Browse content similar to 01/08/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
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 | :01:36. | :01:44. | |
million dollars, but I got half a million votes. | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
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 | :04:36. | :04:43. | |
officers to be fired, they should not be able to stay in their jobs. | :04:43. | :04:50. | |
# 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 | :05:52. | :05:55. | |
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 | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
said he was. The striking thing about this case, is that right from | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
the start, the jury of ordinary citizens, multiracial, six black | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
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 | :06:26. | :06:30. | |
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 | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
neighbour four minutes apart, showed that wasn't true. The jury | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
concluded the police had spent eight minutes unnecessarily | :06:55. | :06:57. | |
restraining Sean Rigg with unsuitable force. | :06:57. | :07:02. | |
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 | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
deteriorating, he was taken, not to hospital, but to Brixton Police | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
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 | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
prisoner, and walked straight into the custody suite. He couldn't do | :07:21. | :07:25. | |
that, without aid from the police. When he was eventually removed from | :07:25. | :07:30. | |
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 | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
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 | :07:47. | :07:54. | |
faking it. It is a catalogue of errors, that any ordinary human | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
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 | :08:31. | :08:37. | |
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 | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
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 | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
the ground, we can't fail him any more. What do you feel about the | :11:33. | :11:37. | |
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 | :12:09. | :12:14. | |
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. |