Royal Surrey County Hospital - the scandal update.

It's just as well I hadn't planned to go down to Guildford Crown Court today to watch the start of the Peter Lewis trial - after months of delay he nipped in last week and changed his plea to guilty.

Check out the story and then I'll have my take on why this is symbolic of a real problem in the NHS;


get surrey
Royal Surrey County Hospital
Former Royal Surrey County Hospital IT director pleads guilty to corruption
charge

The cost to the hospital of the fraud committed by Peter Lewis and Richard Moxon is calculated to be some £81,000, a court has heard.

By Georgina Townshend
22 NOV 2016
 

Royal Surrey County Hospital

A former senior member of staff at Royal Surrey County Hospital and an IT company director have pleaded guilty to corruption in relation to the awarding of a contract for software to record data in the hospital’s A&E department.
 
At Guildford Crown Court on Monday (November 21), Peter Lewis, 57, of Windlesham, admitted receiving payments from Richard Moxon, 41, of Wybunbury in Cheshire, in return for awarding him an ICT contract worth £950,000 in 2011

Lewis originally denied one count of receiving corrupt payments in March, and was due to face trial next Monday (November 28).

At the same hearing in March, Moxon pleaded guilty to one count of making corrupt payments.

Surrey Police said Moxon each month would submit multiple invoices from different companies he controlled.
   
The invoices were all at, or just below, £15,000 - the value that Lewis was able to sign off without oversight.

In return for the arrangement, Moxon paid Lewis nine payments totalling £73,770, and made a further payment of £7,200 to a stables to whom Lewis owed money.

All the payments were made between January and December 2011.

The fraud came to light in December 2011 when the trust conducted a disciplinary investigation into his relationship with another supplier.

Subsequent work found that 40% of the ICT product supplied by Moxon did not meet the needs of the trust.

According to Surrey Police the hospital was able to recover some of the lost money by incorporating Moxon’s software into a new system in August 2012 but the trust still declared losses in its financial year of 2011/12 of £433,000 in respect of the project.

The direct fraud against the hospital was nearly £81,000.
 
Detective Sergeant Chris Rambour, of the Surrey and Sussex Economic Crime Unit, said: “Peter Lewis chose to breach the trust placed in him by the NHS and to feather his own nest.


"It was only through the diligence of the trust that his corruption came to light.

                              -----------//----------

All of that is fairly straightforward and not so surprising; a highly paid manager at an NHS hospital trust rips us off.

But there are a couple of twists to this story.

First of all, here's an extract from another article in 'GetSurrey', this one comes from 2012;

                         ----------//-----------

THE senior management team at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford has been thrown into disarray for the second time in as many months, after the deputy chief executive handed in her notice this week.

News of Sue Lewis’s resignation followed her husband’s recent dismissal from the NHS trust.

Mrs Lewis, who was also chief operating officer at the hospital, resigned from her post on Wednesday (February 8) following 17 years of service.

Her husband, Peter Lewis, the former informatics director, was fired following an investigation into irregular financial transactions.

Peter Dunt, the trust’s chairman, said the executive board understood and accepted Mrs Lewis’s reasons for stepping down and paid tribute to her "significant" contribution through many years of service.

“During the investigation which led to the disciplinary of Peter Lewis, evidence of irregular financial transactions emerged which the trust felt obliged to forward to the police,” he said.

“The police are now conducting their own investigation.
“These findings, and Peter Lewis’s dismissal from the trust in December, have been very difficult for the trust and undoubtedly had an impact on Sue Lewis as both his wife and our chief operating officer and deputy chief executive.

“As a result, she has been evaluating her position at the trust and has decided that the right course of action is to offer her resignation, which the board fully understands and has accepted.

“Sue has worked at the Royal Surrey for more than 17 years and has been a board member since 2003.
                              -----------//-----------

Now the first point is that while there is no suggestion that Ms Lewis had any involvement in her husbands dishonesty, it is surely completely inappropriate that a married couple should
both hold such senior positions in an NHS Trust - at the very least it raises suggestions of a conflict of interest.

So then I followed the subsequent career of Ms Lewis after she left Royal Surrey County Hospital in these unfortunate circumstances.

You won't be surprised to hear that she has had no problem continuing to earn a good living from the NHS.

For nearly two years she worked for Bart's Health NHS Trust
and here's an extract from her online CV;

• Member of the Trust Management Board
• Responsible for legacy Trust sites (including Royal London) and their performance
• Member of senior team that led the operational transition of the merger to form the largest Trust in England
• Responsible for identifying key issues in performance including A&E waiting times; RTT and cancer targets and supporting transformation in these areas.
• Led major bed modeling programme across Trust
• Trust lead for emergency pathway
• Represented Barts Health externally including HealthWatch, Tower Hamlets CCG and LA.
• Operational lead for Quality and Risk, including link for the CQC inspection
• Trust lead for Integrated Care, with membership of the WELC Pioneer programme.
• Supported the achievement of CIPs
• Deputised for COO for both functions (eg budget responsibility) and attendance at Trust and other meetings, eg FT preparation.

Now it was at this time that I was highlighting on my other blog, the extensive problems at this Trust. They certainly needed expert help. Unfortunately, it came to nothing - the medical and financial problems worsened until in 2015, Bart's Health was placed in special financial measures, because it's finances were in such a disastrous state.

So where did Ms Lewis do then?

She chose self employment and created her own consultancy company......which has been engaged by 'Monitor', the health service regulator which is there to raise standards in the NHS.

Here's what she's been up to over the last couple of years advising three trusts who were placed in special measures;

Working as an Improvement Director with the Health Regulator, Monitor/NHSI with three contracts over the last two years. One at East Kent Hospitals and a second at Colchester NHS FT. Have recently successfully completed a similar role at Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS FT.Significant work in ensuring improvements in all areas performance alongside each Board.

Led refresh of Boards where necassary.

Drove improvement through PMO's.

Acted as challenger, advisor and supporter for Trust teams ensuring improvements.

Worked with various external stakeholders and other in the political landscape.

Last contract due to end September this year.

Now it may just be me (and there is no suggestion Ms Lewis has broken the law or is personally incompetent) but is she the most suitable person to be involved in highly paid roles sorting out NHS Trusts which have been placed in special measures?

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals merger is off!

Some really good news came out on 4th November; the 'On/Off' merger between Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals and Royal Surrey County Hospital is not going ahead.....it's 'OFF'!

The Royal County decided the merger was not in their interests - something their medical Consultants told them overwhelmingly in a staff survey a year ago.

In fact what happened was that both trusts finances took a dive last year and in the case of Royal Surrey, disastrously so. The merger was put on hold for them to sort out the mess and it's probably by mutual consent that it isn't now going ahead.

As far as Ashford and St. Peter's was concerned, this was a merger no one wanted - the original merger of the two hospitals in 1998 resulted in the total downgrading of Ashford and the loss of its Accident and Emergency. As a teaching Hospital it had a good reputation and was convenient for its population centre.

Now with most of the land sold off, its reputation reduced and its patients making the long trek out beyond the M25, the merger can't be described as a success.

Since then, its management got merger fever; first they wanted Epsom Hospital, to the extent that they tried to demerge it from its Trust so that they could gobble it up.

That failed - to the relief of every patient contemplating a journey to and from Epsom or any resident of Epsom looking at the cost and difficulty of getting to Ashford or St. Peter's.

Then management wanted to take over Royal County, even though its miles away (22.5 miles each way by car from Ashford and an impossible journey by public transport).

The prize was Royal County's expertise in cancer care - which is a growing need. The Trust wanted that expertise so it could grab some of that 'business' away from the London hospitals and attract those patients to its site at Ashford. Meanwhile, as a bonus Guildford could lose some of its services to pay for the development at Ashford.

It should never have been considered - in patients interests alone. However, the potential loss of staff jobs was also an major issue.

Why does this matter?

Well, apart from the fact that for two years while the management of the Trust could have been concentrating on improving things for the staff and the patients, there is a little matter of the money that has been wasted.

In the 2015/16 Annual Accounts, Ashford and St. Peter's NHS Foundation Trust paid out £855,000 in outside 'consultancy costs'; that's where you pay outside 'Experts' to advise you and it's an area of expenses the Government wants cut down.

In the year 1014/15, the same costs were £2,004,000 which was £1,149,000 more.

Now my guess is that that additional £1,149,000 is most likely to represent the money wasted (in one year alone) on outside consultant's fees spent on the merger and the associated investigation by the competition authorities.

I'll keep sniffing around to see if I can find out any more!

Finally, it should be said that merger's rarely result in improved 'outcomes' and if you don't believe me check out the 'pages' column in the archive on the right hand side of the Blog - read 'The Merger Mania Series', which I wrote a couple of years ago when I wasn't as ill as I am now.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

65000 reasons to keep Blogging.

Once again, thank you for taking the Blog to 65000, which somehow seems quite a significant number......probably because things have been fairly tough recently.

I suppose I ought to update you on 'That Hospital'.

For the last 18 months, Ashford and St.Peter's have been building their campaign to take over the Royal County Hospital at Guildford.

It's a take over no one wanted - the only people who were asked (consultants at Royal County) overwhelmingly said in a poll that patients would suffer.

The hospitals are miles apart so any services closed at one site means a nightmare (and expensive) journey to another.

Ashford and St. Peter's conned their workers it would help them and they never actually bothered to ask their patients what they wanted.

The reality is that Royal County has a very good reputation and a specialism in cancer treatment, neither of which Ashford and St. Peter's have. They saw cancer as a big growth area and by taking over Guildford they thought they could hive off part of that to Ashford to try and steal some cancer patients from other hospitals.

Meanwhile they could close some other services at Guildford and move them to St. Peter's to save money.

As I said, no one wanted this.

Meanwhile a whole lot of money has been spent on getting the P.R. to bulldoze this through.

There have been endless studies and negotiations, there have been experts reports and consultants fees, there was a referral to the competition authorities which resulted in a whole years delay.

And they even organised a series of public meetings - not to consult us but to tell their patients why it was all such a good idea in the first place.

And then it all fell to pieces in their hands........

A couple of months ago Ashford and St. Peter's announced that they had gone into deficit; £195,000.

Then Royal County announced that it had done the same.......to the tune of £7-5 million.

Ouch!

To be fair, while a deficit can say that a 'Trust' is being badly managed, it doesn't automatically mean that.

So, a trust could be in surplus every year because it isn't doing enough for it's patients.

A trust could be in deficit because it's refusing to reduce treatment standards and has opted to spend money from it's reserves until it can improve it's income.

Both parties took a fortnight to reconsider and then announced how determined they were to continue.

Then suddenly last week it was all off.

We can all breath a sigh of relief but what a waste of time and money it's been.

These are publicly funded hospitals not some business out to make an empire and a profit.

Forget the money; what about the endless meetings, the precious 'Management Time' that should have been used to improve things for the patients and instead has been wasted?

Oh, by the way, we are still waiting for the trial at Guildford Crown Court of the former 'Infomatics Director' at Royal County Hospital who has been accused of allegedly accepting corrupt payments.

I'm expecting some rather interesting information to come to light there but I'll wait for the protection of legal proceedings before I report on it.

At the moment the former 'Infomatics Director' has pleaded not guilty to accepting corrupt payments while the person accused of paying him has pleaded guilty to making allegedly corrupt payments to him.

Hmmmmmh!

So I suppose I'd better go on Blogging!

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Merger on hold; patients first or second?

You know how it is; you’ve sent out all the wedding invitations, you’ve booked a horse and carriage, there are geese at the front door, you've been given a lot of nice presents, all your family and friends are assembled in the church to watch you get married in a silly suit….and then the vicar asks if anyone has any objections to the marriage.

Oops!

No one noticed the ex-girlfriend who just burst in through the door;

This time last year Ashford and St. Peters announced its proposed merger with The Royal County Hospital, Guildford.

It’s a merger no one wants – as I reported before; a survey of consultants at Guildford showed that over 70% felt there would be no advantage for patients.

Obviously there won’t be – mergers just don’t work. All the scientific research shows that hospital mergers result in poorer outcomes and increased management costs….whatever they say.

The proposed merger is all about closing departments, laying off workers and ultimately selling off precious land to balance the books.

Now, embarrassingly, the Competition Authority has put the whole process on hold to investigate whether this will actually work in the interests of patients;

Royal Surrey and Ashford & St Peter's hospital merger delayed for more assessment - Get Surrey 

Plans to merge two Surrey hospital trusts have been delayed after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to carry out further investigations.

 

The Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in Guildford, and Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust were hoping to receive the go-ahead to merge on Thursday (February 19).

 

However, the CMA has decided to refer the merger to a second assessment phase, which will take six months to examine the plans.

 

It comes after the authority said it had "found that the merger could result in adverse effects for patients by reducing choice and competition across a range of elective specialties".

 

Nick Moberly, chief executive at the Royal Surrey, said: “We’re obviously disappointed with this decision as we believe a merger would result in a number of positive benefits for patients."

 

Management boards at both hospitals were set to discuss the latest turn of events at meetings next week.

 

Ashford and St Peter's chief executive, Suzanne Rankin, added: "Although this was not the decision we were hoping for, we understand that the CMA needs to carry out a more in-depth analysis of our plans to ensure this is in the best interests of patients.

"Unfortunately this means we will need to wait longer until a final decision is reached.”

 

The trusts hope the merger will save an estimated £10m-£20m and have said patients will not notice any changes in services in at the three hospital sites.

 

However, staff expressed their concerns about the plans in a questionnaire seen by the Surrey Advertiser.

 

Results showed 72% of consultant staff at the Royal Surrey did not believe care for patients would be improved in the proposed partnership, while 74% said they did not think the merger would benefit their department.

 

Andrea Coscelli, executive director for markets and mergers at the CMA, said: “Our job is to look at the evidence and examine the impact that a proposed merger could have on patient choice and the quality of healthcare services provided.

 

"Tens of thousands of patients a year are treated by the trusts in the specialties we've looked at and could be potentially affected by the loss of choice they currently have.

 

"If the trusts no longer have to attract patients who might choose to go elsewhere, it could mean their incentive to maintain and improve quality in those specialties is reduced.

 

"We acknowledge that there may be some benefits which result from the merger but given the extent of our concerns and the number of specialties and patients involved, we feel it is necessary to look at this merger in greater depth to ensure that it is in patients’ interests."

If you want to know more about the destructive effect of mergers over the last 30 years have a look at my ‘Merger Mania’ pages.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Patients; the last to hear about problems.

Ashford and St. peter’s NHS Foundation Trust has a number of problem areas but it’s PR department isn’t one of them. There’s a constant stream of good news stories for the local press.

Bad news? They don’t talk about that if they can help it.

So while you can read this story in “Runcorn and Widness World”, you won’t hear much about it around here.

The news is that Whiston hospital’s Cancer department is going to mentor cancer services at Ashford and St. Peter’s under the ‘buddy’ system.

It’s a great idea; where a hospital does something well they lend their staff to help a trust that isn’t doing very well to help it get its act together.

It means that the poorer hospitals learn best practise from the best.

How could I object to that?

I don’t.

My gripe is that the ill advised merger with Guildford’s Royal County Hospital is meant to allow Ashford to extend its cancer services to attract new business (yes – trusts now "compete" with each other so they need to woo business from other hospitals).

The problem is that cancer patients were the last to hear that there was anything wrong.

Let’s hope the buddy system works;

 

Runcorn and Widnes World

Whiston Hospital to 'buddy' another hospital to help improve the care of cancer

patients

First published Friday 13 February 2015  in News  

 

A PIONEERING buddy scheme is set to improve the care of cancer patients in

hospitals.

 

Whiston and St Helens hospitals have been chosen to help share their positive

experiences with another hospital in Surrey.

 

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust was identified by the cancer patient experience survey as being one of the most highly rated by patients.

 

It will be mentoring Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in

Surrey to help them improve their patients’ experience of care.

 

Ann Marr, chief executive of St Helens and Knowsley NHS Trust , said: “We’re really pleased to be part of this important project.

 

“We have a lot of respect for our buddy trust for taking part in the scheme too.

 

“It shows a real commitment to improving patients’ experience of care to take

part.

“We’re looking forward to sharing some of the work we’ve done at Whiston and St Helens hospitals and supporting them to try out new ways of working.

“I’m sure both sides will learn a lot from this experience.”

The buddy scheme is being run by NHS Improving Quality, the national NHS

improvement organisation.

The aim of the scheme is to spread and accelerate innovative practice via peer

to peer support and learning.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeterslogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

Ashford and St Peters merging again.

Just when we thought it was safe – they are at it again.

For the last two years Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Trust has been trying to take over poor old Epsom General Hospital – financially weak but with a good clinical reputation while with Ashford and St. Peter’s it’s the other way round.

There's no coincidence there, you get what you pay for.

Then that fell through to the relief of all the patients. If you are in any doubt, just look what happened when Ashford merged with St. Peters.

Now look what they are up to;

Get Surrey

  May 02, 2014 15:52 

  By James Watkins

The Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford and Ashford & St Peter's Hospitals NHS Trust have announced plans to merge, in a move which could save an estimated £10m-£20m.

 

If approved, the merger will take around 12 to 18 months to go through, and while full details have not been finalised it has been said that there could be reductions in back line staff, but there is no anticipation to reduce frontline services.

 

Nick Moberly, the chief executive of the Royal Surrey, said that from a patient point of view, they would not notice any changes or reduction in services across the three sites in Ashford, Chertsey and Guildford.

 

"It is not about taking things away from the sites, as now we can bring more specialised services back and grow specialised services," he said.

 

The trusts hope that by joining forces they can offer services which are currently only available in London, improve access to new treatments developed at both the University of Surrey and Royal Holloway, and pull resources together to create electronic patient records.

 

As well as that, the aim is to increase offering services over a seven-day period.

 

Medical director at the Royal Surrey, Christopher Tibbs, said: “Our strategy puts the patient at the heart of our plans and includes a clear vision for our three hospital sites, which already complement each other well.

 

"The Royal Surrey County Hospital will continue as an Emergency and Specialist Cancer Centre, with no planned changes to A&E, maternity or paediatric services, with the opportunity to develop more specialist cancer services.

 

"We want to develop St Peter’s Hospital as a Major Emergency Centre, building on recent developments in cardiovascular services and other specialities such as limb reconstruction and a Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit.

 

"Ashford Hospital will develop as a planned surgery and diagnostic centre where we can provide more local cancer treatments services.

 

"This is about enhancing services and doesn’t mean patients will have to travel further for routine hospital services.”

 

Andrew Liles, chief executive at Ashford and St Peter’s, said:  “Improving patient care for people in Surrey has been at the heart of our partnership work over the last 18 months.

 

"At the same time, our clinicians have developed a joint clinical vision which describes clear benefits for patients through increased collaboration.

 

"Having considered a number of options on the best way to deliver high quality services to patients, our boards have decided that the merger of our two organisations will provide the long-term, sustainable, high quality care that patients need.”

 

David Fluck, medical director at Ashford and St Peter’s, added: “Healthcare is changing and we must change with it.

 

"People are living longer, often with multiple conditions - combined with new medicines and technologies and a strong focus on improving quality of care, we need to transform the way we work to keep pace with these changes and continue to develop.

 

"The two trusts working together gives us the opportunity to make the transformational change we need for our patients.”

The merger is subject to regulatory approval from the Competition and Markets Authority and risk assessment by Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts.

No one wants this merger, no one will benefit from it except the managers.

Despite the assurances given, the only economic basis for the merger would be to downgrade the Accident and Emergency and Maternity units at Guildford so that patients are forced to use the units at St. Peter’s.

In the case of the A and E those are the people who sent me home with a displaced broken ankle for a week.

IT savings - since when was it ever possible to save any money on the bottomless pit of IT?

And patients?

No one in Guildford wants to go to Chertsey.

Staff?

No one wants to work at St. Peter’s.

Managers?

Bigger Trust means bigger salaries.

There is strong academic analysis that shows such mergers produce the opposite of what is expected; bigger hospitals result in higher administrative costs and poorer clinical outcomes. 

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

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