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Labour Party donor Gerry Robinson |
Richard Osley investigates why a top businessman bailed out at the last minute
The curious case of the TV cameras and the Free
Why did the BBC spend three months filming at the Royal Free Hospital for a major documentary, only to abandon ship?
A TRAIL of emails uncovered by the New Journal expose the truth behind the Royal Free hospital’s flirtation with business guru Sir Gerry Robinson and his plans to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about its performance for the BBC.
Messages sent between hospital directors reveal their suspicion that the programme had links to the Department of Health and even Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Chairwoman Pam Chesters said the film – suggestively titled ‘Can Gerry Fix the NHS?’ – had been ‘blessed’ by Downing Street.
Far from being an attempt to hit the government’s health policy, some of the hospital’s most senior members suspected an almost calculated attempt to show up a hospital struggling to balance the books while waiting to achieve Whitehall’s much-heralded ‘foundation’ status.
Emails – released to reporters under the Freedom of Information Act – also show high scepticism among doctors and nurses and an admission that staff were working under the stress of losing their jobs in a wider cost-cutting drive.
Sir Gerry – a multimillionaire Labour Party donor, who was once head of wine merchants Allied Domecq and food giants Compass – turned his back on the hospital in Pond Street, Hampstead, after around three months of filming and research.
Instead, he took his forthright business advice to a hospital in Rotherham. The results were broadcast in a three-part documentary last month to critical acclaim and stoked debate in national newspapers.
On its release, the New Journal asked both the Royal Free and Sir Gerry’s team why the project had headed north. Both shrugged off the change of plan.
But, in truth, the debate can be traced back to September 2005 when the Royal Free’s board of directors began discussing Sir Gerry’s approach by email.
Ms Chesters said: “This one comes with the blessing of the office of the Prime Minister (not that it should be the Free but that the concept is good from their point of view). Also the NHS Federation thinks it’s good. Finally the Department of Health Press/PR boss is supportive.”
In her message to directors, Ms Chesters said she was “instinctively wary” and concerned staff could be misrepresented.
But she added: “What’s in it for us – some free consulting – though that could be bought in if we feel we need it, internal morale and external positive profile – both of which I think we definitely need but inevitably this is a risk. We need to recognise it could backfire.
“However, if it’s blessed by the PM’s office/ Department of Health, this leverage could help guarantee our success (my perception is that Gerry’s personal Labour party credentials are also good).”
Ms Chesters, a former Tory councillor on Camden Council, suggested that the hospital’s “agenda” – presumably its long-term goal to become a foundation hospital – would be heard at the highest level.
She said: “Whatever the BBC may or may not be willing to say that criticises the gov’s public services, if this is indeed blessed from on high, our NHS partners will be much more inclined to support our agenda since it’s clearly in the PM’s/Depts interest that the service is moving forward to ever greater success etc – which could be a powerful positive.”
In a later email she said she wanted confirmation that “No 10” and the “DoH” wanted the documentary to proceed.
The response from directors was to proceed with caution.
Hospital director Dame Barbara Mills said: “It is always a great risk to have TV crews and no control over the editing but I think that we could take that risk in view of the support which the project has.”
But Professor Humphrey Hodgson, also on the board, spelt out his suspicion in even clearer terms. He linked the film with the government’s drive to turn hospitals into foundation trusts, the controversial process where hospitals become semi-independent, working at arms-length from ministers.
He said: “Let us accept that this is ‘blessed’ by number 10 and the New Labour Party – what would they like to see?
“Could it be the image of a non-foundation Trust not making its way financially because it reflected ‘old thinking’… and now paying the price for that with urgent and de-stabilising change?”
Researchers were allowed into the hospital in late 2005 – a move approved by chief executive Andrew Way.
Sir Gerry’s aides said last month that their decision to ultimately move to Rotherham was because the project had “lots of irons in the fire”.
But it is clear that the Royal Free was more than a passing consideration – contracts were agreed, filming schedules were drawn up and a press release circulated.
In the meantime, doctors and nurses were becoming wary.
Head of press Philippa Hutchinson collected feedback from staff, asking them what line of questioning researchers had taken.
Union chief Jim Mansfield told the press office in November 2005: “As I suspected they are only interested in something which will make ‘good telly’… We are still undecided from the staff side what our view is about taking part.”
At the end of that month, Ms Hutchinson told the BBC: “Certainly the level of scepticism about this project is very high at all levels. I can’t actually think off-hand of anyone who has proactively embraced the view that it is a good idea, apart from Andrew (Way) and myself.”
She went further by conceding that staff were worried for the security of their jobs.
At the time, 100 patient beds had been scrapped. Months later, the Free announced its biggest ever cost-cutting plan with 500 jobs axed.
Putting on a brave face, Mr Way insisted that the changes were for the best and that morale was still good.
But Ms Hutchinson had told researchers on November 30: “It is also a very very difficult time for staff. There are lots of people here worried about their jobs, about meeting very exacting targets and saving money on a grand scale.
“They need a lot more reassurance that you are all nice people and wouldn’t dream of saying anything nasty about us.”
BBC researcher Kelly Webb-Lamb tried to allay the hospital’s fears. “In my experience sometimes the only thing that gets staff of all levels on board is for them to meet us and see that we are actually perfectly nice and have reasonable intentions,” she wrote.
“If they don’t want to talk, we go away, if they are busy we watch and don’t interfere, and if they want to talk, we talk.”
But by mid-2006 it was clear the project – in terms of the Free’s involvement – had been dropped. A spokeswoman said last month: “Gerry arrived. It became clear we could not give him the room to manoeuvre he wanted.
“They did some filming but they decided not to come back because they just did not have the necessary leeway.
“He likes to have a freehand but we were looking to redesign our patient pathways and could not offer him that.”
Sir Gerry said there was no single reason why the programme had switched hospitals and it was “not a criticism of the Free”. |
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