published and not hidden behind commercial secrecy.’ Public sector spending on consultants in England has risen by a third in three years, from £2.1bn in 2003-04 to £2.8bn in 2005-06, largely due to increases in spending by the NHS. Of this, central government accounts for £1.8bn. The most frequently purchased consultancy was IT and project management skills, accounting for 54% of total spending on consultants.

The all-party committee said central government was repeatedly using consultants for core skills and increasingly using a ‘select’ list. Four suppliers each receive business worth well over £100m a year from Whitehall. The committee's Conservative chairman, Edward Leigh, said: ‘It is impossible to believe that the public are receiving anything like full value for money from this expenditure. ‘In fact, a good proportion of it looks like sheer profligacy. The consultancy firms are truly on to a good thing.’ Unions backed the MPs' findings. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said: ‘These are obscene sums of money being given to management consultants with little thought of value for money. ‘Rather than investing in its own workforce, the government has effectively given management consultants a licence to print money at the taxpayer's expense. You have the ludicrous situation of departments such as Revenue & Customs seeking to save £105m in the last year by cutting staff, but spending £106m on management consultants who often do the same work as civil servants.’ The Liberal Democrats' shadow chancellor, Vince Cable, said: ‘This is a scandal which has been widely recognised for several years, but which the government has still done nothing about. It is very clear that the excessive use of consultants is driven not merely by laziness but by the excessively close relationships between some government departments and the consultancy industry. ‘We need greater transparency so that once consultancy agreements have been reached the details are published and not hidden behind commercial secrecy.’

4. EX-LABOUR RADICAL NOW MAKES KILLINGS ON NHS

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/17/nrace117.xml

He was once a fully-fledged, flag-waving radical of the Labour Left who railed against the evils of capitalism. Now he has amassed a fortune working as a private contractor for the National Health Service. Reg Race, the former Labour MP and close ally of socialist firebrands Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone, has been paid millions of pounds of taxpayers' money as a result of regulations brought in by New Labour ministers. The union man-turned-consultant has also become a substantial Labour Party donor and is one of the biggest backers of Alan Johnson's bid for the party's deputy leadership. Mr Race's company, Quality Health, is one of a select band of ‘approved contractors’ that health trusts must hire to conduct patient and staff surveys. Labour ministers made the annual surveys compulsory in 2003. Since then, Mr Race's company has, according to its website, become ‘the largest provider of patient and staff surveys in the NHS’.

Quality Health, which Mr Race owns with his wife, Amanda Moore, has won contracts with 320 of the 487 NHS trusts across the UK. The company charges about £4,200 to complete each annual survey. Quality Health also has contracts for ‘service reviews’ of the work carried out by health trusts, as well as the National Patient Surveys and the 2006 Diabetes Patients Survey. Mr Race is not a medical doctor, but he can legitimately call himself ‘Dr Race’ as he has completed a PhD in ‘bureaucracy’ at the University of Kent. The title of his thesis was ‘Political agents and the development of bureaucraticisation [sic] and deradicalisation in the British Labour Party’. Mr Race made his name as one of the most radical figures in the Labour Party during the 1970s and 1980s. After working for a public sector union, he became the Labour MP for Wood Green in 1979. While representing his north London constituency Mr Race attained the dubious distinction of being the first member of parliament to utter the word ‘f***’ in a Commons debate.

Mr Race criticised Conservative MPs for profiting by the sell-off of the state-owned energy company Amersham International, alleging that one Tory had made a ‘killing’ from the deal. He lost his seat at the 1983 general election and tried to secure the Labour candidacy for the constituency of Sedgefield, but was pipped at the post by a chap called Tony Blair. Mr Race was selected as the Labour candidate for Chesterfield when Tony Benn retired at the 2001 general election. However, the seat was won by the Liberal Democrat Paul Holmes. Since then, the success of Quality Health has allowed Mr Race to establish a palatial home at Sutton Manor in the Derbyshire village of Sutton Scarsdale, near Chesterfield. When contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Race declined to comment in detail about the work of Quality Health or his support for Mr Johnson. He said: ‘Quality Health has nothing to do with my personal donations - full stop.’ Labour's opponents said approved contractors should make their political backgrounds clear when pitching for public work. Mark Hoban, the shadow Treasury minister, said: ‘The amount of work that Reg Race and his company are getting will raise eyebrows.

There must be much greater transparency over companies listed as approved contractors by Government departments.’ Mr Hoban asked a series of parliamentary questions about the Government's relationship with Quality Health. The Department of Health denied paying any money to or having any ‘direct contact’ with the company since 2001. Mr Hoban said: ‘I find it surprising that the department says it has had no contact with a firm listed as one of its 'approved contractors' for such a long time.’ A former member of Neil Kinnock's Labour shadow cabinet said last night: ‘Hell's frozen over, has it? Reg was one of the most disruptive, hardline Labour MPs. A lot of people make their peace with capitalism later on in life. I wasn't expecting Reg to though.’

5. SHAME OF THE FILTHY HOSPITAL WARDS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/
news.html?in_article_id=462561&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

One in four hospitals is so unhygienic it is putting its patients' lives at risk, it is revealed today. Ninety-nine out of 394 English NHS trusts are breaching a Hygiene Code brought in to combat an increase in hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA. A push to increase respect for patients' dignity has also faltered, according to the independent research. The Healthcare Commission watchdog is publishing figures today as part of an annual 'health check' of English NHS trusts. Around a quarter are failing to meet at least one of the three standards laid down by the Hygiene Code introduced last October.

These measure a trust's success in cutting hospital-acquired infections, decontaminating devices and improving general cleanliness. Seven trusts admitted to failing to meet all three. It is the first time trusts have been required to report their adherence to the Code, which was hailed by health ministers as the best hope of cutting soaring infection levels in hospitals. More than 100,000 patients contract hospital-acquired infections every year - costing the NHS £1 billion. One in every 250 death certificates now cites the C.difficile superbug as a contributory or main factor, with one in 500 mentioning MRSA. There are fears the survey has underestimated the problems, because it relies on trusts to provide reliable information. Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, said one in five trusts would receive a snap inspection which could result in its ratings being adjusted. This process previously found half were lying about their compliance with the code. She said trusts were 'putting their hands up' - which explained the worsening hygiene figures - because they knew standards were getting tougher.

She added: ‘This shows boards really examining their own performance - it is a positive development.’ But Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: ‘It is wholly unacceptable that one in four hospitals are still failing to meet required hygiene standards. There has to be a cultural change within hospitals. ‘Three-quarters of hospitals are successfully implementing effective measures - there is no excuse for others not to follow. ‘Hospital staff should treat failure to comply with hygiene standards as a very serious issue, akin to gross misconduct.’ Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, added: ‘These figures are totally unacceptable, especially after hospital hygiene was supposed to become a priority.’ Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley added: ‘The one in four yet to meet the code need to realise that it is an imperative, not an option.’ A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Where there is evidence of a problem, it is important that individual organisations ensure that they have plans and processes in place to improve. ‘The Healthcare Commission's review process will help to diagnose the problem and enable the trust to develop solutions.’ If you want to know how your local health trust is performing, the details are available at www.healthcarecommission.org.uk

6. NHS ROBOT REVOLUTION IN THE OFFING?

Robots are a great idea, because they discourage the use of cheap foreign labour, and raise our productivity, enabling better wages to be paid to human workers. They might even improve health care!

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1006942007

A new hi-tech hospital being built in Scotland will be the first in the UK to use a fleet of robots to take over from humans in tasks such as transporting heavy medical equipment and laundry. The initiative at the £300 million hospital at Larbert, Stirlingshire, is intended to allow hospital porters to spend more time dealing with patients. Fans of the sci-fi film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, may be reminded of what happened when robots began to control and dominate humanity. But so far, the use of ‘porter’ robots, which have already been used in a number of hospitals in France, Japan and the United States, has proceeded without problems. David Stark, a director of the architectural company Keppie Design, which planned the new hospital, is enthusiastic about the latest recruits. ‘

The robots will move along a network of corridors completely hidden from the patients. They will then come out of a lift, stop, and be taken to their duties by a nurse. ‘Medical robotics is something which is becoming integrated into hospital architecture - the robots will be guided along the corridors by either following a metal strip on the floor or by infrared sensors. ‘Hospitals are a huge facilities-management nightmare for people with lots of dirty materials, linens and parcels needing to be transported - the robots deal with the logistics.’ The robots, costing tens of thousands of pounds each, have cameras that are viewed by staff who can monitor the items being transported. Just like mainstream NHS staff, the fleet of robots will operate 24 hours a day, with a rota system allowing them time off to be charged up. These won't be the first robots used in hospitals. Charlie Song, of the department of surgery at Dundee University, has used robots in operations. He said: ‘Robotic surgery has been around for over ten years and it is its turn to come to the fore. ‘There have also been operations carried out by robots guided by a surgeon who is thousands of miles away at another hospital.

Robots will never replace a surgeon's hand, but there are some things they can do better. For example, robots do not get tired or bored. ‘Nothing is 100 per cent reliable but if something goes wrong, a surgeon is always around to step in and take over. ‘In the future, there may be robots which can be inserted into the body's orifices for totally non-invasive surgery.’ A pilot study under way at St Mary's hospital in London using Remote Presence (RP6) robots allows doctors to ‘virtually’ examine patients from anywhere in the world via a robot using wireless technology. The robots, nicknamed Staff Sister Mary and Dr Robbie, have a screen displaying the doctor's face, allowing patients to discuss their treatment. Michael Summers, vice-chairman of the Patients' Association Scotland, has mixed feelings about the increasing use of robots in hospitals. ‘There is nothing wrong with using 21st-century technology to benefit patients, and transporting goods would seem to be a good start,’ he said. ‘But we would be a little cautious if this was to move on to robots diagnosing someone or being involved in surgery.’

ATTENTION-SEEKING GIMMICK?

The use of robots in hospitals is described as a logical and cost-effective development. However, the scheme has its critics, who foresee both social and technological problems. Professor John Bowers, an expert in hospital efficiency at the University of Stirling, said he had doubts robots would be beneficial for patients and hospitals. ‘The prospect is both frightening and exciting,’ he said. ‘The 'porter' robots could be taking a job away from someone who is providing intelligent human interaction with patients. ‘Hospitals can be quite dehumanising places, and robots would take the process even further.’ Glyn Hawker, Scottish organiser for Unison, the largest healthcare union, warned that the ‘porter’ robots were ‘attention-seeking gimmicks’ which could break down. ‘One of the problems with PFI/PPP [funded hospitals] is the lack of flexibility if changes are needed. We are concerned that an extra set of parallel corridors appears to be being planned, with all the costs that this will entail. What happens to them if there are major problems? ‘These sort of developments should be introduced in consultation with front-line staff - not as attention-seeking gimmicks. The history of PFI/PPP is littered with expensive technological disasters, so we will be monitoring this very closely.’