23 | March | 2016 | mydaftlife

‘Er, Jim, you know we said we’d appoint an improvement director for that Trust, down south. You know. The one that was caught out covering up learning disability deaths?’

‘Yes. I remember. How could I forget? That godawful meeting with that service user’s mother. Dreadful, dreadful woman.’

‘Well, it’s been quite a while now and we did sort of suggest it was going to be an urgent action…’

‘Surely we can rope in some herb to do this. Christ. Sloven must have a range of external consultants who can step up for a few weeks. I mean it’s not real work. We just said we’d appoint someone. It doesn’t mean anything…’

‘Well it’s a bit awkward because social media makes this stuff transparent and, to be fair, it has been a few months now. And, er, the trust didn’t investigate hundreds of deaths.’

‘Don’t get sucked in, Jim Junior. A word of advice. If you want a career in this biz, question nothing. Keep your head down. Once you start to engage with patients and their families, you might as well give up. Just ignore them. They disappear. Or become so desperate, it’s easy to bat them away.

And another thing. Monitor won’t exist for much longer. NHS Improvement is the way forward. We are going to shine a beacon on poor practice.

Was there anything else you wanted?’

‘Sorry boss, but we’ve heard that BBC Breakfast are running a feature tomorrow morning. A pretty forthright piece asking what we’ve all done since the Mazars review was published.’
‘FFS.’
Tap tap tap.
‘Get old whatsi, you know… that other improvement director we’ve got. Alan whatsi. And get comms to put out a release. And hold it till end of play so it gets lost in Easter. Bloody pain in the arse stuff.’

[Text in bold added after Monitor announced the appointment of Alan Yates after 6pm the day before Easter weekend.]

Heard tonight, on the old grapevine (thank you grapevine) that Katrina Percy, Sloven CEO, was in Oxford last week. Shudder. Announcing the sale of Sloven Oxfordshire properties and the Slade House site where LB died. [Howl].

Sloven acquired, through a bit of a flaky process (reflections on the due diligence process here) the contract for providing services in Oxfordshire. A contract that apparently contained no clause around what happened to land/property if this organisation didn’t deliver and failed to improve services.Someone said to us, back in the day, that LB’s death and the subsequent shutting of STATT and John Sharich House on the Slade House site could allegedly make it easier to flog the site.

Apparently, when prescribed land/property use has failed for a two year year period, planning permission to do something different is a doddle. In effect, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) and Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) seem to have gifted premium land /properties to a bunch of ‘out of town cowboys’. Or, in current gameshow speak, Sloven have been given a steal (of filthy lucre).

Stupidity. Utter stupidity. Corruptness? Incompetence? Or all three. How could this possibly be?

An NHS Trust, swallowing up failing provision after a right royal roadshow;

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/38158627″>Katrina’s Ridgeway Message</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/southernhealth”>Southern Health</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

“Superb, world class services” my arse. Evidence of failing to investigate hundreds of unexpected deaths across a four year period while merrily lining up the sale of prime land in a county 100 miles away from Sloven towers. Leeching much needed resources from Oxfordshire. Katrina Percy then pitches up, around the two year anniversary of official failure, to announce the sale.

You are fucking kidding me?

We have strong local light shining gang which is something. My Life My Choice, our MP, Andrew Smith and the continued focus of BBC Oxford journalists. Andrew Smith wrote to OCC and OCCG in April 2013 expressing his concern about the obvious dip in staff morale after the Sloven take over of Ridgeway, and has remained deeply concerned at the potential sale of the site and loss of money to the county.

BBC Radio Oxford have been terrier like over this sordid tale, repeatedly airing the latest unfoldings and doing their best to hold Sloven and others to account. My Life My Choice met with the Sloven Board Chair, Mike Petter, and put some pretty hard hitting questions to him.

In answer to a question about the sale of Slade House, he answered:

“If it is sold by Southern Health, the money will go back into Learning Disability Services in Oxfordshire. If somebody else sells it, they might have a different idea.”

Bit of a funny answer about ‘someone else selling it’. But clearly stating Sloven will not be taking the money out of the county.

Earlier today I did a guest lecture for Oxford Brookes sociology students. I usually do a disability lecture (on their sociology of health and illness module). This year I was asked to talk about #JusticeforLB.

I rattled through Valuing People (2001), Valuing People Now (2008), Winterbourne View (2011), Winterbourne View Serious Case Review (2012) Transforming Care: a national response to Winterbourne View (2012), Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of Learning Disabled People (March 2013) and Winterbourne View 2 years on (June 2013). All a complete and utter waste of resources. With pics of the kids at these key points.

2001

2008

2011

I then played The Tale of Laughing Boy.

There was a strangely eerie silence in the room. It happened in the Isle of Wight gig last week. And at the 12 Angry Women performance in Brighton the week before…

Pin drop stuff.

The students were engaged and got it. Sensible questions and bewilderment. I didn’t mention the Slade House site though. I stupidly believed Mike Petter.