01/08/2012 Newsnight


01/08/2012

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Here comes Wiggins? He bags gold as he has the Midas touch on day five

:01:12.:01:19.

of the Olympics. The SAS author Gore Vidal has died at the age of

:01:19.:01:24.

46. We ask Eric Jong about his writings, feuds and view of

:01:24.:01:27.

American politics. So I thrust myself into the campaign with no

:01:27.:01:31.

money, our system is totally corrupt, we have to find about a

:01:31.:01:36.

million dollars if you want to get collected. I couldn't find a

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million dollars, but I got half a million votes.

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Good evening. Sean Rigg was a 40- year-old talented artist and mu

:01:48.:01:53.

significant. But he also suffered from skitsfreenia. He died in a

:01:53.:01:57.

cage at Brixton Police Station in August 2 -- schizophrenia, he died

:01:57.:02:01.

in a age at Brixton Police Station. What happened in the last hour of

:02:01.:02:05.

his life has always been in unclear. Today an inquiry found the police

:02:05.:02:08.

had used an unsuitable level of force against him. The coroner said

:02:08.:02:11.

there was an absence of leadership from those who should have been

:02:11.:02:18.

looking after him. Newsnight's report on the Rigg's family

:02:18.:02:22.

campaign featured on Newsnight earlier this year. But so far no

:02:22.:02:25.

police officer has been charged with the death.

:02:25.:02:30.

We followed the story from the beginning.

:02:30.:02:35.

He was full of life, he was adventurous, and he was such a

:02:35.:02:40.

creative guy. He was an extraordinary person. He had a lot

:02:40.:02:46.

to live for. It was August 2008 when Sean, their son and brother,

:02:46.:02:52.

died. Every day since, his family have struggled, amid a police and

:02:52.:02:57.

legal system, seemingly stacked against them. Sean was trying to

:02:57.:03:02.

get on with his life, despite a mental illness. He wrote about his

:03:02.:03:07.

life, and he wrote about it in lyrics and music. It is very sad.

:03:07.:03:11.

Sean Rigg died here, in the cage of the back yard of Brixton Police

:03:11.:03:14.

Station. His treatment, and neglect, at the hands of the police, were,

:03:14.:03:19.

in the words of today's inquest jury, "more than minimally to

:03:20.:03:24.

blame". Police CCTV shows him in white trousers being led from a

:03:24.:03:28.

police van. He was dying as these CCTV pictures were taken. As he

:03:28.:03:34.

gets to the cage, a camera, inside the station, shows him collapsed.

:03:34.:03:38.

What happened here, and the events that led Sean Rigg to be brought to

:03:39.:03:42.

the back yard of this Police Station to die, has raised serious

:03:42.:03:46.

questions about the kofpb duct of the police, the Independent Police

:03:46.:03:50.

Complaints Commisssion, and the -- the conduct of the police and the

:03:50.:03:52.

Independent Police Complaints Commisssion. It has taken Sean

:03:53.:03:56.

Rigg's family four years and today's verdict to get answers. The

:03:56.:04:02.

inquest jury was highly critical of the mental health service's ined

:04:02.:04:05.

adequate care of Sean Rigg, and theerm damning of the failings of

:04:05.:04:08.

the police. They say the police use of unsuitable force, and their

:04:08.:04:13.

absence of care, contributed to Sean Rigg's death. His family

:04:13.:04:17.

agreed. If the south London and Maudsley Trust had done their job

:04:17.:04:23.

properly, and provided the care and help that Sean urgently needed, he

:04:23.:04:27.

would be alive today. If the police had not ignored repeated 999 calls,

:04:27.:04:31.

from the hostel, and taken Sean to the hospital, as they should have

:04:31.:04:36.

done, he would have been alive today. I'm just calling for those

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officers to be fired, they should not be able to stay in their jobs.

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# No no Sean Rigg would rap about the mental illness he had generally

:04:51.:04:56.

overcome. In 2008 he stopped taking his medication. Staff at the hostel

:04:56.:05:00.

where he lived, staff at the hostel wanted the healthcare team to

:05:00.:05:06.

intervene, they didn't. The staff desperately wanted to get him help,

:05:06.:05:12.

they could see he was in deep psychosis. The mental healthcare

:05:12.:05:17.

team told the hostel to call the police. There was no a protocol

:05:17.:05:20.

between the mental healthcare and the police, where this should have

:05:20.:05:27.

been in hand. The hostel called the police four times, and were told

:05:27.:05:37.
:05:37.:05:52.

The jury were horrified, you know, the gasps in the court. One of the

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jurors actually asked that particular witness if he was still

:05:55.:05:59.

in his job, after that. She appeared to be horrified when he

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said he was. The striking thing about this case, is that right from

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the start, the jury of ordinary citizens, multiracial, six black

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and five white, seemed to understand the most complex and

:06:12.:06:17.

important issues. They got it. Frequently exercising their right

:06:17.:06:21.

to ask questions about any apparent inconsistencies of the testimony of

:06:21.:06:26.

the police and other witnesses. Eventually, after a taxi driver

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called to say a man, apparently with mental health problems,

:06:30.:06:37.

striped to the waist, was practising Karate moves, a police

:06:37.:06:40.

patrol chased Sean Rigg outside a block of flats. When the police

:06:40.:06:44.

finally caught up with Sean Rigg, they claimed in testimony it had

:06:44.:06:48.

taken only seconds to restrain him. But photographs taken by a

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neighbour four minutes apart, showed that wasn't true. The jury

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concluded the police had spent eight minutes unnecessarily

:06:55.:06:57.

restraining Sean Rigg with unsuitable force.

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He was prone throughout. Sean Rigg, handcuffed, was put on the floor in

:07:02.:07:05.

the back of a police van. With his condition following restraint

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deteriorating, he was taken, not to hospital, but to Brixton Police

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Station. He was then left, in the van, for over ten minutes.

:07:12.:07:16.

If Sean was well, he should have stepped out the van like any other

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prisoner, and walked straight into the custody suite. He couldn't do

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that, without aid from the police. When he was eventually removed from

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the van, and brought to the few steps, he was on the floor. At one

:07:30.:07:33.

point they tried to stand him up, claiming in evidence he was

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presenting a hazard to officers, who could have tripped over his

:07:37.:07:43.

body. One officer, standing over Mr Rigg, said he hoped he hasn't got

:07:43.:07:47.

anything, he had his blood on him. And then added, oh Christ, he's

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faking it. It is a catalogue of errors, that any ordinary human

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being person wouldn't commit. If somebody is dying at your feet, the

:07:59.:08:02.

first thing you are going to do is stoop down. But the officers, as

:08:02.:08:07.

what came out in the evidence on the CCTV, were just standing, and

:08:07.:08:11.

saying there is nothing wrong with Sean, or he was sleeping. One of

:08:11.:08:16.

the officers thought he was mute. It was very alarming to sit and

:08:16.:08:21.

hear these things in the inquest about our brother. What, faking it?

:08:21.:08:24.

They were saying he was faking and pretending to be unconscious.

:08:24.:08:28.

Pretending to fit. They basically ignored a dying man. It took 20

:08:28.:08:31.

minutes for the station doctor to be called. They came back on their

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blues and twos, why did it take 20 minutes to bring the doctor, when

:08:37.:08:42.

Sean was breathless, that was one of the juror's questions to the

:08:42.:08:46.

doctor. What about the IPPC? What about them, they are completely

:08:46.:08:50.

useless. The case has become a cause he is will he be bre, the

:08:50.:08:58.

Rigg family said from the start they were let down by the IPC, who

:08:58.:09:03.

waited months to question officers. The Campaign Group say Sean Rigg's

:09:03.:09:08.

death is one too many. We can't have any more deaths like this, I

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have seen a pattern, historically, of young black men, with mental

:09:12.:09:15.

health problems, and other people with mental health problems, dying

:09:15.:09:18.

around the country, in similar circumstances. We are not going to

:09:18.:09:24.

take this any more. It is not fair, and we want to, we want justice.

:09:24.:09:30.

Not just for Sean, but others. Rigg, a physically fit 40-year-old

:09:30.:09:36.

died in Brixton Police Station four years ago. His family say they want

:09:36.:09:44.

the Crown Prosecution Service to act. We have the Assistant

:09:44.:09:47.

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police with us, we will talk to him

:09:47.:09:50.

shortly first Sean Rigg's brother and sister are here. You have had a

:09:50.:09:54.

very long battle to reach even the inquest, four years. What did you

:09:54.:10:00.

make of the result today? Well, the result just told us what we already

:10:00.:10:05.

knew. But the fact that 11 ordinary men and women came to the same

:10:05.:10:12.

conclusion as us, we didn't know them, they had looked at six weeks

:10:12.:10:17.

of evidence, and seen police lie under oath. Looked at all the

:10:17.:10:23.

evidence, and basically found that the police failed and neglected

:10:23.:10:27.

Sean. What did you say? Pretty much the same, for the last four years,

:10:27.:10:33.

this has been our life, basically, and we have become investigators

:10:33.:10:39.

ourselves. We spent many hours going through CCTV and waiting for

:10:39.:10:42.

this day for the inquest to come. We are pleased with the verdict

:10:42.:10:48.

that the jury had. What do you want to happen now? What we would like

:10:48.:10:51.

is a file to be pass today the Crown Prosecution Service, we

:10:51.:10:54.

believe there is enough evidence for these officers to be prosecuted.

:10:54.:10:57.

We are thinking in the interests of justice and the interests of the

:10:57.:11:02.

public, this must happen. Even discipline rees within the

:11:02.:11:07.

Metropolitan Police? Most -- disciplinies within the

:11:07.:11:11.

Metropolitan Police? Most definitely. If the file is passed

:11:11.:11:14.

to the CPS and there is no action, would you consider private

:11:14.:11:18.

prosecution? Absolutely. We are willing to do whatever it takes to

:11:18.:11:28.
:11:28.:11:29.

bring these officers to justice. think his blood is calling out from

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the ground, we can't fail him any more. What do you feel about the

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actions of the Met, do you feel let down by them, do you feel they have

:11:37.:11:40.

done as much as they could? Absolutely not. Throughout the

:11:40.:11:44.

inquest, evidence came out on how they willfully, in my opinion,

:11:44.:11:49.

neglected my brother, they knew he was ill and dying, in fact. They

:11:49.:11:54.

did nothing to help him. Thank you very much. Assistant Commissioner

:11:54.:11:58.

Simon Burn is here to give the first interview on the issue today.

:11:58.:12:04.

What do you say to the Rigg family? Firstly, I'm saddened, and it is a

:12:04.:12:09.

very serious issue for the Met, I'm troubled. This is the first

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opportunity to apologise for the death of Sean. This has been an

:12:14.:12:16.

awful burden for the family for four years, there is nothing I can

:12:17.:12:19.

do to put that right in the immediacy of the moment. We are

:12:19.:12:23.

here to learn lessons and reassure you and other people watching and

:12:23.:12:26.

listening in London and beyond, that we have learned lessons and we

:12:26.:12:30.

will change what we do. We will go through this piece by piece. Let's

:12:31.:12:35.

talk about the 999 calls, five increasingly frantic 999 calls,

:12:35.:12:39.

from the hostel, from the support hostel, over three hours, and the

:12:39.:12:46.

police did not respond. Is that entirely unacceptable? This is, we

:12:46.:12:50.

hold our hands out, how we managed the calls over three hours, we got

:12:50.:12:54.

that wrong. As your reporter said, and repeat elsewhere, it set in

:12:54.:12:58.

train a course of events that tragically led to the death. That

:12:58.:13:02.

is the first part of the events, and as I understand it, there is no

:13:02.:13:08.

disciplinary on those people taking the 99 calls, surely unacceptable?

:13:08.:13:14.

We have taken incertainly -- internally action against one

:13:14.:13:18.

member of staff. There is bureaucracy around serious issues

:13:18.:13:22.

around this issue but also for the Met, we are caught up in the

:13:22.:13:26.

bureaucracy until we get to the end of the investigation like this.

:13:26.:13:30.

sure they will move faster on that issue. The next issue, the police

:13:30.:13:35.

claimed, in testimony, that they restrained Sean for a matter of

:13:35.:13:38.

seconds. The jury, very calmly and clearly looked at the evidence and

:13:39.:13:43.

said it was eight minutes. Why did police officers lie? I'm not here

:13:43.:13:47.

to second guess the testimony of some of my officers, and

:13:47.:13:51.

obviously...Tell Me how you account for the discrepancy? Again, I'm not

:13:51.:13:54.

here to second guess what they have said. Clearly the jury, as you have

:13:55.:13:57.

said yourself, had six weeks to carefully consider the evidence,

:13:57.:14:00.

and they drew a different conclusion. A different conclusion,

:14:00.:14:04.

but there is evidence, of course, that not only that different

:14:04.:14:08.

conclusion, you it is the correct conclusion, because a neighbour

:14:08.:14:11.

took photographs which show the restraint happened at least over

:14:11.:14:14.

four minutes. So the officers weren't telling the truth? I fully

:14:14.:14:18.

appreciate that. If you are trying to see it from a general

:14:18.:14:20.

perspective, officers make snap decisions in circumstances like

:14:20.:14:26.

this, and I'm talking in general terms, their recollection can

:14:26.:14:30.

differ. The issue is he was restrained, and we have learned

:14:30.:14:34.

lessons about how we restrain people in those circumstances, to

:14:34.:14:38.

prevent a repetition of such an event. The police officers involved

:14:38.:14:42.

claim that Sean was sitting upright in the back of the van. The jury

:14:42.:14:48.

said not only was he on the floor, but in the foot well, in a V-shape.

:14:48.:14:51.

You heard that he was a physically healthy young man, within an hour

:14:51.:14:56.

of that happening he was dead. Should he have been held in the

:14:56.:15:00.

footwell of that vn, restrained with his hands behind -- van,

:15:00.:15:03.

restrained with his hands behind his back? If you look at the detail,

:15:03.:15:07.

trying to imagine a situation. Our officers were presented with man

:15:07.:15:13.

they believed, and had seen doing violence. They, would it be

:15:13.:15:18.

reasonable to suggest that these officers, having been told that had

:15:18.:15:23.

been all these 999 calls, that he was making Karate moves in the

:15:23.:15:27.

street, that he was bare from the chest up, that he had come from a

:15:27.:15:30.

hostel, that actually he was displaying evidence of mental

:15:30.:15:33.

illness. What you can see from the sequence of events played out in

:15:33.:15:37.

front of the jury, that so. Information conveyed to the initial

:15:37.:15:41.

officers wasn't as good as it could have been, that led to errors in

:15:41.:15:45.

judgment. Errors in judgments like, he's faking it? Again, I can't sit

:15:45.:15:48.

here and account for individual officers, because they have given

:15:48.:15:52.

their testimony on oath to an inquest, and as you have seen from

:15:52.:15:56.

today, for example, the Independent Police Complaints Commisssion are

:15:56.:15:59.

now reviewing what they do next. I have to cautious about what I say

:15:59.:16:03.

so I don't corrupt a process that will follow. Something you can

:16:03.:16:07.

certainly respond to, what the jury and coroner found, was that the

:16:07.:16:13.

level of force was unsuitable, the length of restraint more than

:16:13.:16:18.

minimally contributed to his death, Rushocked? I'm saddened. What I --

:16:18.:16:25.

Are you shocked? I'm saddened, the picture of Sean lying on the floor

:16:26.:16:30.

with officers, what we have changed, the training tells people when they

:16:30.:16:33.

restrain people like that, they turn them on the side to prevent

:16:33.:16:37.

suffocation, we have tried to put the wrongs right. It doesn't make

:16:37.:16:41.

it any easier for the two people sitting opposite me hurting. We are

:16:41.:16:46.

trying to pick up the lessons from an event four years ago. Within one

:16:46.:16:53.

hour of Sean Rigg being picked up by the police he was dead. Yes.

:16:53.:16:56.

the officers involved all still serving officers? They are, because,

:16:56.:17:00.

as explained, there has been a lengthy process, that has led to

:17:00.:17:02.

the inquest today. There will now be decisions made by other people,

:17:03.:17:06.

which we are here to support, in terms of are there any other

:17:06.:17:09.

further inquiries or consequences for those officers. But we have to

:17:09.:17:13.

be bound by the judicial framework that goes with that. You are a

:17:13.:17:18.

senior officer in the Metropolitan Police, do you believe that there

:17:18.:17:23.

should be disciplinaries of these men, at least? Again, I'm conscious

:17:23.:17:26.

that, to the public watching this tonight, there's probably a pretty

:17:26.:17:32.

damning set of events. But to the family, this is the damning set of

:17:32.:17:35.

events, without doubt, these officers failed in their duty.

:17:35.:17:38.

Would it not be reasonable to say that both the officers and the

:17:38.:17:45.

people that led them should face disciplinary proceedings? Not that

:17:45.:17:50.

is something you can't discuss because of bureaucracy prior to the

:17:50.:17:55.

inquest, these are events of prima facia, they didn't act properly?

:17:55.:18:00.

don't want to be drawn on a snap reaction after the inquest. We will

:18:00.:18:03.

follow up what to do next. There are other people who will take an

:18:03.:18:12.

interest in this, like the IP CC, and the CPS. There are a lot of

:18:12.:18:16.

death in police custody, that have never led, as I understand it, to

:18:16.:18:19.

police officers being prosecuted. It seems a huge balance of

:18:19.:18:22.

probability that there are some officers who should have been

:18:22.:18:25.

prosecuted. Do you think you need to review the procedure around the

:18:25.:18:28.

way you treat deaths in custody? There is a few things, just to try

:18:28.:18:32.

to put the balance right. This doesn't bring Sean back. Firstly,

:18:32.:18:36.

we have to take every case on its merits, it is easy to generalise

:18:36.:18:40.

about a whole set of facts and figure. Secondly, the way we are

:18:40.:18:45.

told to record deaths in police custody, covers a whole variety of

:18:45.:18:47.

different circumstances. If I'm giving first aid to one who dies,

:18:47.:18:53.

that is a death in police custody. If an involvement in a violent

:18:53.:18:58.

event like Sean went through, that is a death in cuss towedy. Figure

:18:58.:19:01.

don't tell the whole pick -- custody. Figures don't tell the

:19:01.:19:07.

whole picture, that is day in and day out for the police officers.

:19:07.:19:10.

Danny Boyle celebrated the NHS in the Olympic Opening Ceremony as a

:19:10.:19:15.

great institution. What kind of institution can it become in the

:19:15.:19:18.

21st century. Hinchingbrooke Hospital might hold the key. It is

:19:18.:19:24.

the first NHS-privately run hospital, taken by the Cirle group

:19:24.:19:29.

after it failed clinically and financially with �40 million of

:19:29.:19:32.

death. Since then the Cambridgeshire hospital has been

:19:32.:19:36.

transformed into a for-profit business. But solvency is a long

:19:36.:19:40.

way off. I will speak to the chief executive in a moment. First we

:19:40.:19:43.

have exclusive access to the hospital.

:19:43.:19:50.

What you do when it is the hospital that's sick? Almost since it opened,

:19:50.:19:53.

Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire was in a worse state than some of

:19:53.:19:58.

the its patients. Hinchingbrooke NHS Trust in Huntingdon has no

:19:58.:20:02.

stars, making it, officially, one of the worst hospitals in Britain.

:20:02.:20:07.

After a series of needless deaths two years a The Royal College of

:20:07.:20:11.

Surgeries criticised the surgery team responsible for bowel surgery

:20:11.:20:15.

as dysfuntional. The surgical team represented a risk to patients'

:20:15.:20:18.

safety. Things got so bad at the hospital, some advised closing it

:20:18.:20:22.

entirely was the only safe course of action.

:20:22.:20:26.

Instead, they tried an experimental and radical course of treatment,

:20:26.:20:30.

for the first time in the UK a district General Hospital was given

:20:30.:20:34.

over to a private sector organisation to manage. Six months

:20:34.:20:37.

on from the start that have experiment, Newsnight has been

:20:37.:20:41.

given exclusive access to Hinchingbrooke to find out what's

:20:41.:20:46.

changed. One of our wards here we are getting 100% satisfaction of

:20:46.:20:49.

our patients. For that work can everybody give them a round of

:20:49.:20:53.

applause, you know who you are. There is still a way to go.

:20:53.:20:57.

Nevertheless, at Hinchingbrooke they are celebrating the sixth

:20:57.:21:02.

month milestone with cupcakes. are satisfied with looking after

:21:02.:21:06.

every single one of our patients. These partner meetings are a big

:21:06.:21:09.

part of the turn around strategy. They are called partner meetings

:21:09.:21:12.

because the staff now own 49% of the company. That is part of the

:21:12.:21:16.

plan, reignighting, and then harnessing their creative

:21:16.:21:22.

enthusiasm. Talk to your colleagues in the wards. The boss is Ali Parsa,

:21:22.:21:26.

a charasmatic Iranian-born former engineer. What we are seeing is

:21:26.:21:31.

look, the doctors, the nurse, the healthcare professionals, meeting

:21:31.:21:35.

the patients every day should be running the hospitals. Their orders

:21:35.:21:38.

shouldn't come from people in Whitehall who hardly ever meet a

:21:38.:21:42.

patient. We are all human beings, and we react to the pressures

:21:42.:21:45.

closest to us. But giving control to the people on the frontline, you

:21:46.:21:49.

are empowering them to react to the pressure they see every day, which

:21:49.:21:55.

is the demands of their patients. A good place to see how this

:21:55.:21:57.

process works is in the kitchen. Obviously people don't come to

:21:57.:22:02.

hospital for the food, but, if it's terrible, they can end up staying

:22:02.:22:08.

longer. Not eating delays recovery, or, sometimes worse. At the

:22:08.:22:10.

beginning of the year, Hinchingbrooke only had half of

:22:10.:22:16.

patients saying they liked the food. Now that figure is over 90%.

:22:16.:22:19.

think what is bringing passion back into the kitchen. Buying good

:22:19.:22:24.

ingredient, making the chefs enjoy themselves. Cirle brought in a chef

:22:24.:22:28.

to help the staff rediscover what they came to work for. We all have

:22:28.:22:35.

been here for so long now, we all got steal. Now, it's all different.

:22:35.:22:41.

Now it's, we're learning something new every day. When Andreas, the

:22:41.:22:45.

Cirle chef was here, he taught us a lot.

:22:45.:22:51.

On the wards, the food seems appreciated. Lovely. It is

:22:51.:22:53.

absolutely gorgeous. It's all right? I have never had a dish I

:22:54.:22:58.

haven't liked. Although some of the nurses we

:22:58.:23:05.

spoke to suggested the more cosmopolitan bees tro-style menu

:23:05.:23:09.

needed toning down to suit the tastes of elderly patients! The

:23:09.:23:14.

same process that's happening in the kitchen is also taking place on

:23:14.:23:19.

the wards. Top-down management, being res placed by far more

:23:19.:23:24.

autonomous clinical groups. staff being -- replaced by the far

:23:24.:23:27.

more autonomous clinical groups. The staff being involved in all

:23:27.:23:33.

areas of patient care is so much better. Do patients notice?

:23:33.:23:36.

patients are happier because the staff are less frustrated. It

:23:36.:23:41.

changes behaviour, attitudes and culture. As well as trying to

:23:41.:23:44.

devolve power downwards, the management here say they have put a

:23:44.:23:48.

lot of effort into trying to flatten hire arkies amongst

:23:49.:23:53.

employees. All too often things were going wron, patients were

:23:53.:23:56.

getting hurt because junior members of staff didn't feel able to point

:23:56.:24:00.

out problems caused by more senior members of staff.

:24:00.:24:04.

Borrowing from research in the car industry and airlines, the hospital

:24:04.:24:09.

brought in a policy called "Stop The Line". Anyone can challenge

:24:09.:24:14.

anyone else without fear if they think patient safety is in jepdee.

:24:14.:24:19.

Like the junior scrub nurse, who had to tell a senior surgeon that

:24:19.:24:25.

he had left a squab inside a patient. Nine out of ten scrub

:24:25.:24:29.

nurses would have said stop, while the timid and the quiet one would

:24:29.:24:33.

have said, you know, would have been maybe a little bit shy or

:24:33.:24:38.

intimidated with the surgeon, and say, should I say it or not. Now

:24:38.:24:42.

that one out of ten timid nurse will be able to say, hang on, I can

:24:42.:24:46.

also ask you to stop and do something about it.

:24:46.:24:51.

This is not a finished product, it is still making a loss, and will do

:24:51.:24:55.

for years. Hinchingbrooke is, say Cirle, still a long way from what a

:24:55.:25:00.

hospital should look like. As a reference point, they are very

:25:00.:25:04.

keen to show off their purpose- built hospital in Bath. This isn't

:25:04.:25:08.

a General Hospital, it is much, much smaller. It doesn't have a

:25:08.:25:15.

maternity unit, or an A&E. But the difference is still striking.

:25:15.:25:18.

If you didn't know where you were, it would be very easy to get the

:25:18.:25:23.

wrong impression about what this place is. We have got a bright and

:25:23.:25:27.

breezy atrium, there is a chap over there playing the peeyan know.

:25:27.:25:34.

There is beyond that a sun terrace, complete with par sols. In -- piano,

:25:34.:25:41.

there is beyond that a sun terrace, and complete with parasols, and a

:25:41.:25:44.

coffee shop. People sitting around reading the paper and looking

:25:44.:25:48.

relaxed. Not what you would have in mind with a hospital catering for

:25:48.:25:56.

mainly NHS patients. The philosophy here is simple,

:25:56.:26:01.

reactive motivated staff treat patients better.

:26:01.:26:04.

Happy well-fed patients heal better. Here they don't have to spend money

:26:04.:26:09.

on things that patients don't value. They don't have to treat MSRA,

:26:09.:26:15.

because they don't have any. Agency nurses are a rarity. That means

:26:15.:26:20.

they can spend money on things that help patients get home quicker.

:26:20.:26:23.

Shelagh Meldrum is both a nurse and the hospital manager.

:26:23.:26:27.

There will be a load of people watching this who would say this

:26:27.:26:31.

would be great, this would be fantastic, the TV, everything, it

:26:31.:26:34.

would be fantastic if we could afford it. This has to cost more,

:26:34.:26:38.

it has to cost more than a ward? Because we don't charge for the

:26:38.:26:41.

telephone, and we don't charge for the television, we haven't got

:26:41.:26:44.

someone who is part of their working life is invoicing or

:26:44.:26:48.

working out how a payment may be made, or in fact running around

:26:48.:26:54.

telling people not to use their own mobile phones. So I think that when

:26:54.:27:00.

you think of the complexity of a system that is a historical system.

:27:00.:27:04.

That is the beauty of here, we have always been able to stop and say

:27:04.:27:08.

why, why have we always done it like that?

:27:08.:27:11.

Cirle are clear about their ambition, British healthcare, they

:27:11.:27:15.

say, should be a global export. Selling hospital management all

:27:15.:27:20.

over the world. But, first, according to Ali Parsa, we need to

:27:20.:27:26.

get over the idea that patients and profit don't mix.

:27:26.:27:30.

The job of the company is to serve its customer, in our case, our

:27:30.:27:36.

patients. If we do a phenomenal job at that, then we deserve to make a

:27:36.:27:39.

surplus. You know every NHS hospital is mandated to make a

:27:39.:27:43.

surplus. They call it a surplus, we call it a profit. The truth of the

:27:43.:27:49.

matter is we all need to be sustainable.

:27:49.:27:54.

At the moment, there are a long way from making a profit. The finances

:27:55.:28:01.

at Hinchingbrooke are dire. The first jobs say Cirle is sorting out

:28:01.:28:05.

the quality, and then worry about making it pay. They have a ten-year

:28:05.:28:11.

contract, and we we intend to keep coming back. With me now are Ali

:28:11.:28:16.

Parsa, the chief executive of Cirle, and Dr Lucy Reynolds from the

:28:16.:28:18.

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. You took it over

:28:19.:28:25.

six months ago with a �40 million debt. You say you hope to balance

:28:25.:28:29.

the books next year? That is a miracle? When we said we would

:28:29.:28:34.

balance the books we didn't say we would pay back the �40 million. We

:28:34.:28:38.

will make sure the hospital is sustainable by next year. The

:28:38.:28:43.

hospital was projected to lose �10 million thisy, we are hoping to

:28:43.:28:46.

bring that to a sustainable level, that it will balance the books next

:28:46.:28:50.

year, and after that it start making a surplus. That seems like a

:28:50.:28:56.

reasonable return for the taxpayer? Yes. But it is a little bit

:28:56.:29:00.

difficult for me to judge those figure, because the information's

:29:00.:29:09.

not publicly available. I know that there were turnover of �70,000 last

:29:09.:29:12.

year, and losses of �30 something in each year. I think if you can

:29:13.:29:18.

turn it around that fast, that is an incredible job. If you turn it

:29:18.:29:21.

round, is it because you have concentrated on the kind of

:29:22.:29:26.

medicine that actually is less problematic, less expensive, more

:29:26.:29:32.

likely it lead you to profit? at all, we are delivering all the

:29:32.:29:36.

services that the hospital has always been delivering. We are

:29:36.:29:40.

expanding on surgery and A&E, we now see more emergency patients

:29:40.:29:46.

than we ever did before. We are going to make this work by focusing

:29:46.:29:51.

on the basics of giving the power to those who have the know-how. The

:29:51.:29:56.

doctors, the nurses, the healthcare professional, who always knew how

:29:56.:30:01.

to be best at what they. Do we are going to inject into that some

:30:01.:30:04.

entreprenurial drive and passion, and also some expertise, as you saw

:30:04.:30:08.

in your film, who can coach them, help them to be the best at what

:30:08.:30:13.

they do. But the point is, the profit is the motive. You say that

:30:13.:30:17.

the NHS hospital themselves are meant to make a surplus. But you

:30:17.:30:20.

need to make a return for your shareholder, the partners, of the

:30:20.:30:24.

people who work in the hospital. Your mandated to do that, that is

:30:24.:30:28.

your primary concern. If some surgery is too problematic, if

:30:28.:30:31.

ground-breaking stuff that often goes on at teaching hospital, is

:30:31.:30:36.

too problematic for you, you won't do it? Profit is important for a

:30:36.:30:40.

company to sustain it. In the same way as food, water air is important

:30:40.:30:44.

for a human being. They can never be the meaning of life. This idea

:30:44.:30:47.

that the profit is the only reason a company exists is just a myth. It

:30:47.:30:51.

is not true, you talk to the best entrepeneurs in the world, they

:30:51.:30:54.

live for the passion of building, doing something extraordinary, and

:30:54.:31:01.

that is what my partners are planning to do. Lucy? We have a

:31:01.:31:05.

vairlt of models around the world, -- variety of models around the

:31:05.:31:10.

world of ways to organise healthcare. We know in comparison

:31:10.:31:14.

to our system here, chargely publicly owned, to the system in

:31:14.:31:18.

the states, which we are moving towards, costs 16% of GDP, we are

:31:18.:31:23.

up to nearly 10%, it was quite a lot lower when the medics still ran

:31:23.:31:28.

the system, before all the market reforms. From experience around the

:31:28.:31:33.

world, we can see that systems which rely heavily on private

:31:33.:31:37.

provision for healthcare, they have some typical problem. They tend to

:31:37.:31:41.

develop those. Like what? Well, soaring costs, for one thing,

:31:42.:31:45.

secondly, we typically see a breakdown of trust between doctor

:31:45.:31:51.

and patient. If there are financial interests in that relationship of

:31:51.:31:54.

trust, there are big problems and there are also problems which

:31:54.:31:59.

develop with overuse of medication, and that tends to lead to

:31:59.:32:01.

antibiotic resistance. China, in particular, has got a terrible

:32:01.:32:06.

problem with that. Because they run a marketised healthcare system.

:32:06.:32:11.

I just respond to that. GPs in the UK are private companies. They are

:32:11.:32:16.

private partnerships, contracted back to the Government, some GPs

:32:17.:32:21.

make �100,000, some �250,000. But the trust between me and the GP,

:32:21.:32:24.

between the British nation and their GP is still very high.

:32:24.:32:27.

GPs have to make very difficult decisions about referring to

:32:27.:32:31.

specialists and also about drug issues with the constraint of the

:32:31.:32:35.

NHS? But they do so within a private partnership. You have to

:32:35.:32:38.

make decisions as well, you have budget and you will have to make

:32:38.:32:42.

those decisions as well? Everybody always uses the example of America,

:32:42.:32:45.

it has gone bad. I have eaten in a bad restaurant there, therefore I

:32:45.:32:49.

never go to a restaurant. We don't make those judgments all the time

:32:49.:32:52.

in our lives. In Germany, which uses the same percentage of the GDP

:32:52.:32:58.

as we do, more hospitals are run by the private sector than by the

:32:58.:33:01.

public sector, and the public is extremely happy with their

:33:01.:33:05.

healthcare system. Just because it has gone back in one place, doesn't

:33:05.:33:08.

mean it has to go back somewhere else. Would you consider running a

:33:08.:33:13.

big teaching hospital? We would love to run a big teaching hospital.

:33:13.:33:16.

This is the idea that there is going to be another kind of model.

:33:16.:33:21.

Would it be so bad to have that model? Firstly, the German system

:33:21.:33:25.

is noticably more expensive than our's, according to the 2011.

:33:25.:33:35.

10% of GDP? No it is up to 12%. Could you repeat your -- Could you

:33:35.:33:38.

repeat your question? I was thinking, is it so bad, you were

:33:38.:33:40.

talking about patient trust, and it is all about transpaorn

:33:40.:33:44.

circumstance I looked at the franchise agreement, the whole

:33:44.:33:50.

section of section 3, talking about franchise agreements, paying back,

:33:50.:33:57.

incentives is redabgtive, why not make it entirely transparent and

:33:57.:34:00.

then there will be no problem? have no problem with being

:34:00.:34:05.

transparent. In every other part of our service, in Cirle Bath it is

:34:05.:34:09.

all transparent, as a public company we have to be transparent.

:34:09.:34:13.

There is rules with tendering for the public sector, it is up to the

:34:13.:34:15.

Government to decide what they will make private or public. You would

:34:15.:34:19.

make more public? For us to make a penny of profit in Hinchingbrooke,

:34:19.:34:24.

we first have to save the taxpayer �230 million in the next ten years.

:34:24.:34:29.

If somebody came to me and says the British Government is losing �170

:34:29.:34:33.

billion a year, and you save that money and in return for that we

:34:33.:34:36.

take 10% of that, I would love to do that deal. I have to stop you

:34:36.:34:39.

right there. That may be a deal for the future.

:34:39.:34:45.

In a moment a tribute to her friend Gore Vidal from the writer Eric

:34:45.:34:49.

Jong who famously wrote something about a zip. Talking about zip,

:34:49.:34:52.

there is this bloke that keeps turning up at all the Olympic

:34:52.:34:57.

events, blonde, distinctive voice, a bid deshef vesseled, not in the

:34:57.:35:01.

running for any medal, but on a day where two Olympic rowers won gold,

:35:01.:35:04.

and Bradley Wiggins became the most decorated British olympian, how

:35:05.:35:10.

come a man on a wire almost stole the show. What is going on?

:35:10.:35:13.

Thankfully we got a gold. That is what everyone is saying. We are

:35:13.:35:16.

nothing if not patient. The jokes were beginning to wear thin. It was

:35:16.:35:22.

beginning to get a bit embarrassing, all this stuff about being gracious

:35:22.:35:29.

house -- hosts, giving the medals away to our guests. Like London

:35:29.:35:39.
:35:39.:35:55.

buses they came ought, two bronze, He's everyone's favourite cycling

:35:55.:35:58.

mod, and today Bradley Wiggins became the most celebrated British

:35:58.:36:02.

limb I don't know when he won the time trials, it was his seventh

:36:02.:36:07.

medal. What is the point in having seven medals if they are not the

:36:07.:36:11.

right colour. It is just as well he did win, he said the race would be

:36:11.:36:21.

a doddle. He shared the podium with his team-mate. It was not so good

:36:21.:36:26.

for Louis Sanchez, who had a puncture before he started. Helen

:36:26.:36:30.

Glover and Heather Stanning took Britain's first gold. Afterwards we

:36:30.:36:34.

found out Heather only took up the sport four years ago, and Helen is

:36:35.:36:42.

on a break from being a captain in the army. There was a bronze in the

:36:42.:36:47.

swimming. Cheering them on from a great height is Boris. The London

:36:47.:36:52.

mayor got stuck in a zip wire, after he was zipping in to

:36:53.:36:57.

entertain the crowds. David Cameron said it had been a triumph.

:36:57.:37:02.

He was once described as thes could car Wilde of the modern age. -- as

:37:02.:37:08.

the Oscar Wilde of the modern age. He was an essayist writer, poll lem

:37:08.:37:15.

sis with an acid -- poll sem cyst with an acid tongue. He had the

:37:15.:37:20.

opening of not continuing, which he said is sometimes nobler. He died

:37:20.:37:25.

at the ripe old age of 86, in a moment I will speak to his friend,

:37:25.:37:35.
:37:35.:37:36.

the writer, Eric Jong. First this.

:37:36.:37:45.

# The shark has pretty teeth # And he shows them pearlly white

:37:45.:37:55.
:37:55.:37:56.

# Just the jack knife Of sight.

:37:57.:37:59.

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.

:37:59.:38:04.

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and a vicious tongue in

:38:04.:38:07.

his head. Gore Vidal was a patrician, who saw the United

:38:07.:38:15.

States as a flawed Republic. A fallen Rome. I remember one evening

:38:15.:38:21.

at the White House, Jackie slyly said, oh why don't we go to the

:38:21.:38:27.

horse show, and Jack growned. was a cousin of Jackie Kennedy, an

:38:27.:38:33.

intimate of JFK's Camelot. The son and grandson of Washington

:38:33.:38:36.

politicians, Vidal also stood for office himself. I ran really

:38:36.:38:40.

because of Jack Kennedy, who was running for President. I ran for

:38:40.:38:46.

the House. We thought we would make a difference, can you imagine how

:38:46.:38:53.

niave we were. Blessed with good look, as he was the first to

:38:53.:38:56.

acknowledge. -- good looks, as he was the first to acknowledge. He

:38:56.:39:01.

had a brief acting career, and worked on the script of Ben Hur, he

:39:01.:39:06.

saw it as a gay love story, not a view shared by its star, Charlton

:39:06.:39:12.

Heston. The young Ronald Regan, then an actor, one went up before

:39:12.:39:16.

Vidal for an audition, tough crowd. I was offered Regan as an actor to

:39:16.:39:21.

play the part of a presidential candidate. I told his agent, no way,

:39:21.:39:25.

Ronald Regan would never be convincing as a presidential

:39:25.:39:31.

candidate. And poor Ronald Regan had to become the acting Governor

:39:31.:39:35.

of California, and now the acting President of the U state.

:39:35.:39:42.

reputation rests on a series of historical novels and tartly

:39:42.:39:48.

polemically essays. Even more on his stunning poise I don't knowous

:39:48.:39:57.

putdown and literary beef. Take this celebrated discussion with an

:39:57.:40:01.

American writer. You can express any point of view you like. Shut up

:40:01.:40:05.

a minute. No I won't, the answer is they were well treated by people

:40:05.:40:11.

who ostracised them. As far as I'm concerned the only proor crypto-

:40:11.:40:17.

Nazi I can think of is yourself. There was a feud with novelist

:40:17.:40:21.

Norman Mailer. He's shameless in intellectual argument, he's without

:40:21.:40:26.

character or moral foundation, or intellectual substance.

:40:26.:40:36.
:40:36.:40:37.

It is, in fact, the speed of the bo n moe. He knocked him on the floor,

:40:38.:40:45.

and he says, lost for words again, Norman. Whether it has real legs,

:40:45.:40:49.

and whether or not in 50 years time posterity will look back, I shan't

:40:49.:40:55.

be here, but I doubt it. Naturally it is quite exciting to be here.

:40:55.:41:03.

The mature Vidal was there as new Labour sought power in 1997. Heart-

:41:03.:41:09.

breakingly, he was now willing to slum is on any two-bob show. What I

:41:09.:41:13.

love has been the flip-flop of John Major, everyman, representing the

:41:13.:41:17.

"little guy", who can make it on his own, and Labour being the party

:41:17.:41:23.

of elitist snobs, this has been switched right round. It is

:41:23.:41:32.

gorgeous low funny. Now from New York is the writer

:41:32.:41:35.

Eric Jong, who was friends with Gore Vidal. Eric Jong, you have

:41:35.:41:41.

known him for a number of years, you saw him just last year for a

:41:41.:41:46.

final time. As a man, he was a lot of different things, wasn't he?

:41:46.:41:54.

was an incredible kur muj I don't know, he could be very --

:41:54.:41:57.

curmudgeon. We taught as a sem national cirriculum and had the

:41:57.:42:04.

habit of getting up from dinner without even saying goodbye. I

:42:04.:42:07.

admired him tremenduously as a person of letters, he tried every

:42:07.:42:13.

form as a writer. He wrote the most marvellous essays. If you read Pink

:42:13.:42:20.

Triangle, and Yellow Star, you understand why the fascists were

:42:20.:42:27.

against homosexuals. He had a brilliant mind, he was almost an

:42:27.:42:34.

18th century man. Indeed, Burr, I think, will last as a novel. His

:42:35.:42:38.

expertise was understanding the birth of the American Republic,

:42:38.:42:44.

which he was very close to, in a way, as an 18th century thinker.

:42:44.:42:50.

But, also, ancient Rome. So, those were the two periods he returned to

:42:50.:42:56.

again and again in his historical novels. I think those will last. I

:42:56.:42:59.

really do. I know that reading an article you wrote for the Guardian,

:42:59.:43:05.

you talked about him being quite a sad man. Tell me, you actually

:43:05.:43:10.

brought him together with Norman Mailer after the feud, and how was

:43:10.:43:18.

that, did he know he was going to be confronted by normian You've Got

:43:18.:43:26.

Mail -- Norman Mailer? I had a dinner party with Susan Sontag and

:43:26.:43:30.

others, it was a small party and amiable, it ended when Charley Rose

:43:30.:43:38.

called and wanted them to appear on television, and they all took off

:43:38.:43:45.

for Charley Rose, Gore always said never tun back the chance to be on

:43:45.:43:49.

television or to have sex. He was - - turn back the chance to be on

:43:49.:43:52.

television or to have sex. He was very funny and his mind went deep.

:43:52.:43:58.

But he should have been born during the era of the federalist papers,

:43:58.:44:02.

the 18th century, he should have been a contemporary of Burr. He had

:44:02.:44:10.

that kind of mine, a polemical mind. I was going to ask about that. He

:44:10.:44:14.

said in an interview recently, of the things he had had achieved, he

:44:14.:44:18.

was most proud, and thought he would be remembered for his essays.

:44:18.:44:22.

It was the way that the writer could speak directly into the

:44:22.:44:26.

reader's ear, he was talking about reading Aristotle. Do you think now,

:44:26.:44:31.

in this era, someone like that could flower iark, or are we down

:44:31.:44:35.

to the -- flourish, or are we down to the 140 characters of Twitter,

:44:35.:44:40.

are there room for essays? There will not be many characters like

:44:40.:44:46.

Gore coming around again. First of all, our attention span has gotten

:44:46.:44:51.

so small. Purveyors of magazines count the number of eyeballs and

:44:51.:44:55.

page views. Articles have gotten shorter and shorter and shorter.

:44:55.:45:01.

This is our loss, I think. We almost can't find a place to write

:45:01.:45:07.

at length, apart from, perhaps, the Kindle, single. But we don't have

:45:07.:45:12.

the magazines we once had, television shows rarely include

:45:12.:45:19.

writers, even very witty writers. It is extremely sad. Our whole

:45:19.:45:24.

culture has been dumbed down, so much that a person like Gore Vidal

:45:24.:45:29.

might not appear on the Tonight Show. He was invited back again and

:45:29.:45:35.

again by Johnny Carson, because he was so funny, he was so suck sibgt.

:45:35.:45:41.

Thank you very much for joining us. Now a race through tomorrow

:45:41.:45:47.

morning's pages, the Telegraph, the first and wonderful picture of the

:45:47.:45:51.

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