Agenda item

Pam Richards, Protect Our NHS BANES made a statement to the Panel on the subject of the Virgin Care takeover. A copy of the statement can be found as an online appendix to these minutes and a summary is set out below.

Protect Our NHS BANES remain very concerned about the takeover of Virgin Care by a private equity company Twenty20 Capital. The way in which Virgin Care negotiated an extension of their contract with BANES Council and BSW CCG without any mention of this impending takeover was disgraceful and duplicitous.

We are surprised that this Committee has no item on their agenda to review progress and look at options. 

We therefore wish to re-iterate the questions that we posed in December as we believe that the public who fund the contract and benefit from the services that they deliver have a right to know. 

We have several questions about the legality and status of the contract extension

Was the extended contract signed off with Virgin Care and if so is this legally binding?

Is the decision about the contract extension valid in view of the fact that one of the parties ie. Virgin Care no longer exists as a company?

If this contract goes ahead, will HCRG be bound in law to observe all the current provisions of the contract including the agreement to re-invest any profits from the running of the contract back into BANES services?

We are deeply concerned about the possibility of a private equity company now owning and running our community health and social care services. We have looked at the websites of Twenty20 Capital and HCRG and see nothing to reassure us that these companies are anything other than profit driven, asset strippers who buy up and sell on companies with little respect for the services that the companies provide or the staff who work for them.

Protect Our NHS has consistently opposed the privatisation of health and social care services. This latest development confirms our worst fears. There is nothing to prevent this situation occurring again with staff and services regularly packaged up and sold on. The only solution is to insource the services and bring them back into the NHS and Local Authority.

The Chairman commented that he shared many of the concerns and questions raised and that he will await the replies from the Cabinet Member and officers.

Councillor Joanna Wright asked if the Panel should consider holding an additional meeting to discuss this specific matter solely.

The Chairman replied that he felt it was difficult to make this decision at the present time without seeing the answers to the questions raised.

Councillor Liz Hardman said that she felt that there would not be enough time between the Panel’s March 8^th meeting and a decision being made by the end of March. She asked Pam Richards what she knew about HCRG.

Pam Richards replied that they were a newly setup company in 2021 and had links to other companies, CRG (a recruitment company) and Allied Health (Homecare Services). She added that in her opinion they don’t have the expertise we would expect manage Social Care and Clinical needs across the Council.

Councillor Wright asked if she knew their practise in terms of profit use.

Pam Richards replied that 2020 Capital are a Private Equity company, but has seen information that states they look for significant returns within 2 – 5 years.

Councillor Wright asked what investigations are taking place regarding the takeover as some assurances are needed regarding this process / decision.

Councillor Alison Born replied that it is a worrying situation that did come out of the blue. She said that an organisation has been commissioned to carry out due diligence on HCRG. She stated that the contract extension has not been signed off at this stage and would aim to provide further information to the Panel as soon as was possible.

The Director of Adult Social Care added that officers were in the process of answering the questions raised and that work on the investigation in HCRG had begun over Christmas / New Year and that a report was expected in the early part of February 2022. She said that legal and procurement views were also being sought on how to proceed.

The Chairman thanked Pam Richards for her statement on behalf of the Panel.

Councillor Eleanor Jackson made a statement to the Panel about the Draft Budget Assumptions 2022/23. A copy of the statement can be found as an online appendix to these minutes and a summary is set out below.

I am confident that members of the Panel will subject the Budget as it affects children, young people and recipients of homecare and disability services to the kind of rigorous probing it deserves. Or at least, they would if they could, because far too much of this report either lacks detail as in the case of the changes to charges for adult social care, or joined up thinking as in the parking charges to be introduced in council car parks in Radstock and MSN for patients attending the doctors’ surgeries, the dentist or the vet’s.

Firstly, a young lady with severe mobility problems is living independently but requires four visits a day from carers. I suspect BANES is planning to reduce that to two in line with at least a third of other unitary authorities because they have not received sufficient funding from central government to maintain present levels. Independent living is essential to her mental well-being so a short term saving may mean more expense for the NHS long term.

Secondly, I received an email from a highly trained residential carer. He stuck to his post throughout the pandemic, doing more and more work as others fell sick. He is paid £10.25 per hour, and asks how he is going to survive as the costs of living increase. He loves his work, but cannot see how he will continue. A 2% increase as factored into the Budget will not help much.

Turning to the savings anticipated in foster care, transformation and so on, I cannot see how this can be achieved without putting children at risk, starting with over-burdened social workers. From the useful graph (p37) supplied, it seems that funding will not increase to cover the growth in need until 2026/27. I find this very worrying.

This Budget needs to be more radical, and fairer for lower income families than it is, beautiful as its environmental aspirations are.

The Chairman thanked Councillor Jackson for her statement on behalf of the Panel.