Freedom Of Information Eagles Under Attack By The NHS

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Around the country we are hearing there are still problems with the NHS fortress information mentality . Its very clear that highly managed "democracy" is the new slick fashion and the continuing contortions away from openess and clear vision have been pursued from the DOH mandarins downwards.

New Labour are seriously problematic when it comes to openess and real transparency. They've hated it and have created sets of well networked information kevlar-ed dominion bureaucracies which includes big and small charity players.

Despite the post Mid Staffs (400 extra deaths) surge of Alan Johnsons speech about open Boards which have public meetings at Foundation Trusts - very little reform has happened. The admin classes are stiking back behind the scenes taking advice from each other and seeking to interupt the flow of critique at the services . Which is them really..

Dominion is all with these people - the right to manage secretly cannot be part of a health giving democracy apart from patient confidentiality . Openess creates the need for political debate and social and policy changes, and information denying practices on patient consultation rights over changed services and minutes of committees is basically the trend toward State and admin-class fascism disguised.

So get your UK Eagles to brush up on FOIA Guidance clauses - and expect a very difficult quarry indeed.

Links to guidance are provided here (copied from the Information Commisioners Office site ) :

MAIN LINK HERE

Also see :

The freedom of information guidance we produce is split into these four categories:

• Procedural guidance - this deals with the practical aspects of the Freedom of Information Act, such as how to use the Codes of Practice. This section also includes good practice guidance.
• Topic specific guidance - this guidance is designed to assist authorities in dealing with requests for specific types of information, such as information relating to the deceased.
• Sector specific guidance - this is guidance aimed at a particular public authority sector.
• Exemptions guidance - this deals with the exemptions under the Act.

Guidance on the model publication scheme can be found in the model publication scheme section of the website. Although some of the guidance on this page also covers Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), specific guidance can be found in the EIR section of the website.

Updates:

Applying the exemption for third party personal data: the Tribunal’s approach in House of Commons v IC & Leapman, Brooke and Thomas
(Other recently updated guidance is labelled below)

Procedural guidance

When is information caught by the Freedom of Information Act? (AG12)
Lifecycle of a request (GPG3)
Consideration of requests without reference to the identity of the applicant or the reasons for the request (GPG6)
Interpreting a request
Information held: retrieving and compiling information from original sources

Information held on behalf of another - new

Making a request for information – new

Section 8 - Valid request – name and address for correspondence
Section 9 - Charging a fee
Section 9,12,13 – Using the Fees Regulations
Section 10 - Time for compliance (AG11)
Section 11 - Means of communication (AG29)
Section 12 - Redacting and extracting information
Section 14 – Vexatious requests – a short guide
Section 14 - Vexatious or repeated requests (AG22) – recently updated 03/12/08
Section 16 - Advice and assistance (AG23) – recently updated 1/07/09
Section 16 - Good practice in providing advice and assistance
Section 17 - Refusing a request – new
Section 17 - Writing a refusal notice – new
Section 17 - Time limits on considering the public interest (GPG4)
Codes of Practice - Using the procedural codes of practice (GPG2)
Codes of Practice - Records management FAQs (AG8)
Codes of Practice – Internal reviews
Codes of Practice - Time limits on carrying out internal reviews (GPG5)
Codes of Practice - Destruction of requested information

Topic specific guidance

Enterprise Act 2002 and Freedom of Information Act 2000 - new
Reports provided by third parties - new
Circular (or round robin) requests- new
Information contained in court transcripts
Access to information about public authorities’ employees
Access to information about the deceased
What should be published: minutes and agendas
When should salaries be disclosed?
When should names be disclosed?
Complaints and investigations files – how to approach them
Guidance on dealing with requests for MP’s correspondence relating to constituents

Sector specific guidance

Information produced or received by councillors - new
Basic guide on compliance for first tier councils

Exemptions guidance

Duty to confirm or deny (AG21)
Prejudice and adversely affect (AG20)
Public interest test (AG3) – recently updated 1/7/09

The exemptions

Section 21 - Information reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means (AG6)
Section 22 - Information intended for future publication (AG7)
Section 23 - Information supplied by or relating to security bodies - new
Section 24 - The national security exemption – new
Section 26 - Defence (AG10)
Section 27 - International relations (AG14)
Section 28 - Relations within the UK (AG13)
Section 29 - Economy (AG15)
Section 30 - Investigations (AG16) – recently updated 03/08/09
Section 31 - Law enforcement (AG17) – recently updated 03/08/09
Section 32 - Information contained in court records (AG9)
Section 33 - Public audit (AG18)
Section 34 - Parliamentary privilege – under review
Section 35 - Policy formulation, Ministerial communications, Law Officers’ advice and the operation of Ministerial Private Office (AG24)
Section 36 - Effective conduct of public affairs (AG25)
Section 37 - Communications with Her Majesty and the awarding of honours (AG26)
Section 38 - Health and safety (AG19)
Section 39 - Environmental information (EIR guidance pages)
Section 40 - Personal Information (AG1) – recently updated 11/11/08
Section 40 - Update note: Applying the exemption for third party personal data: the Tribunal’s approach in House of Commons v IC & Leapman, Brooke and Thomas
Section 41 - Information provided in confidence (AG2)
Section 41 - The duty of confidence and the public interest
Section 41 - Information provided in confidence relating to contracts
Section 42 - Legal professional privilege (AG4) – recently updated 11/11/08
Section 43 - Commercial interest (AG5)
Section 43 - Public sector contracts – FOI annexe
Section 43 - Commercial detriment of third parties
Section 44 - Prohibitions on disclosure (AG27)

Mental Health UK Personality Disorder Spectrum Survey Achieves 103 User Inputs

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UPDATE

Its been a racy weekend for this particular survey designed to capture data about PD and Borderline PD (PTSD and DID ) . Its also clear that more people in the UK are being reached and want to say something about their experiences of Personality Disorder in the UK related to the NHS services .

The UK PD Spectrum Survey is still open and active HERE

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Mental Health August 8th : Petition Puts On More Numbers- Its 99 Now !

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UK Wide PD Spectrum Petition

More Service Users Input -

ITS 99 NOW !

By a UserWatch Correspondent

Earlier today the UK Wide Personality Disorder Spectrum Petition was 95 . After people putting bulletins across appropriate yahoo groups and Facebook groups it jumped to 99 UK NHS service Users inputed .

This is a good performance so far and the target figure of 100 will see work with the Socialist Health Association to see if its possible to get some further publicity now the numbers are getting more substantial.

50, in all honestly was a surprise because the UK PD community is quite fractured and partly moreso because the NHS has not really got to grips with therapy and treatments supplies for this spectrum of human difficulties and that has a knock on effect of more general disorganistion in the PD community who are often just trying to survive the difficulties of being PD .

The survey is accepting input from Borderline PD (including co-morbid Bi-Polar) and PD as well as the ranges of PTSD and also Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) . These conditions can co-exist in PD Spectrum types .

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Mental Health UK PD Survey Gains More Numbers

UK Wide PD Spectrum Survey Achieves 95 Inputs ! 5 to go for 100 !

By UK Mental Health Health Activist Art De Rivers

UPDATE :

The UK Wide Personality Disorder Spectrum Survey hosted by the Socialist Health Association has achieved 95 inputs so far from UK mental health service Users . We are pushing for the 100 ! We will take the results to the Care Quality Commission and other bodies.

YOU MAY DO THE SURVEY AT THIS LINK

It was started on May 27th 2009 and has been running since then .


It was primarily inspired by the sad death of Kate Logan who passed away after sadly not achieving the kind of help she wanted - it has also been spurred on by the Story of Tabi Cockerton " A Fairy a Day keeps Abandonment Away" . Tabi suffers severe dissociation.

Allies of Tabi are trying to help her get the treatment she needs after her Trust appears to have pulled the plug on that . A facebook campaign has started and is backed so far by 204 people . People can sign up to it and recruit others .

There is no doubt that in some parts of the PD community UK wide there is a level of great need for help and precious little facilitation of that sometimes .

( More later )

New Horzons In The NHS ? Yeah Sure - Wahoo Kakatoo ..

Deep Patient Cuts For Efficiency ? Watch The Rationing In The UK

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Patient Acts Likes Leaping Tiger In Mental Health Trust

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Strobist
Originally uploaded by tdub303

EXCLUSIVE

Staff Were Eaten !

Patient Breaks through Straitjacket . Staff Were Eaten .

"Police will investigate when they come out of hiding in the local dustbins"

Said a Sergeant Hunter peering from under a lid ..

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See Film Below Photoshop Tutorial

Choken The Broken Speaks At Highcroft Hospital On The Borderline

NOTE : Original Survey Film Shown Above

The One Showing Highcroft Material Is Below That

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Remember - Oh Great Readership - if it applies -

To do the UK Wide Personality Disorder Spectrum User Led Survey

Go HERE

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Purple Bunny De Bunnington Supports Mental Health UK Wide Personality Disorder Survey

To Do The User Led UK Wide Personality Disorder Survey Click Here

81 Users Inputed already ! To Do The UK Wide Personality Disorders Spectrum Survey See The LINK

To Do the UK Wide Personality Disorders Spectrum Survey click the link

HERE

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Latest News : UK Wide Personality Disorder Spectrum Survey Numbers (81)

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By UserWatch Correspondents

Figures just in from the UK Wide Personality Disorder Spectrum Online Survey show that 81 Service Users with part of the PD spectrum of problems have inputed into it .

The PD Spectrum includes "co-morbid" conditions like : Post Traumatic Stress , Complex Post Trauma, Dissociative Identity Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorders.

The Independent User Led And Created Survey creates options for people to pick those PD spectrum descriptions which have been placed on them. It also asks them to identify NHS Trusts where they have been treated in the country . It asks about the quality of their care and what they might want as a form or forms of help .

The survey will be shared finally with the Care Quality Commission and other bodies - it will also be made publically available as an example of something that Users in the community created and ran .. As perhaps at least initially one of a kind, it will serve as a template and pathfinder for other surveys and it can be improved on and followed up in different ways .

Although we cannot report fully on the survey's findings we can say there are significant spikes and trends appearing in terms of reported quality of care across the UK .

The survey is still running and it was started on May 27th so it is not even 2 months old yet.

The survey can still be done CLICK HERE

The NHS Financial Warp Drive - Fuelled by CRES

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NHS Trusts are not very forthcoming about where and how they generate Cash Release Efficiency Savings (CRES) . We at UserWatch are aware that some of those (CRES) have been accruing as eventual NHS Foundation Trust "surpluses"....

CRES can be generated by several means and not just "demand management" which pans out at rationing patient care . That for sure is one method though .

Other methods are negotiating supplies of drugs more cheaply and another is negotiating other supplies like power more cheaply .

Income can also be generated on attracting patients into a special areas of care and treatments should FT Trusts be good at that .

CRES can be generated by saving the money on Payment By Results tariff's being applied per case and since cases have averaged out costs if a Trusts can come in under that, cash is released as "efficient" savings....

We hope to dig in more on this later as information about specific Trust's financial habits develops .

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Therapy Wars : CBT Parrot Squad Partially Slips Off Its Stand

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By UserWatch And The "Rivers Clan"

Its probably best to just show the article showing UK research that shows up CBT to be very lightweight therapy. Ineffective for psychoses, and pretty much dubious for depressions

We are not surprised its falling off its perch since the planners and influencers over Labour took over from where Patient Choice may have guided far better . Some of the influencers were upper class circles of professors down south connected to MH charities and in the London areas and for sure they have a right to their view .

Patient's in mental health though have a human right to choice of therapy without it being imposed on them by undemocratic elites that Labour happen to know and have trusted ..

"Trust me I am a patient" John Reid's line from a July 2003 keynote speech was largely an abdicated position in mental health .. We think it still is . The choice mechanism is barely existent in MH .

The State cannot drive quality of therapies that recover people - Patients have to do that without the crushing monopoly of the NHS always in the way .. The NHS should be one area of choice and that is all .. It should stop being an idealised position furnishing more bureacarcy , more centralism and more State ..

CreditFor the Article Below Goes To PSYORG.COM


Evidence That Cognitive Therapy Is Of No Value In Schitzophrenia

June 26th, 2009

"News-Research co-led by an academic at the University of Hertfordshire, concludes that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is of no value in schizophrenia and has limited effect on depression. Professor Keith Laws, at the University's School of Psychology, is one of the lead authors on a paper entitled: Cognitive behavioural therapy for major psychiatric disorder: does it really work? A meta-analytical review of well-controlled trials, which has just been published online in the journal Psychological Medicine. The paper reviews the use of CBT in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression.

The results of the review suggest that not only is CBT ineffective in treating schizophrenia and in preventing relapse, it is also ineffective in preventing relapses in bipolar disorder.

The review also suggests that CBT has only a weak effect in treating depression, but it has a greater effect in preventing relapses in this disorder.

The authors focused particularly on methodologically rigorous trials that compared CBT to a ‘psychological placebo' and also investigated the impact of ‘blinding', i.e. whether or not the people who assessed the patients knew if they were receiving active treatment or not. Both factors are considered essential before a drug treatment is approved for use in psychiatric disorders.

The authors noted that not a single trial employing both blinding and psychological placebo has found CBT to be effective in schizophrenia and surprisingly few well-controlled studies of CBT in depression.

"The results of this review are important because in March NICE re-approved CBT for use in all people with schizophrenia. The Government is also investing millions of pounds to provide CBT for depression and anxiety in 250 dedicated therapy centres across England," said Professor Laws. "Yet the evidence here is that the effectiveness of this form of therapy may be less than previously thought, to the point of being non-existent in schizophrenia."

The other authors of the paper are Professor Peter McKenna, Benito Menni Complex Assistencial en Salut Mental, Barcelona and Dr Damian Lynch, University of Glasgow.

More information: Cognitive behavioural therapy for major psychiatric disorder: does it really work? A meta-analytical review of well-controlled trials, Psychological Medicine, Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S003329170900590X

Source: University of Hertfordshire (news : web)

Norma Jean Holds Out Her Orphan Arms For Michael

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By Art De Rivers NowPublic.com

There is no doubt in my mind at all that "magical" people are often constructed by tragedy . I often write as a poet-artist that "Magic and Tragic" are two sides of a law and coin - that rule, purchase, and imply each other .

Magical people have internal childlike worlds powered by unmet needs for love from this parent or that parent or whatever parent was supposed to be the place of proper nurture and they sometimes have the transforming power of imagination to become exotically adaptive. Its a defensive self rescue in them that burns as it develops .

They are sometimes even perverse . Pushed to perform . Pushed to finally try to compensate for a part of themselves that is locked in an unending internal struggle for a perfect unity with a parent that never really felt or saw them properly .

They are incomplete, made by a combined depth of little empathic recognition and pain and they spiral into a Self of show and special trajectories of what passes for authentic recognition of themselves.

Human comets : Norma Jean , Judy Garland , John Lennon , Michael Jackson . We know them. They come and pass amongst us ... Orbits of pain and wonder .

As a poet-artist I am content to envision that the spirit of Michael Jackson and his woes should meet Norma Jean and share stories about being orphaned and empty .

That somewhere over the painbow, a realm of wisdom lies that allows their light blue shadows to weep what they never could as children .... I'll be with them in my heart .

And if such a special realm never exists outside of all of us, then maybe we can have a little compassion for everyone who is flawed . Maybe we can invent an empathic reception too of pain and recognition and sit by Norma Jean and Michael Jackson inside ourselves and recognise some of their reflections, in us ..

We can create a place of redemption . You see, we are all actually magical .

Michael :

Everyone dances by the river Styx

With flaws and with the crutches

Of the

Crucifix...

A Public Dogology To Lord Brett Best CBT Practitioner In The UK

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USERWATCH SENDS IN DEG THE DOG TO DOGOLOGISE

After The Guardian spatt on a Welfare Reform article

By Jonathon Ruthford

with Brett the Best

This dogology above was called for .

By the Way - CBT :

Cheek Behavioural Therapy is available

At USERWATCH ROOMS

(Look what we do for that Silvis Rivers ...)

Wicked exchanges below noted from the Guardian .

LORD BRETT :

Good article, good thread and I fully agree with 99% of posters, however,

Silvisrivers@

"neck bolting cogbottery of CBT"

As a CBT therapist myself, I`d be interested in a more informed discussion as to your seeming distaste of this approach, rather than the concern I assume you have (which I share with many) that it (like anything else) be abused for dubious political ends. Put simply, Is it the therapy you dislike or how it can be abused

SILVIS RIVERS :

Lord Brett

Silvis Rivers ! Your 1% per cent disagreement figure here !

There's a sketch of a mental health User colleague - Yep - a neck bolted cogbottery success story

SEE HERE : So seee I have an evidence base Lord Brett

However , Welfare and Reform, and CBT supply eh ? .. Oh yes, many do know they are all woven policies

The supply sides of therapy up and down the country available through PCT's , Trusts and GP surgeries are coming on stream with the £173 million of Govt funding over several years.

The Govt took it upon themselves to push CBT – it was endorsed of course as part of the welfare to work reforms by Dick Layard (LSE) to get people back to work and some very simplistic things were claimed of it like 10 – 12 sessions would see many thousands go back to work as CBT successes.

I believe this approach was flawed at many levels both therapeutic and at the recognition of individualised need for therapy help and personal pace. Personalised services were the kinds of things we were promised which have been overtaken by large planning and system delivery gurus ..

There was plenty of supply sides (unharnessed) for therapies already in the private sector and if MH patients had had a patient choice culture through say local purchasing (GP level) then slowly a culture of decent therapies would have taken root and the useless practitioners would have been weeded out by patient satisfaction being measured at a local level ..

There's no competition with the State so the State cannot claim a Patient Choice culture and in mental health as I say we were promised Patient Choice and better personalised budgets for recovery and we've seen bagger all that cuts the mustard, and now we are getting welfare deformed-reform oppression

The Mild to Moderate depressive category of those out of work who were going to be the first candidates of CBT is another example the strange language of system driven welfare reform bureacracy . People with depression present differently with different reasons for being depressed and many (excluding Bipolar) have years of compressed misery and likely or not special events they need to emotionally alleiviate and resolve ..

CBT as its promoted is simplistic and its going to be played with by graduate-workers employed by the NHS… That is wrong …

After 36 years of seeing mental health suffering of all varieties I can honestly say I think that's a mistake and there are plenty of skilled practitioners out their in the market place where Patient's could get a real choice to find ways to resolve their pain , depression and misery .. The money was there in 2004 but the Govt saw fit to create NIMHE (now defunct) which went on to spend in excess of £100 million. I see that as a major loss of treatment opportunity for people who needed therapy choices years ago .. The market was left untapped and even alienated by the insistence it come under Govt control through the Health Professions Council despite bodies like UKCP and BACP and others having adequate ethical comittees and complaint processes.

CBT is not Patient Choice - its being used for State dominion - Neither in my opinion is it a depth approach to resolve difficult emotional pains and states by actually feeling them towards resolution and integration, which is an emotionally realistic way to deal with most of the human condition.

Its a lightweight application with limited scope and I think many MH patients and people in the community will be shortchanged by it - if its allied to deeper emotional approaches and acceptances of peoples feelings, and feeling states towards resolution, then maybe it will become useful because then it creates a place for recognition of feelings - proportionality of reaction, and past and present and how one can serve to whip up reactions in the other .

I do hope you like my evidence base ..

Silvis Rivers

USERWATCH & COGBOTTERY EVIDENCE BASE

LORD BRETT :

Silvisrivers

yes I like your `evidence-base`. It made me smile and that is always welcome in my book.

I share your scepticism at the new use of CBT and the almost factory-style production of `fast-track` IAPT practitioners who will be as limited in their ability in all likelihood as their rushed training implies.

However, those of us who trained a while ago and took many years to do it, including starting with a nursing qualification and many years of experience in that field too might feel slightly irritated that because CBT has been co-opted by NuLab, many people including sad to say, your good self view it as lightweight and trivial as the politicians who seem to push its use.

This view of CBT as not addressing `real issues` and a `quick fix` simply reveals a lack of knowledge of the subject and is in a sense, as lightweight, uninformed and thin a dismissal as the behaviour of those you claim to despise.

SILVIS RIVERS :

Lord Brett

Hey if you feel you are adequate fine ... I have not personalised this issue - and your sadness is noted but so is the pain of others in my community of mental health Users that are shortchanged by system top down thinking and would be welfare reform applications

Welfare Reform and the top down way its being planned included CBT jackboots too or maybe they should be called "Dick-boots" after a certain person who is economical with therapy .

Personalisation of services has gone out of the NHS window and welfare reform has become the new psycho-work-alot religion . Even Job Centre staff hover in and and around NHS mental health Trusts.. Its intimidating and upsetting people . Some of us are so affected by the assault of the planning gurus that we do wonder if death is better . Now that's being hurt .

But on therapy there should have crucially been choices not just one favoured application (CBT) and all the training money to my mind gone to it is wasted when its obvious we could have enjoyed monitored patient choices years ago using available local supply sides . God knows some of us could have grown into more functionality .

The whole point for me and others in the User-community was to believe in a patient recovery led by choices and incremental growth . Its what we were all promised . I've seen CBT used by "practitioners" in the NHS where they expect the patient to do"homework" to identify negatively co-reinforcing thought and feeling patterns and the poor boggers have been lost .

I've talked to these people and discovered so many are seriously wounded people from life and they need deeper more empathically providing applications

After your post I have taken a decision to ask USERWATCH to make an exception against CBT slagging off and therefore you have been offered a Dogology .. Now this is rare

I'd swipe a copy of it quick ..

SEE HERE A special dogology to Lord Brett ..

Seeeeee now I do have the power of magical smiling and wickedish therapy which makes Lords laugh ..

Silvis Rivers

USERWATCH

CBT Neck Bolting Cog-Bottery Success Story With Toilet Roll Accessories

WELFARE DEFORMED

A CBT Success Story With Toilet Roll Earing Too

By Silvis Rivers Cheek Practitioner

Lobbying Dr Lynne Jones To Support Welfare Reform Amendments

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Letter By Email Copied To Birmingham UserWatch


Dr Lynne Jones
Joint Chair
All Parliamentary Mental Health
Sub Committee

22nd June 2009

Dear Lynne

Jon Rutherford (Guardian Journalist)

Has written today that the Welfare Reform Bill at this stage is currently
under potential amendment in the Lords and the Lib Dems are trying to get
a clause inserted to protect the mentally ill with difficult conditions .

I am asking you for your support in this because I feel there are many
people that need actually defending from what is a potentially oppressive bill

Regards

Paul Brian Tovey

Independent Mental Health Monitor

UK Personality Disorder Spectrum Survey Launched May 27th 2009

By Art De Rivers NowPublic.Com - UK Mental Health Story

UK Personality Disorder Spectrum Survey Launched May 27th 2009

Kate Logan of Gateshead passed away in 2007 and her friends spanned the UK and parts of the world. Kate had Borderline Personality Disorder . That disorder, where attachments and insecurity become exaggerated features of inner life, and where the pain of that inner life is like tortured fires burning the soul of a red razor walker - and it can kill .

Kate took pills in 2007 and died . The full Coroners report is not yet out and her NHS Trust reportedly appear to have been very very slow in yielding all the information up for consideration .

Her friends and those close to her, felt she had little treatment of any worth .. In fact some believe inadequate treatment and the poor behaviour by the NHS contributed to her death

Her friends kept her memory alive Online glittering in a carmine memory-pink logo - which in its own way says "Farewell , we will remember you " and some have tried to form a way forwards to help others - partly in her memory . This has taken the shape of Online harbour of some friendship in forums .

Yet forums too are often an expression of the powerlessness in which there are echoes of an abandoning UK NHS system which creates little therapeutic growth and containment and leaves it to the world's winds . Perhaps now a survey spark has lit some extra hope.

Its this overall sad context that inspired the Online UK wide survey to capture key information about UKUser-Satisfaction with the NHS services.

Its time more Users owned the right to measure the services back . Its a first perhaps, and is a small step forwards on the UK feeling of social and services moons of Personality Disordered abandonment.

And many do complain they are abandoned to no help , no therapy , no emotional resolutions to things like child abuse and the pain of it - to being heard out more fully ..Theirs is a life of struggle to be heard from long ago....

The Survey embraces not only Personality Disorder but Borderline PD and PTSD and Complex PTSD as well as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) ..

All appear to be undernourished parts of the spectrum of human differentness - without much help - this NowPublic.com channel will keep you posted .

Community Treatment Orders : No's By UK Trust : FOIA Result From CQC

Community Treatment Orders by Specific Trust in the UK
Obtained From the Care Quality Commission UK
UnderThe Freedom of Information Act

CLICK ON EACH TABLE TO ENLARGE

CLICK ON EACH TABLE TO ENLARGE

CLICK ON EACH TABLE TO ENLARGE

CLICK ON EACH TABLE TO ENLARGE

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Wealthy Healthy Ministers Claim Jam Galore In UK Pots

By Art De Rivers UK

(Credit to Health Service Journal - Sally Gainsbury)

Mr Sterling Pound tends to magically tempt people , you know a bit like MP's - into expensive sweet jampots where they may get stuck - especially if the jam is a bit sticky and belongs to a shared pot of fair spreads for all ..

Nothing tempts children like having another mouthful of someone else's jam . MP's are similar to children although children may later form protest groups about this scurrilous statement ..

The MP's expenses and jammy fallout is making a few Parliamentary Pigures - sorry Figures into greedy little bees... Jamsucking away ..And the proof has been gathered by well crafted Journo-netters. The Telegraph has led on the MP expenses claims stories and others have piled in with their angles .

Over to Sally Gainsbury - a lovely Netter - of Health Service Journal UK

"Health ministers and MPs on the shadow health team are among those named and shamed by The Daily Telegraph’s exposé of MP expenses claims.

The biggest claimant among the health ministers was care services minister Phil Hope, who the newspaper says claimed £83,654 between 2004-05 and 2007-08, much of it on furniture and renovations to his London flat, including a new kitchen and wooden flooring."

Source: hsj.co.uk

And of Andrew Lansley -- now known as : "Jamdrew" , Sally ace Jam Netter of the HSJ reports :

"The newspaper [Telegraph] does not mention whether or not Conservative shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley jointly owned his Cambridgeshire cottage and London flat with his wife. However, it says his total £78,370 claims included the cost of decorating the cottage, which he later sold for £433,000, shortly before he transferred second home status to his London flat.

Mr Lansley denies the implication he “flipped” his residence to exploit the expenses system, which allows MPs to claim up to £24,222 a year to cover the costs of rent, interest payments and running costs on their designated second homes."

Source: hsj.co.uk

Staff Implementing Dynamic Changes In Health

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By KAKATOO May 2009

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Delayed Whistleblowing Syndrome at Mid Staffs Hospital By Coughing Up Managers

By Art De Rivers UserWatch Member

Health Service Journal (HSJ) in the UK deserve some credit for helping NHS managers at Mid Staffs NHS Trust to open up about the appalling standards of care . Does this mean NHS whistle blowing, though delayed beyond saving real lives previously is developing shrilling and thrilling biceps ?

HSJ have created a survey of Mid Staffs managers and shortly this piece will show links to that .

The Mid Staffordshire Hospital's extra 400 deaths (beyond the expected rate) story runs on and on and has shown probably only one consultant had the conscience and foresight to get the mortality figures looked at again. It seems the holy triple spirits of the now defunct Health Care Commission and West Mids Strategic Health Authority ( and Monitor the Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts missed the phenomenon and the 2003 credo of the then Labour's Govt's Secretary of State John Reid's :"Trust Me I am a Patient" went into the health service mortuary too

Health Service Journal :

"6 May, 2009 | Updated: 7 May, 2009 0:00 am

Around half of hospital managers and other staff believe elements of poor standards found at Mid Staffordshire foundation trust exist at their own organisation, a HSJ straw poll suggests.

Fifty-two of 103 respondents - mainly acute managers - said they recognised parts of the poor management and governance highlighted by the Healthcare Commission in March.

Forty-two said they recognised elements of the care standards that were criticised.

Source: hsj.co.uk"

HSJ's survey comes at a time when public pressure led by Julie Bailey and Cure The NHS and now with extra cross party and legal focus is building up a head of steam - and the public are seriously behind it .

Its attracted too the remainder of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum members who were a hardcore leftover from when the Government disbanded them (March 2008) for a new slushier idea of : "Local Involvement Networks" which are not performing well across the UK and some have lost all touch with serious monitoring practice .

But the National Association For LINks Members is trying to re-create some good practice even though that will be a serious mountain to climb . Mount Effectiveness has been made glassier by Gov't and Dept of Health information slides and ice ..

A day ago the public met at Mids Staffordshire though, and the results will be interesting to hear and report on .

Everyone will note in the May 5th 2009 promotion of the public Mid Staff's meeting the lawyers are in presence too ...Leigh Day Solicitors . Hmmmm... Very interesting . Out of the 400 extra dead at Mid Staffs the lawyers may yet well find a case too for corporate manslaughter ..

But Julie Bailey , of Cure the NHS : (quote)

"This site is firstly dedicated to Bella Bailey 16/02/1921 - 08/11/2007 ... and also to the many others who have lost their lives needlessly on wards in Staffordshire General Hospital. We launched this campaign after witnessing 8 weeks of elderly care in this hospital. What we saw after the first few days left us fearing for my Mother's life and too frightened to leave her. We stayed by her side sleeping on a chair for 8 weeks, because we did I believe my Mother stayed alive for those eight weeks. "

(end quote)

whose mother Bella died even though Julie tried to save her and nurse her for eight weeks has instructed Leigh Day solicitors to bring a case against the Secretary of State for Health :

"Update on Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust 01 May 2009

Cure the NHS will be holding a public meeting on 5 May 2009 to discuss the Secretary of State’s announcement to defer his decision of whether to hold a public inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust).

Richard Stein and Rosa Curling instructed by Julie Bailey and Chris Dalziel of Cure the NHS wrote a letter before action to the Secretary of State on 27 March 2009 stating that his decision not to hold a public inquiry into the Trust was unlawful under Article 2 and 3 of the Human Rights Act.

Source: leighday.co.uk "

No wonder the managerial birds are singing from their cages ..

A few canaries in offices may well be screaming later ..

Mind you , so did some of the patients , before they died prematurely ..

LINKS :

NALM's Previous Report On LINks In The UK

NALM pdf

NALM August 2008

Who Cares Kills ? - The Case of Humber Mental Health Trust NHS UK

.

Userwatch UK Reports :

The BBC 5th May 2009 report on the 2005 killing of a 31 year old mother of five also pregnant with twins, by a Paranoid Schizophrenic has other concerning systemic story-weaves within it . The BBC report, states :

"Benjamin Holiday, 25, a paranoid schizophrenic, killed Tina Stevenson in Hull after missing his medication. An independent investigation found his mental health problem was "under-treated" and his condition should have been "more assertively managed".

On NowPublic.com a number of stories (See at the bottom of this story) on Art De River's channel demonstrates a link between under-serving patients in the UK NHS (even sometimes killing them) and NHS Trusts clearing debts or making non-profit surpluses as the now new Gov't idealised "Foundation Trusts" (FT's) .

This particular pattern of new NHS FT ambitions and related financial activity coupled with risk to patients, has been happening over years and in the case of Benjamin Holiday, the Humber Mental Health Trust (HMHT) has been like other Trusts - practicing lean management - to clear "debt".

This "debt" though, arguably it has to be repeated, is often the result of rationed allowances from the Dept Of Health.. One might term the "debt" consistent underpayment for patient need in reality . Considering the amount of money the UK Gov't can find for banks it does rather create a new perspective on UK health economics too . Some of the public may feel the NHS should become a bank.

The Humber Mental Health Trust though has been trying to make surpluses because a key factor in its performance is to become a "Foundation Trust" and to do so it has to put in its bid to the Independent FT Regulator : MONITOR - with a "healthy" balance and surplus in evidence ..

The incentive to become and FT is not purely idealistic because it is clear that Monitor will look for take-over-mergers where NHS Hospital Trusts fail to become FT's and that means top-job losses ..

From the Humber MHT's accounts :

It is into this new NHS shaping context that the rush to perform and become FT's must be seen and in which patient's care (or patient care being compromised) is part of the weave .

In the years 2005 and 2006 the Humber MHT achieved a small surplus but redundancy costs meant they reduced staff and paid for it . That's like reducing care and then paying again for the reduction of it .

Benjamin Holliday was as the BBC states "undertreated" - well he would be if they were not enough staff .

The BBC report also states :

"The Trust also apologised after being criticised over the care of a mentally-ill man who killed his elderly mother in 2003 Michael Torrie, then aged 43, cut his 82-year-old mother Ivy's throat at their home in Pocklington, East Yorkshire, after a "rapid reduction" in his medication, the report said."

Subsequently Humber Mental Health Trust has made another surplus in 2007 - 8 . Its a Trust that needs watching carefully .

From 2007 - 2008 HMHT Accounts :

"Summary of the financial year : This was a successful year financially for our Trust with all statutory duties being achieved together with a surplus for the year of £353,000 which meant that the target surplus of 0.5% of relevant income was achieved."


See also : other story links from NowPublic.com Channel showing where NHS Trusts have made surpluses and patients have been under-served and/or sometimes have died .


1. Mid Staff NHS Trust £886k surplus

2. Birmingham Children's Hospital £2.3 Million

3. South London and Maudsley MH Trust £5 + million

4. Kingston Hospital Trust £2.7 million

See Also Other UserWatch Stories (Surpluses versus Care) Below :

5. Bedford and Luton MH Trust

6. Bradford MH Trust £550 K / Death of Jonathon Brannan

7 Islington Mental Health Trust Colville Marks ref £1.7 Million



Interesting Links :

Wife Of A Schitzophrenic

Ron Peponis Blog