Revealed: The damning reports on privatised patients ambulance services ( and some public ones as well)

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Medical Services Ltd on" NHS " ambulance.They passed the Care Quality Care Commission inspection for Hertfordshire,but many others didn't Pic taken by myself

Medical Services Ltd on” NHS ” ambulance. They passed Care Quality Care Commission inspection, but many others didn’t Pic taken by myself

Following my appalling experience of a five hour wait for a privatised ambulance from Medical Services Ltd to pick my stroke victim wife in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire I decided to look at the national picture for England. The company has passed an inspection by the Care Quality Commission- which regulates and inspects all NHS services-though the inspectors report admitted it never talked to patients.
People had already contacted me from Manchester and Devon to highlight private bidders for services which included bin collectors, bus companies, car parking and foreign firms queuing up across England to take over NHS patient ambulance services.
For example Arriva, the bus company, has landed a lucrative contract in Greater Manchester to take over ferrying disabled people, cancer and renal patients, despite a petition signed by 14,000 people opposing the move and opposition from Unison and two Labour MPs.

This is also following the company’s new subsidiary Ambuline being criticised by the Care Quality Commissionfor poor staff training, staff shortages and failing to keep records of whether vehicles were properly cleaned to avoid infection risks in a contract they run in Leicestershire. The CGC made a second inspection and now says the service is satisfactory.

In Manchester there are already complaints about Arriva not having enough ambulances and using taxis to transport disabled patients.

In South Devon and parts of Cornwall and Somerset ambulance services are to be taken over by the successor company to National Car Parks – NSL – who beat a refuse collection company and the NHS provided services.

Danish company,Falke which runs private ambulances and fire services, has bought a 45 per cent stake in Medical Services, with the obvious intention of buying up more services. It had already talked and entertained Brian Coleman, the former Tory chairman of the London fire Brigade, to discuss buying up London’s entire fire service.See my earlier blog.
The most damning stuff has come from the Care Quality Commission’s website which reveals a worrying picture. It shows that small private ambulance services in Dagenham, Wigan, Dorset, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, Bicester and Peterborough have been required to make improvements after their first inspections to bring them up to scratch, particularly over management and record keeping and staff standards.
You can find the inspections on the care quality commission website. Type in ambulances under services on home page.The roll call of companies found wanting by CQC inspections is too large for this blog but here are some of the firms.
International Medical Assistance, Tamworth; Patients at risk of harm from poor service which may now be under new management..
Medical Services Ltd Warrington : Failed to have proper records such as references on staff recruitment
APMS services, Peterborough. Staff inadequately trained to care for patients
Henry Ward, Buckingham. Had no checks on staff including whether they had a criminal record.
AFG Birmingham Recruitment staff bad, some had no interviews.Ambulance breakdown not reported.
BN Gibson, Newark. Staff not trained properly to manage medicines.
AST, Surbiton Staff references not obtained.
Remote Medical Service, Manchester poor recruitment policy and no training to deal with abuse of patients.
Caring for You PTS -Benfleet,Essex Staff started work without waiting for criminal record clearance.
Collingwood Medical Services, Salisbury, Staff not trained to safeguard patients from abuse.
Paramedico Correspondence Event Cover, West Wickham, Kent. Staff not fully trained, recruitment procedures not followed including independent criminal record check,
Medical Response Services, Wigan. Newly recruited staff not properly checked.
Medicar Ltd,Clacton, Essex. Staff references not obtained, no management supervision recorded, no complaints procedure.
First Aid Medical Services Ltd. Sheffield Owner only just aware that staff had to have criminal record checks, no knowledge of rules protecting patients from abuse.
Ambu Kare, Peterborough. No guidance on how to transport people with intravenous drips,patients belongings and medical needs not signed for, inaccurate info given to patients about complaints.
Plymouth Central Ambulance Service Ltd. Never applied for criminal records or medical checks on staff, one person didn’t have a satisfactory report from Criminal record Bureau.
NHS
East of England Ambulance Service. Failed to respond in time in Norfolk and Suffolk, particularly bad in responding to stroke patients in that area.
NHS Ambulance Trust London :Hit by equipment and staff shortages posing moderate risk to patients.

More worryingly it shows that the CQC has a backlog of inspections and has not looked at some of the big new privatised services, including Medical Services Ltd operation in Birmingham and Arriva’s new operation in Nottingham.
The overall picture is completely unsatisfactory given the big expansion in privatisation. What we could see is a dumbing down of standards, companies relying on out of date training provided earlier by the NHS, and no proper checks on who is being employed to look after vulnerable patients. The latter is regarded as a ” minor” by the CQC but I wonder whether patients would like to be looked after by people with criminal records.
The CQC – which has an appalling record of missing abuse in care homes- does not seem to have a real handle on this. They also don’t seem to want to seek patients views on privatised services – but do check up on those run by the NHS. Some double standards here and I wonder if they have the resources to do a proper job of inspecting the 856 services provided by companies and the NHS.

Dada Hari Ni Vav

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This is an absolutely fascinating travel blog written by a retired American grandmother on a four month trip to India. Not only does it explore places off the tourist track, it has great pictures and a feeling for people as well as places. I put up this particular blog as an example of a whole series she has put together on an Indian journey for those who enjoy travel writing.

annetbell's avatarTalesAlongTheWay

dada-hari-ni-vav02

Dada Hari, was the  chief attendant of Sultan Muhmud  Begada’s royal harem at the turn of the 16 century. She commissioned the building of this step well as well as a garden, mosque, and her own tomb.  The ancient rulers had chosen aristocrats to  build their own burial tombs while they were still alive.  Dada Hari was a very powerful and influential woman in a time where that was not usual.  A story goes is that she wanted the step well to be built as a cool, peaceful spot for the women in the area to rest and visit with  their friends while collecting water for their families.  She was an early feminist helping  other women.  She created one of the coolest places, literally, for a man or a woman  to spend a hot afternoon in Ahmedabad.7976365609_d6bb63b6b6_z

View down into the nearly dry well.  It will be replenished during monsoon.

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Why the Tories have only themselves to blame for not reining in BBC excesses

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Last week top BBC figures cut a pathetic stance in front of the Public Accounts Committtee. But two years ago Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, actually PREVENTED the National Audit Office from getting direct access to their accounts. Don’t take my word for it, see the actual correspondence between Sir Micheal Lyons, Chris Patten, Jeremy Hunt, and Amyas Morse, head of the NAO released under Freedom of Information to Exaro News. How dare Maria Miller now say she wants direct access to accounts, it could have been done two years ago

davidhencke's avatarWestminster Confidential

Remember the great fuss from the Conservatives on how they were going to hold the BBC to account, expose those mega salaries paid to Graham Norton and Jeremy Paxman and make sure the taxpayer got the best value for their money from the BBC.

Well if you beleive  culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and Lib Dem culture spokesman Don Foster, it will be all happening from next year in the new cash frozen agreement to fund the BBC. He has spent the last year telling us about his success in allowing Parliament’s National Audit Office the right to launch any inquiry it likes into whether the BBC is value for money.

To quote him directly: “It is right that licence-fee payers have confidence that the BBC is spending money wisely, so I am pleased that the NAO now has the right to full access to BBC information. Its new power to decide which…

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Revealed: How the explosion in convicted sex offenders has sparked a crisis in our jails

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Stuart Hall; One of a growing number of elderly sex offenders now in jail. Pic courtesy: Huffington Post

Stuart Hall; One of a growing number of elderly sex offenders now in jail. Pic courtesy: Huffington Post

An extraordinary report was issued last week by MPs on the Commons Justice committee revealing the impact on prisons of the growing numbers of paedophiles and sex offenders being sent to jail.
The report – virtually unnoticed by the national media ( exceptions BBC and Yorkshire Post) -provides partly an answer to those who say the police aren’t doing their job catching them and the Crown Prosecution Service is not getting enough convictions. It also suggests society failed to acknowledge the scale of sex offences in the past.
What it reveals is that Britain’s jails are being engulfed by a tidal wave of elderly offenders – and a huge proportion are historic child abuse and sex offenders like Stuart Hall.
The figures are in fact staggering. At the end of March 2013 there were 6,639 prisoners in England and Wales who were aged between 50 and 59 and there were 3,381 over the age of 60, counting between them for 12 per cent of the prison population. Custodial Convictions have jumped by 45 per cent for the 50-59 age group and by 46 per cent for those over 60 between 2008 and 2012.
The report highlights historic sex abuse cases as one of the main causes. It says there has been a 45 per cent increase in convicted people sent to jail between 2002 and 2012. They account for a third of the elderly offenders in jail
Indeed the number of infirm elderly mean that two prisons – Dartmoor and the Isle of Wight – are now becoming vulnerable persons units, where prisoners have difficulty climbing stairs,washing, carrying their meal trays and getting into bunk beds.
Nor is this particularly a British phenomenon, American readers of this blog, might be familiar with a recent NBC report revealing a similar crisis in the US.
The British report points out that the problem is likely to grow rather than diminish – particularly given the present drive to prosecute historic child abusers through Operations Yewtree, Fernbridge, Fairbank,Torva and in North Wales and Northern Ireland.
The problem for politicians is that this group are the least loved offenders – some people would want to hang them – and there is little political capital and much outrage to be gained from being even remotely sympathetic.
The one sympathetic statement came from the Howard League for Penal Reform.
Frances Crook, Chief Executive said:
“The select committee is quite right to highlight the growing problem faced by older prisoners in our overcrowded jails. Political leadership is required to address the issue and provide prisons that were never designed to be penal care homes a clear strategy on how best to handle the needs of an increasingly elderly population.
“At the same time the issue of historic sex offences is a real challenge for society. If someone is sentenced many decades after they committed a crime and where they are so infirm as to pose no continuing danger, then the courts should explore other options than simply imprisonment.”
The only danger with this – and I am only taking this from the small number of investigations I have made in this area – is that unfortunately many of the elderly abusers are still sexually active.
But society is going to have to deal with this – or more of our jails will become compulsory old people’s homes at enormous cost to the state and taxpayer.

Paedophile MP Cyril Smith: Possible Questions for Jenny Tonge and Tim Razzall?

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Tim Razzall Emphatically says he knew nothing Pic courtesy Liberal Democrats

Tim Razzall Emphatically says he knew nothing
Pic courtesy Liberal Democrats

Sir David Williams, former lb dem leader of Richmond Council - pic courtesy: richmond.gov.uk Sir David Williams, former lb dem leader of Richmond Council – pic courtesy: richmond.gov.uk
The Met Police’s official acknowledgement to Channel Four’s Dispatches programme that Cyril Smith visited the notorious Elm House guest house in Barnes in south-west London – which is alleged to be used by paedophiles raises serious questions for the Liberal Democrats.
So far attention has been centred on former Liberal leaders, David Steel. Nick Clegg and Sir Menzies Campbell,the latter who was shown (possibly unfairly) to be heaping praise on Cyril Smith at his funeral.
But the real Liberal Democrats who should be quizzed are Baroness Tonge, Lord Razzall and Sir David Williams on the scandalous affair that allowed Cyril Smith to sexually assault young boys.
They were the Liberal members of Richmond Council in the aftermath of highly publicised police raid on Elm Guest House and responsible – along with the previous Tory administration – for the safe keeping of children in the council’s Grafton Close children’s home.
Sir David is so much in denial that he believes that the current prosecutions by the Met Police of a senior member of council staff are only being undertaken to please the press.
Lord Razzall, who later moved a motion to sack Louis Minster, director of social services, who was in charge of Richmond’s social services at the time of the alleged abuse, told me at the time – that he couldn’t remember why he moved the motion.
However for the record he says emphatically:” I had no knowledge of the raid you refer to which in any event predated our taking control of the Richmond Council and I had never been a member of the relevant committee or a reader of the News of the World.”
“I did remember that the Chair of Social Services had lost confidence in the Director as often happened on a change of political control of a local council. You did not raise with my any issue of child abuse and indeed had you done so I would have told you that the Directors’ retirement had nothing to do with the events you referred to in your blog. Indeed had you raised them with me it would have been the first time I was aware of them.”
“In the current climate there can hardly be a more serious libel than to allege that I may have covered up Cyril Smith’s visits to Elm Guest House so that he could go on to abuse others.
“For the record, I only became aware of the allegations about Cyril Smith in 2013, fifteen years after I ceased to be a Richmond Councillor.”

Jenny Tonge: Silence pic courtesy: The Guardian

Jenny Tonge: Silence
pic courtesy: The Guardian

And Jenny Tonge, then chair of the social services committee, who was informed of the scandal, and under her watch there were fresh attempts to raise the scandal,is refusing to say anything – even before people were arrested and charged.
Obviously all three can at the moment shelter behind the sub judice rules but when the trial is over next summer – they should be pursued to provide an explanation. At last Tim Razzall has made his views clear now.
But one must at least ask – did they know about Cyril Smith’s visits to Elm Guest House?-

Cyril Smith: New evidence of cover up of the Liberal Democrat’s leading child sex abuser

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Child abuser Sir Cyril Smith secret files and new evidence Pic Credit: dreamcatchersfor abusedchildren.com

Child abuser Sir Cyril Smith secret files and new evidence
Pic Credit: dreamcatchersfor abusedchildren.com


My colleague on Exaro News, Nick Fielding, reveals a secret cache of documents from Knowl View School in Rochdale disclosing widespread sexual and physical abuse of children who had special needs.
Cyril Smith who help found the residential school was a governor there and according to Exaro he sexually abused at least one of kids himself.
The documents seen by Exaro reveal that up to a quarter of children there may have been involved in serious sexual abuse and staff there were accused of a ” dereliction of duty” in not protecting them.
They come as a police cover up of the crimes committed by Sir Cyril Smith, who got away with a life of serial child abuse will be revealed tonight on a Channel Four Dispatches programme.
The disclosures – including the police cover up – may explain why Greater Manchester Police have abandoned an investigation into allegations against Cyril Smith, which could lead to other perpetrators being caught.
The Met Police unlike Manchester, are pursuing the child abuse scandal at Grafton Close children’s home in Richmond, Surrey – with two people already charged- despite allegations of an original police cover up in the 1980s.
Cyril Smith has also been identified by some survivors of the Richmond child abuse scandal, as an abuser at Elm Guest House in Barnes.
Mainstream media coverage of these new revelations will be muted, particularly at the BBC.The Corporation is still frit after its bruising encounter with McAlpine over false accusations that the former deputy chairman of the Tory Party had sexually abused a boy in North Wales.
Newsnight, despite having a new editor, Ian Katz, is avoiding the issue like the plague. But Ian Katz won’t be able to claim there is no public interest. Boring, snoring it is not.

Housing development where Osborne gave his speech will have separate entrances for rich and poor

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The true nature of Osborne’s recovery: £1.4m front door homes for the rich ( marketed overseas) and 70 back door homes for London’s poor. ( the rich will need servants to live somewhere near). See Jules Birch’s blog on the marketing and history of the development. Those living in social housing are actually BANNED from using the posh front. entrance. A new apartheid?

Tom Pride's avatarPride's Purge

(not satire – it’s George Osborne!)

George Osborne chose a new housing development in London yesterday to give his speech on how the economy is ‘turning the corner’.

The chancellor said the development – One Commercial Street – was “a physical reminder” of what has been happening to the economy.

Well, he’s certainly right about that.

Because the cheapest private apartments for sale at One Commercial Street start at £750,000 with penthouse suites costing millions.

And the 70 units which have been sold to a housing association  – included because of Section 106 affordable housing requirements – will be in a separate part of the building and will have a completely separate entrance round the corner and well out of sight of the exclusive entrance used by the well-heeled, mainly foreign private tenants.

Yes – Osborne’s absolutely right about One Commercial Street being a physical reminder of the economy.

A rich minority living lives…

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Police arrest second person in paedophile investigation sparked by Tom Watson

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The police have arrested a second person in Operation Cayacos – the investigation sparked off by Tom Watson MP – into historic child sexual abuse, it emerged yesterday
The People reported that Richard Alston, now 69, has been arrested on August 20 at his home in Bury St Edmunds.
The arrest follows 68-year-old Charles Napier’s arrest at his home in Sherborne, Dorset, last November.
Mr Alston a former headmaster of New Barns School in Toddington, Gloucestershire, an independent school for children aged six to 12 with emotional and behavioural problems. The school closed in 1992.
This investigation is separate to the current investigation into historic child sexual abuse in the London borough of Richmond which has seen two people charged and appearing at Westminster Magistrates Court last week and a third person, Harry Kasir, who ran Elm Guest House in Barnes in the early 1980s arrested.

Operation Fernbridge: Two appear in court

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John Stingemore,the former deputy manager of Grafton Close children’s home in Richmond and Father Patrick McSweeney,a former Roman Catholic priest, appeared before Westminster magistrates court today. This is the first court appearance of people arrested under Operation Fernbridge
They were both bailed to appear before Southwark Crown Court on September 18.
A full report on the hearing which is subject to reporting restrictions appears on the Exaro website.
Father McSweeney’s lawyers said he intended to plead not guilty to five offences relating to the historic child abuse investigation in Richmond, Surrey. Mr Stingemore has entered no plea against 11 charges against him.

Judge throws out £30,000 copyright claim against this website

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A deputy district judge has summarily dismissed a claim against this website and Exaro News claiming over £80,000 for publishing two pictures to illustrate the activities of a former Met Police photographer who ran an agency that publicly offered to pay thousands of pounds to public officials for stories on celebrities.
The court findings and background to the story is published on the Exaro website today
The case was brought by Newspics Ltd, the company owned by Matt Sprake, an ex police photographer who works for a number of national newspapers.
For bloggers the ruling by district court judge Stuart Quin at Milton Keynes County Court is interesting since he accepted the case brought by Exaro’s lawyers.Vertex Law,who argued that publication of the pictures amounted to what is called “fair dealing.”
This allows copyright to be waived whoever owns it if the pictures are used to illustrate a story and can be seen to be relevant to the story and in the public interest. This could be significant for bloggers who want to illustrate public figures in a story which is a matter of public interest whoever owns the copyright.
Mr Sprake who denies paying anybody was also summoned by Lord Leveson to give evidence to his inquiry into the press use of undercover work and invasion of privacy.
Mr Sprake claimed Exaro and this website had obtained the pictures from private sources. Exaro argued that this was not the case as the pictures were in the public domain.
The original story is on the Exaro website and on this blog. The pictures which showed Mr Sprake dressed in full photographer’s gear after the bombing in Canary Wharf in 1996 and sitting in the PM’s chair in the Cabinet Room at Number Ten Downing Street were used to illustrate his claims on his website. This said NewsPics advertised a menu of services under the label “surveillance photography”, claiming: “You can utilise the very same skills that are used by the security services and the police.”

UPDATE:October 25 Milton Keynes County Court have now awarded default costs against Newspics, the company owned by Matt Sprake and his wife, for £23,599.39 so Exaro News and myself can recover legal costs. He has 14 days to pay.