How a noisy *unt turned silent on local hospitals once in Office

Mr Hunt…no longer Shadow Minister

For many years leading up to its victory in obtaining Foundation Trust Status towards the end of 2009, the Surrey County Hospital was supported in its objective by wide-eyed Basil Brush lookalike local MP Jeremy Hunt. On the day of victory, Mr *unt gushed forth on his Newscorp Inhouse constituency website as follows:

“Finally the news we have all been waiting for. After a bitter but ultimately successful campaign to stop the hospital being closed, getting Foundation status is the only way to make sure we never have to go through the nightmare again.  What a fantastic end to 2009. I wish the staff and all those involved at the Royal Surrey every success for the future and send my congratulations on this excellent news!”

Fast forward now to 2011, and then very slowly into 2012 as Andrew Lansley struggles forward through treacle trying to get his scantily-hidden privatisation plans onto the Statute Book.

What successful future will Jeremy’s NHS workforce constituents now have in Surrey, given that all the community hospital and outreach resources have been sold to Sir Richard Beardscam in a £500m deal? Well, the Daily Telegraph of 30th March last was there to reassure us:

‘About 2,500 NHS staff will be transferred to Virgin Care, although an NHS Surrey spokesman said there would be “no change” to their pay and conditions. A joint statement from NHS Surrey and Virgin Care claimed: “This is essentially a transfer of management and follows national guidance that allows the trust to focus on developing, buying and managing the performance of services, leaving the provider to concentrate on delivering services.”

Bollocks.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that Virgin Care is not obliged to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and NHS Whistle-blower Protection legislation will not apply to NHS staff transferred over to Virgin Care. And finally, Virgin Care Surrey, unlike the NHS boards, will not be required to hold their meetings in public.

Now we can trade angels on a pinhead here if you like, but if you can’t get answers, reveal malpractice or use a public meeting to reveal nasty stuff, I’d call that a change to the conditions under which Virgin Care staff will work. I’d also call it a near-total absence of public accountability…especially from a Group infamous for its ability to dump rail passengers in the middle of nowhere of a bank holiday.

But Anne Walker, chief executive of NHS Surrey, described it as “excellent news for patients, carers and staff”. Why would that be, Annie girl? Especially as towards the end of 2011 you had to admit that the handover from PCT to Virgin was shambolic, and miles behind schedule?

Look, Sloggers know that I’m halfway between the Luddites and the Thatcherites: I don’t think the way forward is for the NHS to stay in public ownership, and I don’t think the answer is helping a lot of useless American health assurance ‘providers’ take it to pieces, make a shedload of money, and then bugger off when they realise Britain’s broke – and/or the US debt bankrupts them too. Most of all, I despise the unforgivably deceitful manner in which the Lansley ‘reforms’ have been spun from Day One.

Anyway, do we think that the Culture Secretary Basil Bush didn’t know this was going to happen? Writing before the Virgin deal about community hospitals and services on his patch, he observed sternly:

“I am very happy to see Milford’s specialist rehabilitation role recognised alongside the “early thinking” to enhance services at Haslemere and Farnham. I do believe the PCT has thought carefully about this, but they will understand our desire to follow this process very closely indeed given how badly we have had our fingers burnt in the past. So I would urge everyone to take part in the consultation so that the strong local support for our hospitals continues to register high on the richter scale with NHS Surrey.”

Since the deal, Hunt’s response to the concern of Haslemere hospital’s League of Friends has so far registered at minus 31 on the Richter scale. The League says that it

‘suggested both to Jeremy Hunt, our MP, and to Ms Anne Milton, a minister of health in the present government, that it might be interesting to see whether it would be possible to set up a public trust to purchase a lease on the Haslemere Community Hospital site, to be held for as long as the site is devoted to health care, after which time it would revert to HM Government…’

Jeremy hasn’t responded. And although his website is still blathering on about saving Haslemere Hospital and refurbishing Milford Hospital (both of which are now owned by Virgin), mention of handing over NHS community services to a brand that has delivered such an outstanding service in the privatised rail sector is there none.

Whyever might this be? It’s especially hard to understand, as Jeremy has pledged to get 100% coverage of superfast Broadband in SW Surrey, and a major supplier there is….Virgin media. How is his campaign going then? Um, not very well. A selection of comments on Jazzer’s website:

‘Since the launch of the Superfast Broadband campagn last autumn, everything has gone very quiet!
The Broadband speeds here in darkest Moor Park are getting slower rather than faster – as more people use the web for streaming etc. It was a real problem for my business – now it is turning into a a bit of a disaster.’

‘.22 mb in churt it’s a disgrace. I have to drive to farnham to get 3G to send emails and files for work. Sad fact is I don’t really think anyone gives a toss.’

‘ Hi Why not look at Kent County Council and what they have done in Kent to roll out superfast broadband in partnership with vfast wireless broadband. You could in Surrey have superfast broadband now as the villages in Kent have.’

Ooo-er. So in that context, do we think that this same Virgin which has opted out of FOI and public meetings is going to provide the sort of service that patients and carers need? Here’s a further sample of complaints to Virgin media:

‘I have just spent the last 2 hours being passed from one one department to another, I have been asked my account number at least 6 times. I decided to put an end to the cycle by stating that I would like to make a complaint about the way I am being treated I was informed that there was 2 ways of making this complaint:

1. Complaint by letter or

2. Complaint by email.

3. I could not complain by telephone

Being in a less than patient mood I decided to follow the email route, I was told that  I would find all the details at the bottom of the http://www.virginmedia.com/ page….there isn’t a complaints web form, there is no email address, there is just some unfathomable nonsense that involves the word complaint, a robot woman and a statement of how they deal with complaints…’

‘For the last 5 months I have tried to complain to the company, their ‘contact us’ email NEVER works, and if you ring them the phone operators cannot help you, they just tranfer you to someone who cannot speak english who will not be able to understand you, and who will ask you endless questions about your details until you give up.  Over an hour is the average call length, only to be told at the end of it that they charge you £99 to investigate your complaint.’

‘After 3 hours of being passed to departments that either couldnt speak english well enough for me to understand, could speak english but kept repeating the same thing over and over or were just plain rude I finally managed to speak to a manager, The manager was very busy but promised me a call back today  between 5.30 and 6.00. its now 7.20 and still no call. I have paid Virgin in the order of 60 – 80 pounds a month for the last 3 years and they cant even return my call.’