JANET STREET PORTER: Self-important pen-pushers are neglecting the most vulnerable
Chief executive of the health and social care regulator Care Quality Commission (CQC) Cynthia Bower
Did the head of the Care Quality Commission, Cynthia Bowers (salary 200,000, pension fund currently 1,350,000) feel as angry as I did reading the coroners report on the death of Mary Roberts at Gwynedd Hospital in Bangor last week?
Admitted to A&E with a stomach bug, Mrs Roberts suffered a cardiac arrest the next day and died. Described as a full circle of disaster following disaster by the local MP, last week an inquest heard how Mrs Roberts last hours in an NHS establishment couldnt have been any worse. The coroner called the catalogue of errors appalling.
Twice a nurse asked a doctor for help yet nobody checked on Mrs Roberts as her condition worsened, there was no care plan and her medical notes were missing. This was a preventable death and no apology can recompense grieving relatives.
Thank goodness I do not live near Gwynedd Hospital, but many of my elderly relatives do and the saga of Mary Roberts will distress them greatly. Elfyn Llwyd, leader of Plaid Cymru at Westminster, says this story is reminiscent of the Third World.
If only it were an isolated case, but its not. Many of you emailed and wrote to me with similar stories last June when I said Cynthia Bowers was a disgrace and should resign. The CQC is supposed to monitor standards and ensure scandals such as Mary Roberts dont happen in modern Britain.
Unfortunately, they are common, in spite of over-paid bureaucrats, self-important quangos and endless inquiries. Last week, a House of Commons inquiry revealed the awful truth behind C! ynthia B owers regime at CQC. The commission carried out 70 per cent FEWER inspections in the second half of 2010-11 compared to the year before!
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Asked to make cuts and take on the extra burden of registering providers of social care, dentists and private ambulance services, the CQC prioritised box-ticking and form filling at the expense of its core activity: ensuring standards are met in hospitals and care homes.
Told to recruit 70 extra inspectors, it took eight months to fill the much-needed posts. MPs said the CQC had been distracted and had failed to alert the Government and public to the fact they were swamped with extra work and not doing their job properly.
During those six months when inspections plummeted, how many more deaths were there like Mrs Roberts? Stephen Dorrell, who chaired the inquiry, said on the radio it was unacceptable that patients now accept second best and asked the CQC to focus on central issues.
Exactly if Cynthia Bower was running a factory making anything from cupcakes to cars, it would have gone out of business ages ago, while she sat in the back office making sure the paper clips were lined up and the stationary order was up to scratch.
Because the recipients of the CQCs standards are generally the old, those with learning difficulties and extra social needs, the concept of care has become rather elastic. Battery chickens have higher standards of care, it seems.
In its annual report, the CQC says 51 per cent of nursing homes and NHS hospitals do not comply with basic standards of care. Spot checks on geriatric wards showed one in ten failed to treat patients with dignity or feed them properly.
The CQC says it will visit all care providers a! nnually and that the number of inspections has risen to more than 2,500 between April and June, compared with just 886 between October and December last year. It is hiring another 100 inspectors hopefully, the recruitment process can be speeded up.
Earlier this year, Cynthia Bowers failed to spot that Southern Cross the leading private care home provider was in difficulty. She did not respond to a whistleblower who contacted the CQC over horrific abuse at Winterbourne House near Bristol, filmed for an edition of Panorama, which resulted in staff being arrested and the home closed.
Dereliction in the care of the vulnerable should be addressed by a charismatic patients champion not a professional pen-pusher and bureaucrat, who last week was addressing yet another conference in Westminster, when she could have been visiting unannounced a sub-standard NHS hospital somewhere in the UK.
Cynthia Bowers must resign and hand over to someone who puts people before pamphlets, care before quotas and results before damage limitation.
TOWIE phenomenon Amy Childs
Amy's no vintage star...
Last week I put on heavy duty control underwear and attended a TV awards ceremony, only to be rewarded with my first encounter with the TOWIE phenomenon that is Amy Childs.
The former beautician and vajazzling expert (whatever that is) fresh from coming fourth in the latest Big Brother sat at my table. But as I am about 50 years out of her age group and wasnt sprayed with perma tan, she studiously ignored me, concentrating all her efforts on Peter Andre.
Amy was trying to stroke his arm, but her nails are so long she was reduced to scratching at the fabric of his jacket.
Peter is a jolly fellow and ate all his dinner (good bloke!), while Amy shunned solids, looked sulky (perhaps thats the Chigwell version of sultry) and tinkered with her wine gla! ss, clev erly making instant ros by pouring red wine into her glass of sauvignon blanc.
Very stylish.
The Pizza Factor
I dont know or care whether Simon Cowell is engaged or dating, but I am fascinated that the flamboyant TV mogul needs to have not one, but TWO pizza ovens installed on the terrace of his house in Beverly Hills.
Apparently Simon does so much entertaining that one 10,000 oven wouldnt be enough and hes insisted that each oven is surrounded by swanky brickwork costing another 5,000.
Two years ago, I bought my partner a book called Garden Projects You Can Build In A Day, to entice him into making a simple barbecue out of bricks. This allegedly simple construction took five trips to the hardware store. The metal lid had to be specially made and later blew off.
The bottom part of the barbie filled with water and had to be drilled out. Plus, this summer has been so wet we havent used it and the built-in metal bars are going rusty. On balance, I can see why Simon is splashing out.
Queuing up for Silvio service
In demand: Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi has been caught boasting on the phone to a mate that so many women queued outside his bedroom one night in 2008 he could only have sex with eight of them.
In another secretly recorded conversation, the Italian Prime Minister complained that his sex life would have to be put on hold temporarily, as he had a terrible week coming up, seeing the Pope, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Never mind his extraordinary sexual prowess, Berlusconi must have the skin of a rhino hes written to an Italian newspaper saying my private life is not a crime ... it is personal, reserved and irreproachable.
Whether Mr B paid for these girls is of no interest to me I want to know what kind of queuing system he operated in the middle of the n! ight.
Was it like the one on the meat counter at my supermarket, where you take a ticket from a machine?
More women for the Beeb
BBC Chairman Chris Patten says more women should be presenting programmes for the Corporation, citing his 66-year-old wife as a good example of what is missing. Couldnt agree more, Chris. Im 64 and currently enjoy presenting Loose Women on ITV1.
Recently, I appeared on the Beebs Countryfile (with two blokes) and this week Ill be recording a BBC1 comedy show (hosted by a bloke). I also recently appeared on a Radio Four show presented by a male comedian. Need I say more?
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