public health
Loyalty to the NHS Won’t Stop an Exodus of Underpaid Junior Doctors
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The longest strike in NHS history by junior doctors has taken place, with junior doctors in England striking for six days from 7am on Wednesday 3 January until 7am on Tuesday 9 January. The British Medical Association (BMA) are pushing for junior doctors to get a 35% pay rise, which would restore pay to 2008 wages, in line with inflation. There are also concerns over changes to employment contracts which may see extended working hours without compensation which jeopardises both patient safety and the wellbeing of doctors. The strike ended with no progress on pay talks and the junior doctors intending to hold ballots on further strike action.
Junior doctors are qualified medical professionals, working full time while engaged in post-graduate research or further specialist training, and they are crucial in delivering healthcare across the UK – from patient consultations to performing medical procedures and research. They work long hours in demanding conditions, particularly during winter with rising COVID admissions to hospitals across the country, this issue cannot be ignored any longer by the Government.
In the middle of all of this, medical students training to be doctors find themselves uncertain of their future employment. Not only in terms of pay but working conditions, a viable work-life balance, and the impact on mental and physical health.
Last year, it was revealed that some trusts have asked unqualified medical students to step in during strike days, even though their placements in hospitals are meant to be purely educational.
Medical students cannot strike as postgraduate doctors can but are allowed to show support to picket lines, under BMA guidance, and are protected under BMA guidelines if they are asked to do more than is required or to take the place of a junior doctor.
Steve, a final year medical student in Manchester expressed full backing for the strikes: “There is overwhelming support for the strikes – they are fighting for our careers, for better investment in the services and better working conditions.”
Steve explained that the strikes have had an impact on students’ training: “We get more one-on-one with consultants which is great for learning and experience on the wards, but we shouldn't have to get that because our colleagues are on strike", he said, arguing that this demonstrates the existing problems in the NHS.
We Need to Talk About Long COVID: A Sufferer on the Silence Around the Public Health Crisis
Cat Fraser, who has lived with the chronic illness for years, says it’s time to get Long Covid on the agenda and give its many victims the support they need.
Cat Fraser
Around £2 billion was spent last year by the NHS to cover the costs of the strikes, which included paying for consultants to cover. Critics have argued that the strikes cause chaos in an already chaotic system.
“The argument is that the strikes will cause overcrowding and overflows, but that was already happening before the strikes and will be happening after the strikes end. The service has been damaged for years with a lack of investment across so many areas,” Steve told Byline Times. “I recall being in A&E one night and there were three separate overflow areas – that was before any strike action.”
There are concerns about the future workforce of the NHS about whether or not they will remain in the UK and the NHS. Last year, a survey of 10,400 people from the UK's 44 medical schools found 32% of participants were planning to practise abroad in countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia. An exodus of doctors from the service would be dangerous and while there are those that will stay, some would only stay two years (foundational years) before changing careers.
“I completely understand why people want to move abroad. You hear that it is much better in New Zealand, and Australia – from working hours to pay and overall health,” Steve said, “And we’re also probably going to see more people wanting to work in private health rather than public health. We all feel gratitude to the NHS – personally for me, that is why I would still work for them – but gratitude is not enough to sustain a workforce.”
In a written statement sent to Byline Times, Dr Latifa Patel, BMA representative body chair, said: "There have been increasing concerns about doctors, at the start of their careers, deciding to leave the UK and we have seen blatant recruitment campaigns to urge them to do so. However, this survey reveals the very real and worrying trend of doctors making the decision, even before they have qualified, to either practise medicine overseas, leave the NHS or leave the profession altogether. It is disheartening that medical students already recognise the extent to which our profession has been devalued through constant pay erosion and declining working conditions, and have made up their minds, as a result, that the NHS is not the right place for them to work. They are investing seven years of their lives, starting out with the intent to be a doctor in our NHS, only to have that enthusiasm and commitment crushed out of them.
"The Government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to this increasingly untenable situation. This study clearly shows that increasing medical school places alone is not enough to turn the tide on the growing workforce crisis. It is not too late to fix this, but the power to do so rests with the Government. Retention must be prioritised, and plans must address pay restoration, career progression and working conditions. The Government making a credible offer to our members to reverse 15 years of declining pay must be the starting point."
When Steve graduates from his university medical degree, he will enter the UK Foundation Programme as an ‘F1’ – a first year foundation trainee doctor. “The government says that it costs around £300,000 to train us – so why not pay us properly if we are worth so much?” Steve said, “As a medical student, I am incredibly nervous about next year. I can only imagine how stressful it will be for me and my soon-to-be fellow F1s.”
We Need to Talk About Long COVID: A Sufferer on the Silence Around the Public Health Crisis
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During my first term of university, I had a severe case of glandular fever. Seven years later, I was 24 and I had just moved in with my then-boyfriend after finishing a secondment at one of the first global digital agencies in Paris. One day, I started passing out in a quiet office by midday.
It took me almost crashing my car three times in one day (I haven’t driven since). and falling into what can only be described as a sleep coma at the weekends which often dragged on for days after, before I was given a diagnosis of the neurological disease Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).
Unfortunately, this didn’t mean much to me or anyone else, so I carried on as normal - until my body finally forced me to stop for two years.
I was lucky. I was able to ignore the graded exercise therapy that was prescribed to me (I could barely walk up the steps to my front door), and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy was attempted and abandoned, as I barely had enough energy to talk to my partner at the end of his work day.
I didn’t see how either of these two things reflected my needs of extreme bedrest and a financial safety-net for me to be able to do so.
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Thanks to family assistance I wasn’t forced back to working in an office straight away. I did regain some strength and managed to rebuild a career, often home-working which enabled me to work with big brands on short projects, followed by months of recovery.
But it also meant I rarely had any energy left over for anything else - or anyone.
My untreated chronic disease and on/off disability kept pushing me to the edge of my relationships, finance, work, tech and society.
And then in early 2020, COVID hit me.
As the world went back to learning to live out of lockdown, I found I wasn’t recovering and began to analyse all my health interactions during 2020.
I had spent £3,100 (and Bupa another £2,500) trying to find help in a siloed health system that was never designed to treat any of my health problems.
COVID Roulette
Last year, George Monbiot warned that “we are all playing COVID roulette” as 10-20% of infections can result in new health conditions and long term disability.
The public are still not being told that after the initial infection, the SARSCOV2 virus that causes COVID can confuse and disable our immune systems making us more susceptible to other viruses and diseases.
This is Long COVID, a multi-system, multi-organ complex chronic disease with no diagnostic, approved treatment or cure, that can trigger widespread inflammation and microclots which block capillaries, starving our cells, tissues and organs (including our brains) of oxygen.
People with Long COVID, and other chronic conditions including ME, have a dizzying array of symptoms and a shopping list of complex biomedical problems that will not show up in standard blood tests. They may be symptoms of or be followed by cardiovascular and neurological disease.
HR policies have been built around a healthcare system that didn’t teach ME at medical school as a biological disease, and there are known gender gaps in critical illness cover - favouring men over women, who are more likely to suffer from autoimmune disease).
COVID Cronyism and Mone – The Tip of the Iceberg: Byline Times’ Full Story of the PPE Cash Carousel
Byline Times has been unravelling the dealings behind the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the UK since the very early days of the pandemic. Here’s what we learnt – and what we still need answers to…
Josiah Mortimer
Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a rise in workplace sickness absences of 45%, according to one survey, whilst a 2023 CIPD and Simply Health report found that 1 in 5 employers are unable to say whether employees are still experiencing Long COVID symptoms.
Employees who are not recovering are falling out of the workplace and even doctors with Long COVID are losing their jobs and homes.
By March 2023, reports suggested that 1.9 million people had self-reported Long COVID In the UK whilst 2.6m are out of work due to long term sickness and 3.7m have a work-limiting condition.
Long COVID is costing the UK an estimated £1.5bn in lost earnings a month whilst globally, the economic cost had already reached $3.7 Trillion in 2022.
But then across the world, governments, media, public health and business told everyone it was over, that we had won the war against COVID with vaccines. The message in the UK was, and is: “Now let’s never talk about it again.”
The subsequent removal of data and monitoring is making it harder to see and count the true cost of Long COVID to individuals, organisations and society.
What We’re Doing About It
During a raging pandemic that is still hurting us, social media became a digital home for myself and thousands of others, offering solidarity and validation.
We learnt from researchers, scientists and doctors with lived experience, how in a wellbeing economy, we would choose prevention including clean indoor air and rolling out HEPA filters in every school, hospital, office, shop, restaurant and home to reduce COVID sickness by over 80%,
We would not choose mass re-infection and forcing parents to send their sick children to school (who may be still infectious for 10 days), or may be one of the estimated 62,000 children in the UK with Long Covid.
We want employers to be pro-convalescence: accepting radical rest, pacing and making sure we don’t exercise our way back to health, as this can be dangerous.
We do not accept another carrot and sticks return to work programme, but want to build sustainable safety nets for those who can’t work such as Safe Sick Pay, a Universal Basic Income and a redesign of work to support the (mild) energy impaired back into flexible work opportunities such as two day a week (good) jobs, when they felt able.
EXCLUSIVE
A Freedom of Information battle means Byline Times can now reveal the cost to the public for the Government’s doomed legal challenge to the Covid inquiry
Josiah Mortimer
And above all, through our global cooperation, we listen to those with lived experience, opposing the diversion of funding toward inappropriate psychiatric methods that have been shown to harm patients, and can create gaps in the medical system that can kill.
Instead, we would be investing in solving the root cause with a focus on biomedical treatments and the objective of curing all infection-associated chronic diseases.
Last year, the global community that I am part of started mobilising from their homes and beds, to create this future for themselves and others.
It saw the launch of the #UnhappyHolidays campaign by Long Covid Moonshot, the launch of a news platform dedicated solely to “The Sick Times”’, and Long Covid Advocacy educates with creativity and humour on our culture war and politics.
Through Berlin Buyers Club, International Long Covid Awareness and Not Recovered, we’re collaborating on a Long Covid Billboard campaign across the US and Europe, whilst Long COVID Groups have united efforts for the UK COVID Inquiry alongside a campaign to remind everyone #ItCouldHappenToYou.
And drawing on HIV/AIDS impact work, Long Covid Justice and Millions Missing (ME Action) are expanding their protests, toolkits, outreach and support for those with Long COVID in trans, black and other minority communities.
In 2024, it's time to admit that we all need to work together and choose our health. Our community can help with that. We are still in the pandemic. It never went away.
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Government Phases Out COVID Funding as Hospital Admissions Rise
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Ministers are phasing out most of the funding to tackle COVID-19 just at the point when hospital admissions from the virus are starting to rise again, according to figures from the United Kingdom Health and Security Agency.
These show an accelerating trend in COVID cases in the week before Christmas, with the number of hospital admissions rising to 3,203 from 2,622 the previous week and the number of new cases up to 7,164 from 5227 the previous week – a rise of 36%. The biggest rises have been in London and south-east England
The figures are still a fraction of the numbers when the pandemic was raging but do suggest an upward trend in the virus this winter.
The Government’s autumn COVID vaccination programme aimed at the elderly and vulnerable has been taken up by 68.8% of eligible people, showing that nearly a third have not had the vaccination.
The national online vaccination programme was closed by the Government in December though some local GPs and pharmacies can offer vaccinations to eligible people until 31 January.
Regular testing is not being conducted in hospital cancer and transplant wards which contain vulnerable immunocompromised patients.
Surveillance has been scaled back, and will be reduced further in the next financial year due to the change in funding.
Long COVID clinics are funded from the NHS budget and won’t be affected by this change and funding for vaccines will also remain separate to the core budget.
This financial year will be the last year ministers fund the UKHSA tackling COVID under a separate budget. Some £430 million was set aside until April. After that, the money will come from the UKHSA’s core budget that it receives from the Department of Health and Social Care. The UKHSA said it was in negotiations about this but it is expected to be a fraction of this year’s budget.
Tommy Greene and David Hencke report on a number of worrying NHS dismissal cases
Tommy Greene and David Hencke
The considerable upcoming reduction in spending calls into question the Government's 'Living with COVID’ strategy.
Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford and a former member of the Government’s vaccine taskforce, has warned of “an absolutely dramatic reversion to what existed before the pandemic” and that “our clinical research environment is actually much, much worse than it’s ever been in my living memory”.
Kate Bingham, who has been praised for her work leading the Government’s COVID vaccine taskforce, has also warned that the UK is failing to bring scientific and commercial expertise into the Government, and not pursuing the creation of bulk antibody-manufacturing capabilities in the UK. She has also questioned why the Novavax vaccine, which uses a protein subunit like many other vaccines, has not been made available in the UK.
The UKHSA said it is implementing the Living with COVID policy and that the UK has a sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines for anticipated booster campaigns this year, holding a contingency stock in the event that vaccination beyond these campaigns is required.
Altogether, 34.4 million vaccines were stored in warehouses at the end of October but some of these vaccines will expire in April. A Whitehall impact statement said in May 2022 that will be disposed of because “these doses have no feasible alternative use”.
The UKHSA could not say how many doses will be destroyed.
It said it was committed to maintaining resilience against significant COVID-19 resurgence or new variants, and protecting the NHS from unsustainable pressure. This includes the ability to reintroduce vaccination (surge response) for the most vulnerable, if required.
The Government also sold off a new £200 million research and manufacturing vaccine facility, before it was completed, in Oxfordshire to US pharmaceutical firm Catalent in April 2022. The centre was set up as a not-for-profit company with the aim of combining vaccine research and manufacturing in one place.
The new owners, which manufacture drugs worldwide including in China, said: “We continue to be excited about the strategic opportunities for the Harwell site and are looking at the best options available for biologics manufacturing at the site, including vaccines.”
COVID Cronyism and Mone – The Tip of the Iceberg: Byline Times’ Full Story of the PPE Cash Carousel
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We still don’t have the full picture of the chaos of the COVID years – the billions wasted, the lives needlessly lost, and the decisions facilitated through WhatsApp messages that have mysteriously vanished.
But Byline Times has attempted to shed some light on the years of scandal, before the public inquiry got underway.
We hope our reporting stands as testament to the need for vigilant journalism, to shine a light on the murkiest days of the pandemic.
This is a snapshot of our reporting on the Coronavirus ‘cash carousel’ and what happens when cronyism seeps deep into British politics.
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The Crisis Begins
Within weeks of the first lockdown, Nafeez Ahmed on Byline Times became arguably the first journalist to break the story of the emerging personal protective equipment (PPE) scandal.
On April 2 2020, he exposed how lucrative contracts were being awarded to Conservative Party associates.
Boris Johnson’s Government had appointed a giant haulage firm with financial ties to the Tory Party to be in charge of a new supply channel for PPE to the NHS. Its founding executive chairman was Steven N. Parkin, a top Conservative Party donor who has attended exclusive ‘Leaders Group’ meetings and donated almost £1 million to the party in the preceding five years.
This set the tone for an extensive investigation into COVID-19 contracts, shedding light on a concerning trend of cronyism.
That May, Stephen Delahunty on Byline Times revealed that another Conservative donor was involved in the COVID-19 contracts.
Europa Worldwide Group – the managing director of which was a personal donor to Johnson – was found to be arranging PPE supplies for the NHS and manufacturing testing kits.
No one would begrudge firms being involved in ‘helping’ the emergency effort. But the lucrative profits secured off the back of many of these deals, often going to Conservative-linked figures, began raising eyebrows.
This newspaper continued – pretty much alone – in examining these contracts.
In July 2020, Delahunty revealed that companies with no prior experience or expertise were inexplicably receiving multi-million-pound contracts. This was despite the looming threat of legal challenges over what was to be dubbed the ‘VIP Lane’: pathways for firms to win government contracts with little oversight and through referrals from well-connected politicians.
EXCLUSIVE
Respected Health Professionals Feel ‘Duped’ into Appearing in Michelle Mone PPE Documentary
A film about the PPE scandal did not declare to some contributors it was being funded by a company that won £203 million in Government PPE contracts
Tom Latchem and Dan Evans
Brexit featured too. That same month, Stephen Komarnyckyj discovered that an award of a PPE contract to a company that had no cash stemmed from the UK choosing not to join the EU-wide PPE purchasing scheme.
In quick succession, we found that a recruitment firm with just £322 in net assets had received an £18 million Government contract. By this time, legal campaigners at Good Law Project were on the case. But their revelations and ours were still largely going unreported in the rest of the established media.
Three more contracts emerged in July, going to a fashion company, a trade consultant and a gambling company. It was beginning to look desperate – and fishy.
Using a legal loophole designed for emergencies, the Government was able to award these huge contracts without any competition. And, it seems, without even basic due diligence checks.
A New Phase
Things got even weirder that August, when Byline Times revealed the companies linked to the exclusive Plymouth Brethren religious sect which were mopping up huge COVID contracts. And still the warning signs kept flashing, as we dug up dormant firms which emerged from seemingly nowhere to win millions in PPE deals.
All these contracts could be justified if they were effective in saving lives. But in August 2020, we began to see the true picture: much of the PPE purchased at vast sums couldn’t actually be used. It wasn't up to scratch. Meanwhile, NHS staff continued to complain of shortages and shoddy equipment.
Labour MP Dawn Butler was among the first politicians to sound the alarm following our reporting. She told Byline Times that summer that the award of the new contracts to unheard-of firms was “yet another example of questionable procurement contracts” by the Government and that “the list seems to be growing day by day”.
“There is no competitive tendering and no transparency,” she added. “The full extent of this scandal must be brought to light, with full details published of all contracts, so this does not happen again. We all deserve to know how our public money is spent.”
Did ministers listen?
It seemed not. September came around, and Sam Bright reported that the Government spent more than £300 million on overalls for NHS staff – at a cost of £840 per bodysuit actually delivered.
EXCLUSIVE
‘VIP’ Firms Referred by Tory MPs and Peers for PPE Deals See Profits Soar
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been earned by companies channelled through the expedited procurement route by Conservative politicians, Sam Bright reports
Sam Bright
By this point, questions were being asked in Parliament. Our findings of the Government awarding £122 Million in PPE contracts to a one-month-old firm appeared to trigger probing at Prime Minister’s Questions.
At this point, we could piece together the picture from the first months of the pandemic – and it was not a pretty sight. Government spending on PPE deals to Conservative backers had hit £364 million.
And still, health professionals continued to call for adequate protection as the second Coronavirus wave approached.
Another Wave of Sleaze
In 2021, the COVID cash machine just kept giving – to a select few.
Pulling together a year of evidence, Byline Times and The Citizens revealed that deals worth at least £2 billion had been awarded to top Conservative Party associates during the Coronavirus crisis.
A firm that gave £400,000 to the Conservatives won a £93.8 million PPE deal. The figures being handed to the Plymouth Brethren sect alone hit £1.1 billion.
And, as before, vast amounts of the PPE were useless.
In what was dubbed “perhaps the most shameful episode of the pandemic”, £4 billion in PPE went up in smoke: burned as unusable, while NHS staff continued to feel burnt-out and abandoned.
Meanwhile, profits quadrupled for the Conservative donor companies. There was nothing stopping them continuing to donate more to the Conservative Party. Byline Times’ Peter Jukes dubbed it a “state-subsidised oligarchy” – a corporate takeover of government.
It was in this context that PPE Medpro – tipped to Michael Gove for a contract by Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone – could prosper.
Her representatives threatened to sue us for reporting the facts. Now the truth is finally out
Josiah Mortimer
This newspaper was the first to reveal Mone’s links to the firm – links which were vigorously denied under threat of libel action, but which we now know to have been true. (Mone and PPE Medpro are under investigation by the National Crime Agency but deny any illegality).
It was one of many companies that were referred by Conservative MPs and peers to the expedited ‘VIP Lane' for PPE contracts during the pandemic.
PPE Medpro took in the region of £60 million in profits. Much of its PPE was also deemed unusable by the NHS.
Overall, the value lost to dodgy PPE was nearly £9 billion – a quarter of the annual UK budget for housing and the environment put together.
Is there any other country in the world that has witnessed sleaze and scandal on such a scale around COVID contracts?
And did the £200 million-plus COVID 'bungs’ to the press – the Government's ‘All in, All Together’ public information campaign subsidising profitable newspapers – help Johnson's administration get away with it?
What We Know Now
A series of damning reports by the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and more have conclusively vindicated Byline Times’ reporting.
The Government lost billions of taxpayers’ money to dodgy contracts, waste and fraud, after suspending its usual procurement processes during the pandemic.
Johnson’s Government relied heavily on a highly secretive ‘VIP Lane’ for procurement of goods such as PPE, with £8.7 billion of public money wasted on buying unsatisfactory, unusable or overpriced PPE.
Subsequent Labour Party analysis showed that £3.5 billion of pandemic-related contracts were awarded to businesses that were directly linked to the Conservative Party or have donated to them.
To do this, the Government ignored fraud warnings and advice about the lack of basic checks on COVID support schemes.
Former Treasury Minister Lord Agnew described "schoolboy errors" and resigned from over his frustration at the lack of action on tackling COVID fraud. Kemi Badenoch has since criticised Rishi Sunak’s lack of interest in COVID fraud when he was Chancellor and claims he dismissed her concerns.
Boris Johnson’s Covid Inquiry Appearance Exposed the Complicity of his Accomplices
The Covid Inquiry has revealed the former PM to be a deeply negligent and dishonest individual. The only question now is how he was allowed to get away with it
Adam Bienkov
And so it wasn’t just about PPE: the trail of wasted cash ran through the Government’s COVID support schemes too.
The latest estimate for COVID-related fraud in Government support schemes is estimated to be to be £7.2 billion, according to House of Commons Library analysis of Government reports.
This includes fraud losses across business loan and grant schemes, and fraudulent use of the furlough and Rishi Sunak’s 'Eat Out to Help Out’ schemes – the latter of which is credited with triggering a surge in COVID cases in summer 2020. Taxpayer losses from COVID fraud could even reach as high as £10.8 billion.
Stronger checks on who was getting this money could have saved £2.6 billion – roughly equivalent to the total cash that went to Conservative allies.
According to internal documents from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), seen by Good Law Project, VIP Lane suppliers like PPE Medpro were paid on average 80% more per unit than other suppliers. Some contracts were agreed at more than four times the average unit price.
Even the ‘clean-up’ operation is costing a fortune.
The DHSC employed a 'commercial advisor' on 1 April 2022 at a rate of £1,100 a day to help its recently established 'contract dissolution team' extricate the department from the wasteful contracts signed with PPE suppliers.
With a total fee of £242,785 for 220 days work, only the Chief Executive of NHS England was set to be paid more by the DHSC this year, according to Labour.
What Happens Next?
The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee revealed that only 2% of COVID business grants lost to fraud has been recovered to date. Labour says that, if elected next year, it will pursue “every pound of public money” that has been inappropriately lost from pandemic related contacts, fraud and waste. Under the party’s plans, a COVID Corruption Commissioner would tackle the waste, fraud and dodgy contacts signed off by the Government during the pandemic.
Efforts at recovering the money are hampered by the fact that the UK is out of step with other countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, in having no offence of “fraud against the public purse” – except in relation to welfare and tax fraud.
But in the end, it’s not so much about the money, as the lives that would have been saved had Britain had well-stocked PPE supplies and proper checks on whether the supplies NHS workers were demanding were up to standard. Money can be clawed back. Lives cannot.
That baton is now held by the COVID Inquiry, which will begin its third module in the new year. Part of its remit is looking at how the spread of COVID-19 within healthcare settings was prevented – or not – including the adequacy of PPE.
Byline Times wishes it every luck in its digging – and for the hope that, one day, there might be some accountability for the cronyism and catastrophes of the Coronavirus pandemic, which, to date, has resulted in more than 230,000 people in the UK dying.
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Threats, Denials, and Disinformation: Why Michelle Mone’s ‘Apology’ Over PPE Medpro Lies Doesn’t Cut It
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“Baroness Mone is neither an investor, director or in any way associated with PPE Medpro. She has never had any role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro. Similarly, Mr Barrowman is not an investor, director or shareholder in PPE Medpro. He has also never had any role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro….
"PPE Medpro has no direct or indirect connection to the Conservative Party.” - then-PPE Medpro Director, July 2021.
Wrong, all of it. The truth comes out eventually.
PPE Medpro clinched its first Government contract just 44 days after its launch. One of two deals which would bag it a staggering £200 million for protective equipment during the pandemic.
The contracts in question included £81 million for face masks and £122 million for sterilised gowns intended for the NHS. When it arrived from China, most of it was found to be unusable. By that time, the profits had been stashed in the Isle of Man.
As countless parliamentary and journalistic investigations have found, vast sums of taxpayers’ cash were handed out like this, without standard competitive tender processes or scrutiny, throughout the pandemic.
In this case, Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone had tipped the firm run by her husband, Doug Barrowman, to Michael Gove - without declaring that she stood to benefit.
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When Byline Times became the first to disclose the contracts in September 2020 - and her role in securing them via the Government’s PPE ‘VIP Fast Lane’, her lawyers hit back.
What happened next felt like a textbook example of denial, evasion and threats against reporting that was in the public interest.
Baroness Mone and Doug Barrowman, initially through PPE Medpro’s representatives, vehemently denied any association with the company.
Their representatives asserted: "Neither Mr. Barrowman nor Baroness Mone are or have ever been a Director, shareholder, investor or in any way associated with PPE Medpro Limited." They “put [us] clearly on notice” for costly legal action, branding our work “defamatory”.
Empty Threats
Even if we’d won, libel law is so stacked against public interest reporting in the UK, that we could have faced costs in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Unlike in the US, the burden of proof in libel cases here lies with the publication proving the truth, not the powerful proving it was a lie.
As indeed one of Mone’s lawyers at Levy & McRae Solicitors highlighted - presumably with glee - when we pointed out Mone’s links to PPE Medpro: “In any defamation action, the onus of proof lies with the publisher.”
They went on: “You appear to be proposing to write an article which, if your email is reflective of it, would be grossly defamatory of our client.”
They made no attempt to dispute the facts. We can now infer that’s because our reporting was entirely accurate.
Threatening libel action in the UK is effectively free, and has zero consequences - except of course, for the journalists fearing they could be personally made bankrupt and lose their homes and livelihoods.
By November 2022, the truth was becoming even clearer. The Guardian reported leaked HSBC documents showing Barrowman receiving at least £65m from PPE Medpro’s profits, later transferring £29m to the Keristal Trust – a trust of which Mone and her children were beneficiaries.
This blasted her earlier claims into the water.
EXCLUSIVE
Respected Health Professionals Feel ‘Duped’ into Appearing in Michelle Mone PPE Documentary
A film about the PPE scandal did not declare to some contributors it was being funded by a company that won £203 million in Government PPE contracts
Tom Latchem and Dan Evans
One of Mone’s representatives told us last year: “It would be improper for my client to engage with you on matters which are reportedly part of an ongoing police investigation.”
Again, this plea for privacy now reads as a parody, given that Mone has just blasted her side of the story through a PPE Medpro-funded documentary, and a BBC interview amid a National Crime Agency investigation (she and Barrowman deny any illegality).
We pointed out that the libel threats appear to be without substance. Another lawyer (there were many) hit back: “That is not only defamatory of our client, but of us and indeed of her previous agents. If you report that explicitly or by implication, it will be actionable.”
Nearly all this correspondence, of course, was branded “not for publication”. We were told we could not even publish the threats (we ignored this outrageous demand, of course).
Threats, threats, and more threats. For reporting the truth. Did she lie to her lawyers, or did the lawyers knowingly mislead journalists?
One of her first lawyers of the scandal has denied that he “knowingly or deliberately misled, or attempted to mislead, or allowed myself to be complicit in the acts or omissions of others in my reply.”
Mone, though an unreliable narrator, has previously said she initially “denied involvement due to legal advice,” the BBC reported.
It could be up to the Solicitors Regulation Authority to decide who is telling the truth on this one.
What Happens Now?
In December 2022, the Department for Health, under pressure, announced it would attempt to sue PPE Medpro for the return of £122m, citing the PPE’s unsuitability for NHS use (PPE Medpro deny wrongdoing).
Because, in the end, this is not just about funds being diverted from Government coffers to Tory peers and their families, but the very safety of healthcare workers when they were dying from Covid in large numbers.
A PPE Medpro director at the time, Anthony Page, warned us: “We trust that there will be no inaccurate or misleading statements within your article. If that were to be the case then we will instruct our lawyers immediately” for libel action.
Such threats, often termed 'SLAPP' (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), were, in our eyes, designed to silence us through fear of litigation.
The legal correspondence from PPE Medpro and its representatives was peppered with denials and threats, aiming to dissuade journalists from probing further into a matter of public interest and taxpayer money. All of these threats have of course withered to dust the more the truth emerged.
Baroness Mone is now on a leave of absence from the House of Lords, but she presumably remains a Tory member and able to take the Tory whip when she returns to the chamber.
While under active investigation by the National Crime Agency, she has admitted to lying about her involvement in PPE Medpro. What impact it will have on the case is unclear, but it adds extra irony to the firm telling us details about the case were strictly “confidential” and therefore unreportable while Byline Times and others were uncovering new evidence of her involvement.
EXCLUSIVE
‘VIP’ Firms Referred by Tory MPs and Peers for PPE Deals See Profits Soar
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been earned by companies channelled through the expedited procurement route by Conservative politicians, Sam Bright reports
Sam Bright
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday (17 December), Mone admitted - after years of dissembling - that her claim of having zero involvement in PPE Medpro was a lie.
She apologised for lying - but the words rang hollow when in the same breath she said she’d “done nothing wrong.” Mone told the BBC “it’s not a crime” to lie to the press. That’s true, but the law isn’t the ultimate marker of what is right and wrong. It is a floor, not a ceiling.
My colleagues have received no apology from her, her husband, or PPE Medpro.
She did not just lie to the press. In doing so, she lied to the public. And she went further than lying - her representatives threatened libel action that could crush outlets like ours, for attempting to report the truth.
Our gaze must turn to the Government's role in enabling and indeed welcoming cronyism in its ranks.
The PPE Medpro scandal isn't just a tale of corporate greed or political nepotism; it's a clarion call for systemic change. It's a reminder that accountability and transparency aren't just ideals to aspire to, but necessities.
Whatever comes of the civil or criminal legal cases, it is clear that the pandemic, a catastrophe for human life, was exploited by those who saw an opportunity amid the chaos.
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Respected Health Professionals Feel ‘Duped’ into Appearing in Michelle Mone PPE Documentary
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A documentary film about PPE which includes an interview with former Conservative peer Michelle Mone has been accused of leaving respected health professionals feeling duped into appearing, Byline Times can reveal.
Ms Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, are facing criminal allegations as part of a long-running investigation by the National Crime Agency into their involvement with PPE Medpro, which secured government contracts worth more than £200 million - a connection first revealed on the Byline Times in September 2020.
PPE Medpro funded a film created by the award-winning producer and presenter, Mark Williams-Thomas, in which Mone admitted her “regret” in not publicly admitting links to the firm, but insisted “we've done nothing wrong”.
In a statement, Mr Williams-Thomas defended his journalism, saying he had not “set out to mislead anyone”, adding: “We have been totally upfront about who funded the programme.”
There is a credit at the end of the film, around 1hr and 11 mins into the documentary
However, this newspaper has spoken to two contributors who say they were never told the documentary was backed by PPE Medpro – and that had they known they would not have become involved.
Mr Williams-Thomas says that when these contributors were approached and filmed PPE Medpro were not involved.
Nadra Ahmed CBE, Chairman of the National Care Association, a not-for-profit which represents many of the care home providers that struggled to source PPE during the pandemic, told Byline Times “I was never told at any point who was funding the documentary... Had I known, there is no way I would have done it because I do not have any desire to get involved in somebody trying to clear their name over something I know nothing about.”
David Oliver, a former president of the Royal College of Physicians, said he felt “betrayed” after being approached on the basis he had been an outspoken critic of the government’s handling of the PPE crisis during the pandemic.
The doctor, who spoke in the documentary about losing five colleagues to Covid-19, said: “Nothing gave me any reason to think this was not an independent film about the government’s handling of PPE. Mark Williams-Thomas seemed to have a track record in his industry and, as someone who has done plenty of TV interviews, the set-up seemed professional.
“It wasn’t until after the documentary was broadcast, and friends who had watched it contacted me to say there was a credit saying the project had been funded by PPE Medpro, that I found out. I don’t like the idea that I was duped into adding an air of respectability and expertise to an attempt by Michelle Mone and PPE Medpro to salvage their reputation.”
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Sam Bright
After discovering the film had been funded by PPE Medpro, Oliver emailed Williams-Thomas to “bollock” him. He said: “I confronted [him with] an email saying it was no way to treat professionals. I told him I felt betrayed.”
In a response to Oliver, which Byline Times has seen, Williams-Thomas said the project was originally going to be “22 video shorts about the issues around the supply of PPE during COVID, which were intended for release on Social Media and included interviews with suppliers… [but] all of the PPE suppliers turned down our invitation to appear in our programme.”
As such, he added: “It was sometime after we had filmed with you that we found out that only one PPE provider agreed to be interviewed, [so] it therefore made better editorial sense to change the format to a television documentary.”
Blaming the Screen Actors’ Guild strike and “other financial issues in the industry” for not having been able to get the documentary alternatively financed, Williams-Thomas went on: “The only way this programme was going to get finished was if somebody privately funded it.
“I talked it over with my team and decided to approach Doug [Barrowman]. Doug was quite hesitant, but after several meetings eventually agreed that PPE Medpro would fund it, but that we would keep full editorial control. So whilst the program was funded by PPE Medpro, the full editorial control and content of the programme was ours, and independent. This was really important because integrity is absolutely vital; we had full editorial control and in no way do I feel this has been undermined, and which is central to all of this.”
EXCLUSIVE
Legal Threats to Byline Times’ Reporting of the PPE Procurement Scandal
The Byline Intelligence Team reports on the legal threats from PPE Medpro, a firm awarded £200 million in Government PPE deals
Byline Intelligence Team
In the film, Williams-Thomas – who first came to public attention through his revelations about Jimmy Savile in 2012 – asked Mone whether she had “benefited in any way from PPE Medpro money either directly or indirectly”.
She replied: “Look, my husband’s an entrepreneur. There were many entrepreneurs involved in PPE, supplying PPE, and the consortium that he led supplied huge volumes at very competitive prices that saved the NHS tens of millions of pounds.
“What my husband decides to do after the event and who benefits from that is at his discretion. I am his wife and I may indirectly benefit, but that’s just like all other families around that are married. That’s just it, that is not my money. I don’t have that money, it’s not my money.”
Williams-Thomas also asked Mone whether she had “lied to the press” because she had denied involvement in PPE Medpro, which was “not true”.
She said: “I made an error in what I said to the press. I regret not saying to the press straight away: ‘Yes I am involved, and the government knew I was involved, and the emergency team, Cabinet team, knew I was involved, the government, [Department of Health and Social Care] knew that I was involved, the NHS, all of them knew I was involved.’ The legal team advised myself and my husband not to comment and not to say that of my involvement in PPE Medpro.”
In the documentary, which was released on YouTube on Sunday during the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and was described by Williams-Thomas on social media as a “WORLD EXCLUSIVE PROGRAMME”, he says that he had “complete access” to the “criminal case files” of Mone and Mr Barrowman.
It featured heavily redacted documents showing they have both been interviewed under caution regarding three criminal allegations.
“The NCA investigation into them both is in relation to allegations of conspiracy to defraud, fraud by false representation, and bribery, which they both categorically deny,” he added.
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The Guardian - which led on the story - has reported how Mone made an initial approach to ministers Michael Gove and Theodore Agnew on behalf of PPE Medpro in May 2020, offering to supply PPE and was awarded the newly formed company two contracts worth a total of £203m.
For years, Mone and Barrowman denied any involvement in PPE Medpro, via statements from their lawyers. When Byline Times first approached PPE Medpro about Mone its co-director likewise denied any links and stated "Our media lawyer Eddie is cc’d in above in case we need to take action against you."
However, last month the Guardian revealed that the couple had for the first time publicly accepted their involvement in the company. In April 2022, the NCA raided PPE Medpro’s offices along with Mone and Barrowman’s homes in London and the Isle of Man. In November 2022, the Guardian reported leaked documents from HSBC bank which showed Barrowman was paid at least £65m from PPE Medpro’s profits. He then transferred £29m to an offshore trust, of which Mone and her three adult children were beneficiaries.
Two weeks later, Mone took leave of absence from the House of Lords, which her spokesperson said was “to clear her name”.
Following the film’s release, she wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday: “If I’m being honest, the public probably sees me as a horrible person, a liar, or even a cheat. But I am none of those things. These last 2 years have taken a horrendous toll on me personally, and I want to clear my name.”
EXCLUSIVE
PPE Firm Subject to £122m Recovery Action from UK Government Has Only £4m in Assets
After £200m in Government COVID contracts, PPE Medro, associated with the Conservative peer Baroness Mone, appears to have few assets left
Stephen Delahunty
Williams-Thomas told Byline Times that the film was in two parts and that the two contributors featured in the PPE section, not in the interview with Mone and Barrowman.
“At no stage have we set out to mislead anyone, and to suggest so is not supported or evidenced," he told Byline Times: “The programme was absolutely NOT made to clear either Mone or Barrowman, but to investigate and show the case against them and to expose a very serious allegation against the DHSC. The programme features really strong journalism, but sadly for some journalists this has been missed or deliberately ignored, for other reasons and agendas.”
“We have been totally up-front about who funded the programme and as to why we went down that route, putting in place safeguards to ensure editorial control and as much independence as possible,” Williams-Thomas added.
Byline Times reached out to Mone for comment and will update this piece if we receive a response.
Belly Woman: Birth, Blood and Ebola: The Untold Story – review
In Belly Woman: Birth, Blood and Ebola: The Untold Story, Benjamin Black gives a first-hand account of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and the efforts of communities and healthcare workers to save the lives of pregnant women at risk. Black’s gripping exposé indicts the slow and inadequate response by international health agencies and argues for better-resourced healthcare systems, better reproductive healthcare for women and valuing local expertise to prevent future epidemics, writes Susannah Mayhew.
Belly Woman: Birth, Blood and Ebola: The Untold Story. Benjamin Black. Neem Tree Press. 2023.
Find this book: 
Belly Woman: Birth, Blood and Ebola, the Untold Story has the fluidity and compulsion of a novel while providing fascinating insights into frontline action and research on the effects of Ebola on pregnant women and how to protect them. Written by obstetrician gynaecologist and aid advisor Benjamin Black, the book arises from his years spent with Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) before, during and after the devastating Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone between 2014-2016. Structured in three parts, it first takes us through the desperate early months of epidemic response in which healthcare staff charted unknown territory as they managed the “mindboggling” (77) complexities of caring for pregnant women with Ebola. We then return to Sierra Leone a few months later to an improving situation in which Ebola in pregnancy could safely be managed, but local learning was ignored by international responders (who had eventually arrived). Finally, as the epidemic declines, we witness the ongoing post-Ebola tragedy of maternal death.
The book is both a powerful story of how medics of all nationalities strived to save lives against the odds and a deeply personal, sharply political book about the existing inadequacies of women’s reproductive healthcare which were tragically magnified during Ebola.
The book is both a powerful story of how medics of all nationalities strived to save lives against the odds and a deeply personal, sharply political book about the existing inadequacies of women’s reproductive healthcare which were tragically magnified during Ebola. The book swings back and forth in time as Black juxtaposes his London experiences of maternal care, particularly during Covid, with the raw accounts of actions in Sierra Leone. This sets the desperate inadequacies of facilities in Sierra Leone in stark relief against the smooth functioning, highly resourced facilities of the UK. It also highlights, in both situations, the dangerous consequences of arrogance when it drives decision-making by those in positions of political and medical power. The lived experiences of Black’s narrative provide a quietly damning judgement on the world’s response to Ebola and the ubiquitous failure to listen to and learn from those in the frontlines of crisis response – both medics and ordinary citizens.
The lived experiences of Black’s narrative provide a quietly damning judgement on the world’s response to Ebola and the ubiquitous failure to listen to and learn from those in the frontlines of crisis response – both medics and ordinary citizens.
Part one of the book plunges us into the thick of the epidemic as local and international staff struggle to the point of frustrated exhaustion to deal with the pace and scale of an epidemic which “should never have exploded […] It had all happened in slow motion and was totally predictable”, yet the world ignored it – “I felt like we were screaming into a vacuum.” (166). Black gives us rich insight into the extent of grass-roots medical efforts in responding to the disease and gathering hitherto undocumented data on the impact of Ebola on pregnancy. He reveals a world in which “[r]oulette, not medicine, became the order of the day” (40) with staff operating in an ethical “no-man’s land” (65). They faced daily dilemmas: what do you do with a pregnant woman in critical condition who might have Ebola but without immediate obstetrics intervention would not survive the time it took to get the Ebola test-result back? Frontline doctors kept their own notes and shared their own learning, creating some of the first (and only) research on how Ebola affects pregnant women and their unborn foetuses, and how to manage such pregnancies safely.
Frontline doctors kept their own notes and shared their own learning, creating some of the first (and only) research on how Ebola affects pregnant women and their unborn foetuses
The slowness and inadequacy of the international response to the West Africa Ebola epidemic is well known, but the book still shocks with its detail of the nature and consequences of the wider response. Seven months after the first officially diagnosed case the international “cavalry” arrive, prompted by concerns of a risk to global health security, and ironically but predictably “in synchronicity with declining transmission” (210). In Part Two Black describes the shameful in-fighting between international responders desperate to make their mark and claim territory. He and his colleagues in the field joked darkly of “Ebola tourists”, the “EOAs (Experts On Arrival)” (181) and the “hot-headed rigidity and lack of pragmatism” of the UK military response (215) all of whom sometimes put patients at risk despite available lessons that could have avoided this.
The WHO ignored local learning and produced guidelines for the Ministry of Health that directly undermined the management of pregnant women post-Ebola, and failed again to listen when frontline MSF doctors voiced their concerns.
Even in the final throes of the epidemic (Part Three), when so much should have been learned, there are distressing illustrations of the power of arrogance. The WHO ignored local learning and produced guidelines for the Ministry of Health that directly undermined the management of pregnant women post-Ebola, and failed again to listen when frontline MSF doctors voiced their concerns. This lead directly to unnecessary deaths before the guidelines were finally repealed – truly, “Egos can kill” (324). This approach that discounts local knowledge has been seen repeatedly, including in Democratic Republic of Congo’s biggest Ebola outbreak just two years later despite attempts to improve feedback from communities, and in the UK’s own Covid response as lessons were “forgotten, wilfully ignored or recycled for the next emergency” (239). The damage that ignoring important lessons can do is agonisingly exposed in the many unnecessary deaths of pregnant women that Black describes. He notes that though experimental drugs and vaccines were promising, they could not “replace basic hygiene, health promotion and community engagement” (167) – and to achieve this trust in health workers is key.
Trust in healthcare cannot be built by a ‘revolving door’ of international medical health workers and ‘experts’; it is built through local health staff working tirelessly on the ground
Although not explicit in the book, the breakdown of trust has longstanding repercussions that echo through the book’s narratives of both Ebola and UK Covid responses. Trust in healthcare cannot be built by a “revolving door” (9) of international medical health workers and “experts”; it is built through local health staff working tirelessly on the ground: “As the outside world, with all its resources and capability, held back in fear and self-protectionism, these individuals stood firm, and […] played a part in saving us all.” (159). Yet, these people were largely ignored when the world was congratulating itself on saving the day (329), though some, like Black’s trusted local colleague Morris, gave their lives.
During the epidemic, pregnancy was seen as an explosive risk […] but afterwards, maternal mortality and morbidity – like much of women’s health – were too often invisible
The question of how to tackle the underlying “protracted health crisis” (113) of high maternal mortality rates haunts the third part of the book. Black and his colleagues were acutely aware that, “[t]he end of Ebola was not the end of the emergency, just as the start had never been the beginning.” (316). During the epidemic, pregnancy was seen as an explosive risk (a potential “Ebola bomb” ch.25), but afterwards, maternal mortality and morbidity – like much of women’s health – were too often invisible so “if you didn’t look for it, you didn’t see it, and if you didn’t see it then there was no emergency” (254). This meant that even MSF’s hierarchy failed to acknowledge the absolute necessity of supporting family planning as a critical preventive measure for high-risk pregnancy and maternal death.
There is an urgent need to rethink humanitarian approaches in light of Black’s insights, to humbly learn from and work with frontline responders to strengthen health systems and protect the health of all women and young children.
Following Ebola, Sierra Leone overtook Sudan and Chad to suffer the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. The colonial and neo-colonial legacy of aid-dependent, resource-poor health systems unable to respond to major shocks like Ebola undoubtedly contributed to this protracted health crisis, but arguably the superiority mindset of many international responders compounded and perpetuated it. There is an urgent need to rethink humanitarian approaches in light of Black’s insights, to humbly learn from and work with frontline responders to strengthen health systems and protect the health of all women and young children. In making this case, Belly Woman is an extraordinary book – a visceral, harrowing but ultimately life-affirming read.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties on Flickr.
Government Forced to Reveal Cost of Failed Legal Challenge Over Release of Covid-Era WhatsApp Messages from Johnson and Sunak
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The Government wasted nearly £200,000 of taxpayers' money on lawyers to fight its unsuccessful legal battle against a demand for unredacted WhatsApp messages from ministers during the pandemic, Byline Times can reveal.
Ministers initially resisted demands from the official Covid inquiry chair Baroness Hallett to hand over an unredacted cache of documents from during the pandemic, including ex-PM Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages, notebooks and diaries - going so far as to trigger a court battle.
Ministers lost their case this July, having claimed that it should only hand over documents it deemed relevant. The court however ruled that the chair of the inquiry had the ability to demand all materials she deemed relevant and necessary, not Government departments.
Following an FoI battle with Ian Rex-Hawkes, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, the Cabinet Office has now released the headline cost of the legal battle.
A spokesperson told Rex-Hawkes: “We are content to disclose that as of November 2023 the total legal costs for the Judicial Review on the production of Government and Ministerial WhatsApp messages to the Inquiry were £192,739.”
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The Lib Dem activist told Byline Times: “I am so fed up with the continuous wastage by this Government, especially when you consider the quarter of a million pounds spent on Boris Johnson’s partygate legal fees. It seems obvious that these messages should have been handed to the inquiry from the start.
“But they tried to avoid even releasing the amount spent at first, saying it was commercially sensitive and not in the public interest. Now they’ve finally given up and given us at least one figure.
“Just to get advice on whether they have to hand over messages to a public inquiry they have wasted nearly £200,000. If they’d asked any lawyer, that would be six minutes of work: it would cost a few hundred quid to say: “yes you should hand the WhatsApps over"...The £200,000 doesn’t represent value for money."
The cost covers legal advice on whether the Government needed to disclose messages to the public inquiry, as well as the judicial review to take the inquiry to court over its demand for the unredacted messages - a battle the Government lost.
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Both PM Rishi Sunak and ex-PM Boris Johnson have, despite the court order, failed to release their WhatsApp messages from key stages of the pandemic, with both saying they were lost. The claims have triggered anger from victims' families and allegations of obstruction to the inquiry.
Rex-Hawkes added: "I don’t believe their story for a moment. WhatsApp is designed to transfer messages from phone to phone. You have to take significant steps to not have that data carried through to a new device. If they took those steps, that says a lot about whether they know they did something wrong. It looks obstructive.”
Jolyon Maugham, director of Good Law Project, told Byline Times: "When it comes to paying junior doctors properly, the Government never tires of pointing out constrained public finances. But when it comes to cover-ups of what they did during the pandemic, it often feels like money is no object.
"I think what the British public really wants is for them to just come clean - stop 'losing' their WhatApps; stop trying to block the Inquiry's access to the ones they didn't lose."
Resisting Demands
The Cabinet Office initially rejected the request to know how much was spent fighting the Covid inquiry’s request for unredacted communications from ministers, saying it could “prejudice the commercial interests” of the legal firms by revealing their fees.
“It is our view that disclosure of information relating to the breakdown of fees would be likely to adversely affect the law firm and counsels’ chambers, and how they competitively charge their clients in comparison to others specialising in the same areas of law,” the Cabinet Office said in its first response.
“It would be likely to harm instructed law firms, counsel and their chambers’ business reputations,” the department claimed. Officials also claimed that releasing a cost breakdown would “deter future solicitors and counsel” from working with departments.
“We recognise that there is a public interest in openness and transparency of Cabinet Office’s legal expenditure, enabling accountability in the efficient use of public resources. However, these points are weighed against the commercial confidence expected from the department when instructing independent counsel,” the department initially stated, adding: “We have determined that the balance of the public interest favours withholding this information.”
‘The Lack of Transparency about COVID Science Will have Cost Lives During the Pandemic’
The public – and scientists – were not able to scrutinise the Government’s interpretation of the scientific evidence with which it was being supplied, argues Independent SAGE member Kit Yates
Kit Yates
But Rex-Hawkes challenged the claims, ordering an internal review to the department’s rejection of his Freedom of Information request. He argued: “If a firm is charging a public department for its services, then that firm can have no reasonable expectation that its fees will remain private.”
After the internal review, the Cabinet Office released the total spend. However, a breakdown of what the money was spent on was deemed “exempt from disclosure” on the grounds that its disclosure would be “likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person.”
“The disclosure of the breakdown of costs would expose the rates that the Cabinet Office was prepared to pay for legal advice on a matter such as the judicial review. This would undermine the market position of the Cabinet Office and potentially lead to it being
charged more for legal advice than would otherwise be the case,” the department claimed.
And they added that a detailed breakdown of costs would “undermine [lawyers’] position in the legal advice marketplace and give their competitors an unfair advantage.”
Tom Brufatto, Director of Policy at campaign group Best for Britain said they would add the costly legal fight to its ‘scandalous spending tracker’. The total the group claims has been wasted by the Government since 2019 is now nearing £100bn.
Susie Flintham, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK said: “It’s obscene that the Cabinet Office blew £200,000 on a judicial review that had a minuscule chance of succeeding, in the desperate hope of obstructing their own inquiry from receiving key evidence. You shudder to think what is in the many thousands of WhatsApp messages that Johnson and Sunak have flat out refused to share with the inquiry.
“As ever, they’re more interested in protecting their reputations than they are in trying to save lives in the future. Their attitude is completely self serving and their selfish actions risk leaving us unprepared for the next pandemic, just as we were for the last one.”
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When Lost Humanity Breaks Down Healthcare
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As you linger through the endless dull hours that make up most of life on a hospital ward, great significance is attached to the slightest things and also to those who are suddenly close.
Nurse P was always late with the drugs trolley, but her kindness and her fastidious approach opened up conversations during my stint in August. However, as my consciousness came back with the realisation of delays, so did my awareness that the ward was understaffed. If you are the nurse who administers drugs and there are too many patients on a particular day, then hold-ups are inevitable.
I found out Nurse P was from Nepal. This fact excited me, and was a reminder of how much the NHS has always relied on immigration to ensure its smooth running. But Nepal? Intriguing. I admit a hundred muddled cliches of Kathmandu – of beautiful people and Buddhist monks – consumed me. Nurse P was likewise genuinely fascinated when she found out I am a writer, including for Byline Times, which she looked up on her first break.
The usual experience for a disabled person in hospital is one where you grapple with the constant curse of pity. Every day: poor you, how long have you been like this? As I got better, my well-known teasing wit returned. What – sorry for me after wild times in a London punk band and writing a sex book, not to mention several fiancés and two husbands? I would counter. Sometimes this works. But after the brain bleeds, this approach often jumps to a peculiar rabbit-hole of more pity and one that feeds the tiresome ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’ disabled trope.
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Nurse P, however, was that wondrous rarity: she immediately read my column and spoke to me about it the day after, telling me she would buy my memoir First in the World Somewhere. I’m sad that the new challenges I face have crushed my energy, meaning that I’ve yet to return to the hospital and thank her with a signed copy.
Another reason the drugs trolley was often late is plainly down to the despicable, self-interested approach the Tories have to running – ruining – the NHS.
Abuse I witnessed from male nurses on night shifts is surely an echo of the culture in which they thrive. A shortage of decent staff, often poorly paid, creates a cascading effect. Older women on this ‘frailty ward’ were easy targets for a type of toxic masculinity I will always find shocking – particularly as a disabled woman – when a patient opposite me was abused. Highly vulnerable and with dementia, she was what the news likes to term a ‘bed-blocker’, and these men tormented her as a source of sickening entertainment.
I went through the night time hell in a hospital ward for just under four weeks. On those dark nights, I wrestled with thoughts of medical ghouls – Harold Shipman, Beverley Allitt and, more recently, Lucy Letby. Not forgetting the long, loathsome reign of Jimmy Savile who still at times despoils the innocent memories of my childhood.
I'm sharply aware of my own near miss now, hearing of the toxic culture of cover-up from the recent Newsnight exposure of Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. That management is poor with the only concern hitting targets was one whistleblower’s take. Another report stated that “police investigations involved alleged mistakes in the treatment of more than 100 patients from 2015 and 2021, including at least 40 who died”.
Why a near miss of my own? The investigations are largely focused on Brighton’s neurology department, of which, in August, I was under its remote care. Some of my loved ones urged the ward doctors to send me for treatment at Brighton but ultimately decisions were made on brain scans and I stayed in Hastings. With hindsight, I’m very thankful.
However, a mistake was made upon my discharge. The accompanying letter stated I would hear from neurology for the follow-up and, after a three-month delay, this happened by accident when my next of kin contacted a support service which wrote to neurology on a completely different matter. I have no idea of any long-term effects of this, although, as is often the case – and it’s important to say it – my personal neurologist shows compassion and genuine interest in my recovery. He noted the error and I now have that in writing.
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Yet again, authorities are scrutinising another medical scandal. I’ve seen it all my life. But it sits alongside the compassionate salve of patience and humanity of those who’ve travelled far to work for the NHS.
As a child, I met nurses from Jamaica on the tail-end of the Windrush Generation. Young Irish women are still here and remain stalwarts for our health institution. This time there were people from South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Philippines, alongside lovely Nurse P, who had worked in the NHS for 21 years.
But I saw more of the NHS struggles by the petty failures that occurred to me after my four-week stay. No more caring staff, but fractured primary care services. It was as if the Tories had set up some vicious cost-effective ‘needs-o-meter’ where there’s a level one cannot go over. The day I left, everything began to collapse within these services that were supposedly there for my rehabilitation and recovery.
I am far from alone in this struggle and, as long as I breathe, I will fight. As despicable truths emerge from the Covid Inquiry, my resolve is never stronger. Particularly as, let us not forget, that six of every 10 Covid deaths were disabled people.
I hold Nurse P deep in my memories, to remind me of the best we have within a service that, as flawed as it is, we simply cannot lose.
Penny Pepper is an award-winning author, poet and disabled activist whose work focuses on identity, difference and what makes us human
‘The Lack of Transparency about COVID Science Will have Cost Lives During the Pandemic’
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The Government's Chief Scientific Advisor during the pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance, gave evidence at the COVID Inquiry last week. The headline-grabbing story was probably his testimony that SAGE was not consulted about the now infamous 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme. Chris Whitty, England's Chief Medical Officer, corroborated his testimony in his own appearance later in the week, revealing that “there was no consultation. Neither Patrick nor I can recall it and I think we would have done”.
Other insights were offered by Sir Patrick's testimony, perhaps most tellingly through his diary entries. These include suggestions that Downing Street wanted science “altered”; that then Chancellor Rishi Sunak suggested “it is all about handling the scientists, not handling the virus”; and that then Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the Coronavirus graphs as a “mirage” suggesting, in direct contradiction of evidence to the contrary, that "the curves just follow natural patterns despite what you do".
In under-reported parts of his testimony, Sir Patrick was asked about members of SPI-B (the behavioural committee of SAGE – the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) joining the Independent SAGE group. He replied: “I'm second to none in my belief in academic freedom, but if you join a government committee it’s slightly odd to the be on a committee that’s set up to challenge the government committee.”
His testimony demonstrates a misunderstanding of the reasons for the formation and the purpose of Independent SAGE, of which I am a member.
The alternative scientific advisory group was not set up to challenge SAGE advice but to communicate science transparently and directly. Indeed, the advice shared by Independent SAGE in its weekly public briefings and regular reports was largely in line with SAGE. We drew frequently on the advice and evidence of the excellent scientists working for SAGE, and the group has always put transparency in communication – which many felt was not being offered by the official government committee.
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Transparency is a vital part of the scientific process. This is especially true for scientific advice, which has such significant ramifications.
If you are asking people to undergo restrictions on their liberties and livelihoods based on scientific advice, scientists owe it to the public to explain the science and the modelling behind those decisions. It doesn’t have to be the scientists who are doing the work who share it with the public – understandably many scientists working on the UK’s pandemic response already felt overwhelmed – but someone capable should be keeping the public up-to-date.
Too often during the pandemic, science was either poorly communicated or left entirely uncommunicated – which left a vacuum for potentially bad actors to step in and manipulate the situation to their own ends.
In his testimony, Sir Patrick Vallance went on to describe “a chilling effect, where people didn’t want to bring things to either SAGE or sub-committees as a result of either this [members of SPI-B joining Independent SAGE] or indeed the transparency of publishing all of our minutes”.
Understandably, some of the documents discussed at SAGE meetings may have been sensitive or confidential, but the logical consequence of that sensitivity is not that all SAGE minutes should be secret. This is especially true given that the type of minutes that SAGE was publishing were more akin to a high-level consensus statement than a detailed transcription of everything that was said, and all the documents reviewed during meetings. Many would have liked to have seen more detailed minutes that captured the nuances of the debates that were had.
Increased transparency also leads to increased accountability.
Being able to scrutinise the minutes of scientific committees such as SAGE means that outsiders can verify the assertions and check the results for themselves. Reproducibility and replicability through transparency lies at the heart of science and it should be no different in the case of emergencies.
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Indeed, early on in the pandemic, there were scientific mistakes in the SAGE minutes – for example the doubling time of the pandemic was overestimated. The scientific advice which stemmed from this mistake potentially led to UK decision-makers assuming Britain was further behind Italy’s – which in March 2020, was the worst affected country outside of China – pandemic trajectory. This misunderstanding may have induced the UK to pursue a mitigation strategy – as opposed to a suppression strategy – for too long, at the cost of many lives.
SAGE minutes were not made public until May 2020 (at almost the same time that Independent SAGE held its first briefing).
But if these minutes had been available for public scrutiny sooner, it’s likely that interested non-SAGE scientists would have been able to highlight the mistake.
The motto of the Royal Society is “nullius in verba” – take no one’s word for it. What we were asked to do all too often in the acute phase of the pandemic is exactly that: to accept the Government’s interpretation of the scientific evidence with which it was being supplied, without the ability to subject it to scrutiny.
That was not a model for good science – and one that should have been replaced in favour of greater transparency and openness.
Kit Yates is a a senior lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and co-director of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath. He is a member of Independent SAGE