Bower-ed out at last from the National Health Service talent show; no longer will we hear the strident tones of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’, instead she is lisping the lyrics – ‘I’m just a fool whose intentions are good, Oh! Lord! Please don’t let me be misunderstood’ as she steps down from the national Karaoke stage. The raucous cries of ‘Gerr’er off’, proved too much for her in the end, the voter’s votes are in, and it is a resounding ‘nul points’ for Our Cynthia.

She has taken some of her backing group with her; the Ms Finney, her former lead singer, otherwise known as Deputy Chief Executive of the CQC, was last night sacked from her new sinecure in Nominet the domain registering company.  Ms Bower had already moved onto another Quango, ‘Skills for Health’, despite her son saying ‘you need to put your feet up, Mum’ when she resigned from the CQC with her £65,000 a year pension – the lure of another dip into the public purse proved too much for her, a couple of hundred thousand a year for guarding the interests of the NHS (Ed: Wasn’t she supposed to be guarding the interests of the public who use the NHS?) by turning a blind eye when it made ‘statistical blips’ like knocking off 1200 patients who should have been home enjoying life with their families, or ignoring the whistle blower Terry Bryan when he tried to tell of the appalling abuse meted out to vulnerable patients in Winterbourne View – the final straw was the disclosure of a report, initially denied, into the deaths of 16 babies at a hospital in Cumbria.

There is only so much that one woman can do to conceal the deficiencies of the NHS.

She had done her best. One of her first acts was to save £44 million from the regulator’s budget by sacking all those who might have weird notions of carrying out any investigations into the NHS. A noble act, it ensured that no one with any qualifications went anywhere near the hospitals, no inspections were done during her reign. Instead, she set up a brilliant system of unqualified bods with spikey hair and shinny suits working from home using laptops to check the self assessment forms that the hospitals sent them. She called it a ‘field force model’ and said it represented  ’expertise at the intersection of the axes’. Inspired!

When Private Eye asked via a FOI what qualifications these suits had, she said it would ‘take 20 minutes’ to ask each member of her ‘field force’ and that would take them away from their ‘horizon scanning’ ‘proactively testing intelligence’ from the hospitals. Could any other woman have so comprehensively mastered the art of management double-speak? 

With the hospitals now engaged in writing their own ‘end of term reports’, and an army of ex double glazing salesmen who couldn’t spell ‘premature death’ checking them to ensure that no one said anything daft like ‘sorry about the 1200, couldn’t be helped’, there was just one thing left to do:

Agree £11.2 million in severance pay agreements with the Treasury for disgruntled employees who might have spouted off defamatory outpourings about her beloved NHS.  It is a testament to Ms Bower’s skills at writing double speak that the Nation Audit Office have now agreed that contrary to popular belief – none of the golden handshakes actually included a ‘gagging clause’…they were just written in such a way that the benighted employees thought they did!

‘Some people we spoke to who had been offered, or accepted, compromise agreements have felt gagged.

‘An organisation’s culture, the events leading up to the person being offered an agreement, and the wording of the agreements contributed to whether the individual felt gagged.

‘Legal advice to the employee is a prerequisite of making a compromise agreement legally enforceable. However, the individuals we spoke to felt that it was not generally made clear that confidentiality clauses do not prevent employees from raising legitimate public interest concerns.’

Atta girl Cynthia!

What now for ‘our beloved NHS’, without Cynthia guarding its patients reputation, will it be revealed to the world as a parallel universe where citizens enter in mediocre health, and after a few short weeks lying in their own faeces, hooked up to intravenous drips helpfully doctored with poison by the nursing staff, fed inedible food, they are discharged with incurable MRSA to die in their loved ones arms – or will Jeremy Hunt manage to find another dedicated trooper like Our Cynthia to churn out Stasi reports telling us how wonderful it all is?

I still remember the stinging condemnation from the Head of Health at Unison when someone suggested – ‘gasp’! – emulating the French part-privatised system which has successfully kept me alive for the past two years.

‘Patients would be little more than consumers’!

Can’t be having that can we?

Can anybody tell me which of these pictures is Cynthia Bower, comedienne, and which is Jo Brand, comedienne? I can’t risk labelling them incorrectly. Ms Brand might sue me.

Ho Hum June 23, 2013 at 05:41

Good thing I saw this before I left!

Anna, as ever, you’re very kind

Dr Cromarty. The written word is such a poor vehicle for conveying content,
intent, tone and humour. Might i apologise for whichever of mine may have been
lost in getting to where we were and for what might have appeared, insofar as
either, or both, a lack or excess thereof caused you such irritation? wed
probably get on famously if we were able to do this down at the pub. So may I
blow you a great big xxx! No emoticons for that, I’m afraid

I’m glad that this opportunity has arisen as I have always hated rows, and
even more so their being left unclosed.

Got to go. Scotland beckons and I must leave!

Dr Cromarty
June 23, 2013 at 15:40

That’s not really an apology is it? It’s s half-hearted
-Anthony-Blair-I’m-sorry-if-you’re-offended-kinda-apology. You called me a
haffleen and implied I couldn’t follow an argument (‘The Cat Sat On The
Mat’). Both are offensive and rude and you don’t seem to grasp that.

If you’re going to apologise, do it properly. Your written word in this
case conveys merely weasel sentiments.

Dr Cromarty
June 23, 2013 at 15:48

That said, I’m sure this is all very boring for everyone else, so let’s
call it a day, eh?

Frankie June 24, 2013 at 22:29

@Ho Hum: I had hoped that when you mentioned going on holiday it would
have been something like Paragliding… over Afghanistan, or Swimming with Red
Sea Sharks – without the benefit of a protective cage.

Oh well, we can only hope that Mr. (or is it Ms. or Mrs.) Hum essays a
few ‘home truths’ of the kind expressed here – in the direction of a
belligerent Glaswegian or two.

Moor
Larkin June 22, 2013 at 17:02

@ we give too much to foreigners @

It’s maybe because we no longer take enough off the foreigners…… as we did
when we WERE the richest country in the world…

We are still the sixth richest I believe, or thereabouts. As the Brazilians
are noticing, the powers-that-be can always find the money for their grandiose
projects like the Olympics or wars in the Middle East or another
re-organisation of the NHS.

davidb June 22, 2013 at 10:51

And we armchair warriors are really making a difference?

I want to keep this short. It needs a huge essay, but I cannot be bothered
doing that.

There are millions of us. We all have our own ideas as to what is right or
wrong, moral or immoral. Our politicians appeal to the average. Our mass
retailers cater to the masses. Sure there are niche markets, which since we
are so numerous, businessmen can target profitably. But where we seek to cater
to the common denominator, that is usually the lowest common denominator.

And so with the worlds third largest employer – the two bigger ones being
located in countries with a billion or more citizens each, to our 70 or so
million. They provide a health service that caters to the average. I don’t buy
chicken from Asda, but I don’t expect to pay Asda price for organic chicken
from M & S either. Some people can do all their shopping at Lidl.

We have a bit of a problem. Health demands are not equal amongst all
sectors of the population. Drug addiction effects, stabbing wounds, skiing
injuries. I would suspect you could conceive a model which would predict which
sector was more likely to suffer any of these disproportionately. The only two
health issues which are universal are birth and death themselves. So we have
this notion of a “free” universal health service to treat all these
conditions. Why would it be expected to make everyone happy? It caters to the
average. Health care is better than many countries – we get health tourists –
it is worse than others. The French state takes the highest proportion of its
country’s GDP unto itself in the EU. The German system incorporates people
paying for health insurance. Do we want to pay much higher taxes? We cannot
expect to fly business class on Ryanair. But for many people just having a
seat is enough.

So, I agree there are better systems. I agree that we are not all eating
organic chicken. But we want to pay Asda price for Waitrose food. It doesn’t
add up.

People. People do what is expected of them. Schools teach to target. Our
police create easy motoring crimes because they are easy to solve. Their
targets are met – oh and they have fine targets too, work that genius of
cynicism out. The only proven motivator of improving quality is the profit
model. But the great “success” of private provision in our society calls even
that into question. Our former state industries may arguably have been better
run for the average citizen under the previous owners. So you can see the
great fear that people have of privatisation in the health system. Those of us
with expensive conditions will not get insurance or will be bankrupted to pay
for treatment ( see care home provision already ). Add to that a vested
interest of heavily unionised, great working conditions employees in the
health service, and you are on a hiding to nothing trying to reform the
present system.

Really the NHS is a symptom of a far wider malaise in the UK. We are no
longer the richest country in the world, and we cannot afford to provide free
unlimited services to everyone. Its not just because we don’t take enough off
the rich, or we give too much to foreigners. We are fed a line of bull from
our keen to please leaders that the milk and honey will always flow. Ours will
not be the last civilisation to collapse.

I would argue for a bit of reality checking. We need to stop pretending we
can police the world. We need to elect people who are not primarily interested
in just themselves. We need to make the most of the last drops of oil, to
reform our whole social system completely. There are systems where people take
responsibility for their own welfare. The state can encourage people with
co-payments and tax breaks to build up their own funds for health care and
education provision. But over a couple of generations it has to be clearly
understood that the state is not going to be nanny any longer.

I am glad I am not leaving school this summer. For many of the kids, laden
with A grades and a poor education, their impeding debt funded degree in media
studies is unlikely to find then a high paying job in the banking sector. But
I would wonder why I was paying National Insurance at all if I’m going to be
killed in an NHS hospital before I reach 100 and claim my pension.

Cover ups are normal in every business. Do you think Pizza hut will be
putting that mouse photograph on its posters? How many years have Google spent
not being evil? Let those of us who are without sin cast the first stone.
People die in private hospitals too. My accountant got blood poisoning when he
was getting a simple knee op in a private hospital ( a good one too! ). I am
very sorry for the victims of the current scandal, but in a few months it will
be forgotten. The story will fade and the papers will have found something
else to whip up the mob. Nothing will change. But until we all wake up and
learn that Milton Friedman was right, we will still get Asda price health
care. Until the IMF comes calling at least.

Mike June 22, 2013 at 08:32

In a previous incarnation (up until 2000) I was a member of a body
responsible for inspecting one aspect of NHS hospitals. We gave an adverse
report on our aspect of one hospital. It didn’t help a policy drive emanating
from the NHS centre. Very heavy pressure to reverse it, and we wouldn’t until
we were satisfied changes were made. Lo and behold within a year, just after I
left the organisation, our body and others like it had the power to actually
visit the hospitals we were ‘inspecting’ taken away.

There is very strong pressure to make any body such as ours up to major
ones like the CQC toe the line, but deniably. Then if it goes pear shaped, it
wasn’t the centre’s fault, after all the body is independent isn’t it?

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 10:50

Every government i worked under for the last 30 odd years tried to Copper
bottom its underwear by restructures aimed at little more than palming off
responsibility for the things that go wrong, whilst maintaining control, and
the taking of credit when things go right. Patients and clients hardly
figure in that as real people

And the people who do manage to keep the lid on things are the ones who
rise up, be they really good or bad. The problem for the good ones is that
they find it difficult to square their conscience – I know one who
consciously moved down a notch because of what they found themselves
expected to do, and some get the heave, one in particular from personal
experience stands out as a classic example, when they reach the point they
can’t cross and dig their heels in. And when things do go agley, some people
get ‘shifted’ out of harms way, maybe more aptly put as swept under the
carpet to keep them out of public view and minimise the risk of any dirt
hitting the politicos

That’s no different from elsewhere, and the ROOT cause is top management,
the politicians, who seem willing to do anything, and tread on anyone, who
won’t wash their underwear for them. They make for great role models. It’s
almost something to cry about when the last honourable politician one can
think on was John Profumo.

binao June 22, 2013 at 07:24

Considering the size of the nhs, this incident is surely just another
little splash in the bucket.
Somewhere between 1,25 and 1,5 million work
for the nhs depending on which numbers you find + contractors. About one in
twenty of our working population. Plenty of opportunities for subversion of
any service ethic.
I’m not suggesting the CQC fiasco is acceptable; just
what will be the next one and how soon?

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 02:10

I’ve now had time to read most of the comments. By all means shoot them IF,
and only if, they are properly ‘convicted’, but at the moment, all most of you
are doing is sounding like the average fruitcake in the Daily Mail, whose
purpose in life seems confined to giving viable political ammunition to the
sort of left wing halfwits whose contributions on similar matters seem to
comfortably extend to the apotheosis of such humanitarian luminaries as Dr
Guevara, whose exploits make poor old Crippen a mere amateur

carol42 June 22, 2013 at 01:59

There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of these hatchet faced women
wanting to control how we live. They are in the tobacco/alcohol and food
control industries, where do they find them? and why do they all look
alike?

Dr Cromarty June 22, 2013 at 00:01

Her career path was influenced by moral values instilled during
childhood in a village on the edge of a mining area near Worksop,
Nottinghamshire. Her father was a sub-postmaster, and her mother tended to the
needs of local people who regarded the post office shop as the centre of the
community. “I was brought up as a Christian, although I would not describe
myself as religious in any way now,” Bower says. “My parents had strong moral
values. It would never have occurred to me in a million years that I would go
into anything other than a caring profession.”

She came under the radicalising influence of feminist politics at
university in the mid-1970s. “I became a social worker because that was the
only label I could give to what I wanted to do.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/01/health-social-care-regulator-bower

I suspect I’d be correct 95% of the time guessing her opinions on anything
vaguely political/social from perusing that article at looking at her rad-fem
fizzog.

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 01:29

Jeeeeesshhhh. And Amanda Knox is a witch. Can’t you just see it in her
eyes?

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 01:33

And Yvette Cooper is a pixie

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 01:39

Anyway, didn’t you die off recently?

I had hoped haffleens were extinct

Dr Cromarty
June 22, 2013 at 08:36

Just a hypothesis. I’ll never be able to test it, sadly. The difficulty
is that the public sector is stuffed to the gunnels with Cynthias,
particularly my bit of the NHS. Which goes towards explaining the parlours
state of patient care while monies are spent on commissars to ‘Stand
Together Against Homophobia’ as the posters announce on every
corridor.

But, hey, Ho Hum, you go ahead and defend a woman who covered up the
failings that killed a bunch of neonates and presided over the deaths of
1200 patients.

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 09:45

Can YOU prove that allegation, as no one else seems to really have so
far, or is it just some extended lefty, victimologically based, Court of
Public Opinion stuff?

Dr
Cromarty June 22, 2013 at 09:54

Did you read the reply? I told you it was a hypothesis I’ll be
unable to test. However, it is based on 20 years of working in the
NHS. When you have equivalent experience, get back to me.

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 10:22

OK, so your ’95%’ guess throwaway line was just a hypothesis, and
Anda Knox may be a witch too

But if my comment on your last para, the one I was actually
responding to, offends you, my apologies. It just doesnt sound like
too much like a mere hypothesis from here.

And to think that I spent 30+ years working in Health and Social
Care with such an apparent inability to read. It’s quite shocking
really, when one thinks about how many must have suffered and maybe
even died as a result

Dr
Cromarty June 22, 2013 at 10:31

It becomes clearer then, why you would want to defend Cynth. It
doesn’t explain the non-sequiturs (The Daily Mail? Amanda Knox?) or
the mildly hysterical tone.

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 11:41

I have no wish to defend anybody from anything other than the
hysterical drivel, similar to the type that can be read in the tabloid
comments sections, in which people happily condemn others in the most
lurid terms, their condemnations all too often being based on what is
dispensed in the media as fact free accusation or slanted reports
containing well crafted non accusations from judiciously selected
partial sets of facts, or people’s willingness to dispense their
condemnatory judgement of others from their inspired insight into
‘well selected’ photographs, such as the sort of ‘can’t you just see
she’s a witch, there’s evil in her eyes’ stuff that appears in the BTL
wisdom that those with brown sticky stuff between the ears shovel in
such prodigious quantities into such esteemed journals as the Daily
Mail, and being as even handed as ever, into CiF in the Grauniad.

I think that covered almost everything you queried. As to ‘tone’,
well I’m sure you can imagine for yourself the swivel eyes, tinted
hair, tin foil hat, clogs – and the nice nurse watching from
behind

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 11:44

Tsk…I meant to say that the judgements of evil based on photos is a
common theme amongst the Amanda Knox Hate Club. They’re too stupid to
wonder why the photos that appeared to illustrate articles were the
ones chosen…….

Dr
Cromarty June 22, 2013 at 12:15

I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. It’s not about well selected photos,
it’s about covering up negligence and death. This is not a witch hunt
(why are you fixated on witches) its about ensuring that those in a
position of oversight are not corrupted. On the information available
there has been an appalling piece of corruption of a body charged with
ensuring quality of care. If you want to defend it, that’s your
call.

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 12:46

One of the reasons that I first read this blog was because it
seemed to display a little bit of sense, backed up, even, by some
factual material, when dealing with other recent matters on which the
world and his dog were all for making accusations, and then dishing
out justice, on the mere reports of incidents and allegations, in a
fact free, non evidential, non examinatory basis

So when some of the posts and commentators here start to do
likewise in respect of their own particular betes noires, regardless
of what I think may or may not have really happened, I’ll call out
such ‘hypocrisy’ for what it is. (As our hostess has said before, she
likes to drop stones in the pond, so one can never be entirely certain
as to whether or not she is evidencing hypocrisy or just sheer
devilment
) The point being made is one of challenging inconsistent principle in
the application of justice, not one of defending whichever betes noire
finds themselves in the dock this time for whatever the mob alleges
that they have done. Didn’t you understand what ‘By all means shoot
them IF, and only if, they are properly ‘convicted’’ meant? Or does a
fair examination not matter to you either any more?

As for ‘how’ I do that, if your prior reading here of both content
and comment, your general knowledge elsewhere of allied subjects, or
your own lateral thinking abilities are, on a combined basis, such
that they are either insufficient, or too limited, to put all those
things together enough to understand me, there’s not much I can do
about it. Unless you want some regression to ‘the cat sat on the
mat’

If you’re ‘new’ here, then I will acknowledge that I may be being a
bit hard, but it’s bloody irritating being accused of defending the
covering up of negligence and death.

Dr
Cromarty June 22, 2013 at 14:24

Sorry, that just won’t do. If you can point to any hypocrisy in
what I have said, good luck. Don’t accuse me of that and cut out the
ad hominems while you’re at it. ‘Haffleens’ and Cat sat on the mat’
indeed! Who the hell do you think you are?

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 14:51

Never mentioned the Daily Mail in my responses to you, did I? So
you had obviously had read my comments elsewhere – where you raised my
my ‘non-sequiturs’. Given that, I had, seemingly mistakenly, assumed
that you might have been able to, with a little help, put them
altogether into some consistent whole. Seems like even the help wasn’t
enough

‘If you can point to any hypocrisy in what I have said, good luck.’
I didn’t.

As for ‘haffeens’, etc, well, Cromarty is dead, isn’t it?

http://ititranslates.com/blog/rare-cromarty-language-dies

Still, look at the positive side, there are some merits in not
having much sense of humour . From my experience, you’ll go far in the
NHS.

Daedalus Parrot June 22, 2013 at 18:55

Ho Hum,

You still haven’t answered Dr Cromarty and other people’s points.
You prefer to espouse many opinions but with no provable evidence or,
perhaps web links. My extensive experience of the NHS on behalf of
myself and my sons, one of whom requires frequent medical attention,
accords with that described by Dr Cromarty.

So until you come up with fact-based evidence and/or web links, I
will believe Dr Cromarty rather than your good self.

Come on Ho Hum, you have been commenting on here for some time and
have not been treated badly. However you are almost reaching the point
where you are putting people like me off because of your almost
overabundant flow of verbose opinions that frequently contain ad
hominem attacks but without any evidence to back them up.

Lastly, unlike the way you behave to commenters like Dr Cromarty, I
am going to show you respect as a stranger I do not know and I am not
going to cast unfounded ad hominem insults against you even though I
disagree with your opinions.

Have a nice day now.

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 20:14

My Dear Ms(?) Parrot

Forgive me for being a little confused. I’m dishing out ‘Unfounded
ad hominem insults’? For obliquely pointing out, in my usual brand of
slightly off the wall humour, albeit more ascerbic than might usually
be the case, that the first comment the good doctor made was an
unfounded ad hominen insult? ie

‘I suspect I’d be correct 95% of the time guessing her opinions on
anything vaguely political/social from perusing that article at
looking at her rad-fem fizzog.’

Or is figuratively kicking someone’s ‘rad fem fizzog’ now some sort
of metaphor for playing the ball? I know that those are the same
shape, and that times change, so does it maybe all now depend on whose
balls are being kicked, and by whom, in determining what is, and who
can dish out, acceptable criticism? And, as an aside, you maybe want
to revisit who was really kicking whom.

As for the points being made by others, I spent more than half my
working life working in Health & Social care at AD, DD and
Director level, and I have seen, and had to deal with, more effluent
from all parts of the operational and political spectrum than could
fit in the average dustcart that goes down my street. I have had
people try to kick lumps out of me in a way that makes this look like
someone blowing gently into their teacup. In that context, given this
blog’s general search for underlying truth that often belies the MSM’s
selective reporting and condemnation of the possibly innocent, I
really object to the hypocritical, almost infantile, ramblings of
those who would readily condemn, almost completely out of hand, in
similarly vitriolic vein, those who fit their own pet hate criteria,
when absolutely none of them, or me, know the real facts, and probably
never will.

It’s nothing personal. Nor am I taking sides on the particular case
in point here. But all is never quite as it seems. And pointing out
that, on a purist basis, some are being inconsistent with the approach
that they would apply elsewhere to seeing justice done properly, in
circumstances where they think they know better, well, from here, that
seems a reasonably fair and just thing to do. And I’d do it to their
face too.

That’s not treating anyone badly. As the writer of the Biblical
Wisdom Literature put it, people’s friends are those who tell them the
truth. Irrespective of whether or not they might get a kicking for it

If you might want to follow up on any of that, I’m sorry that I
won’t be able to chat, but I am off to the wilds of Caledonia in a few
hours, so you, at least, can be sure of some peace and quiet

I’ll just try to avoid Cromarty

To save much angst, that was a joke.

Anna, can’t you get some icons, like those on ‘The Register’ that
we can insert on posts to try to help us emote better. It could save a
lot of time and nonsense

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/06/21/nsa_spooks_can_pry_on_your_encrypted_emails/#comment-form

Anna Raccoon June 23, 2013 at 01:36

OK, I’ll step in – and I really, really, don’t want to!

Ho Hum is quite right in that ‘I suspect I’d be
correct 95% of the time guessing her opinions on anything vaguely
political/social from perusing that article at looking at her
rad-fem fizzog.’ IS an ad hominem remark.

I just didn’t think it was sufficiently serious to justify my
stepping in and slapping Dr Cromarty down.

With hindsight, I can see how it has degenerated into this row –
and how I am to blame by having put those pictures up in the first
place.

Since Jo Brand lived in the same village as moi in England, I was
very, very aware of what she looked like. And has looked like for
many years.

The moment I set eyes on the first picture of Cynthia Bowers, I
thought ‘why would someone go to so much trouble to look like Jo
Brand’? You can make what you want of that remark…I doubt very much
that Jo modelled herself on a virtually unknown NHS worker.

So the reason I chose not to step in to Dr Cromarty’s ad hominem
remark was that silently I agreed with him, and
that was the point I was making with the pictures – that there is a
reason why one woman choses to publicly identify with another woman
by copying her appearance. Especially one with such dyed in the wool
slightly left of Pol Pot views as Jo…..

So you are both right. Blame me if you like, for
making the ‘first’ ad hominem remark with the pictures, there was me
thinking I was being deliciously subtle
Daaarling, and I wasn’t at all.

It shouldn’t need repeating, but I will since some of you might
not have been around for long enough to take this on board.

I DON’T WRITE THIS BLOG BECAUSE I LIKE THE SOUND OF MY
OWN VOICE – Oh, I know its tempting to think that
is the motivation of most bloggers, but believe me, there are
easier, cheaper, and hassle-free methods of hearing your own voice,
and I would certainly chose one if that was my motivation.

BUT IT ISN’T I WRITE THIS BLOG BECAUSE I ADORE
THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICES.

In all its variations. I live in a foreign country where nobody
ever talks of the things that interest me, they speak of Sarkozy and
how Hollande is a waste of space – in a foreign language that I have
to run to keep up with – or worse, TEN TIMES worse, they waffle in
English about their grand children, and Austrian blinds, and their
swimming pool’s frozen over, and ‘did you know that Lidl sells baked
beans at £3 a can’ – it bores me rigid….

So please, make an old woman happy, kiss and make up, I’d miss
you both. Or either of you.

Dr
Cromarty June 22, 2013 at 23:10

Sorry, that’s not good enough. You resorted to name-calling and
patronising putdowns about my intelligence and did not answer a single
point.

Put all the emoticons you like in your text, it’s just a nasty set
of personal insults you tried to wriggle out of;:
“there are some
merits in not having much sense of humour”. Just like every bully I’ve
ever come across (“Can’t you take a joke”). Well, to quote the song,
that joke isn’t funny any more, especially when used to prop up the
useless, lazy, arse-covering, bureaucratic ‘elite’ that fannies about
pretending to run the NHS, of which Ms Bower is the apogee.

Ho Hum
June 23, 2013 at 00:28

Yeah yeah

I have a pointed pop at your ever so tasteful one liner, and since
then:

– you call me into question for the merely wish to see justice done
properly, by responding with what makes for a pretty damning
allegation ‘But, hey, Ho Hum, you go ahead and defend a woman who
covered up the failings that killed a bunch of neonates and presided
over the deaths of 1200 patients’

– you slide out of responding to a challenge to that by conflating
that specific allegation with your earlier ‘hypothesis’, which had
nothing to do with it whatsoever

– You tell me to get back to you when I have ‘equivalent
experience’ (I’ll grant you that that was funny)

– You then, in spite of my pointing out what I have written about
the case in point, further state that it is then somehow clearer why I
would defend the woman

– you state that I indulge in non-sequiturs

– you venture to classify me as having a mildly hysterical tone

– you state that I seem to be fixated on witches.

– you imply that I am for the defending of corrupt practices

– you implied that I had accused you personally of being
hypocritical. I did challenge you to say that you weren’t in that sort
of camp, but I never said you were

– and you got upset by thinking that in my then providing you a
fuller explanation of the point I was really making and how went about
doing so – however unpalatable some of that explanation might be as to
why you might, in the round, have failed to have grasped what I was
getting at, something I was aware of in acknowledging my being hard –
that I was then merely indulging in some sort of ad hominen attack

And after all that, do you really think that the wisest thing is to
make some sort of statement about me to the effect that ‘You resorted
to name-calling and patronising putdowns about my intelligence….. and
that what I had responded with…’did not answer a single point’…..and
that overall I was the perpetrator of what was ….’just a nasty set of
personal insults you tried to wriggle out of’…? And then call me a
‘bully’ for good measure?

Please…… (and there is no emoticon for that sentiment)

Dr
Cromarty June 23, 2013 at 01:00

Continue if you like to spout your bile.

I’ve had enough of your spiteful name-calling, ugly ad hominems and
defence of the indefensible.

You’ve be called out in your online behaviour by other commentators
here. If your insight is lacking, that’s your problem.

Ho Hum
June 23, 2013 at 01:28

Well, they’ll all be glad to know that, as far as this goes, I’m
now officially off on hols, and out.

Take care, be good, and have fun

Daedalus
Paracetamol June 23, 2013 at
00:17

Ho Hum,

By the way, you may address me as “Mr” Daedalus Parrot, not “Ms”.
Only those close to me in my local NHS-sponsored cross dressing circle
may call me Ms.

I admit defeat, you are so right. Your eloquent, pursuasive and
fact-rich arguments have convinced me that Cynthia Bower is an innocent
victim of unjustified stereotypical lynch mobbing. To rectify this
blatant injustice, I am sure you will be the first to start a petition
to reinstate poor Cynthia in her modest £200,000 job as excuser-in-chief
of baby killers everywhere.

Can you please forward me your email address and post code so that I
can start this noble and well-intentioned petition on your behalf?

Ho Hum
June 23, 2013 at 00:43

Thanks for the clarification. I thought that I had read a previous
post in which you referred to yourself as being female. It’s funny,
really, as I was merely trying to avoid inadvertently giving offence.

OK, let’s look at ‘Your eloquent, pursuasive and fact-rich
arguments have convinced me that Cynthia Bower is an innocent victim
of unjustified stereotypical lynch mobbing.’

So do you then accept that we should indulge in, and approve of,
‘stereotypical lynch mobbing’ for all? If not, who not, and why not?
Please discuss.

But please don’t make the mistake of seeing me as this woman’s
apologist in chief.

‘Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 02:10
I’ve now had time to read most of
the comments. By all means shoot them IF, and only if, they are
properly ‘convicted’, but at the moment….’

That’s where I came into this….

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 22:43

FFS, the Barcelona Defence is universal, public sector, private sector,
anybody’s sector.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6EaoPMANQM

Have none of you ever done a seriously real investigation that mattered?
And it’s what you can actually prove that matters. Or is every high ideal
previously espoused by contributors here as to the nature of ‘real’ justice
all just piss and wind? Some sort of ‘They really really do know
nothing?’….

Mudplugger June 21, 2013 at 22:30

I see that Jeremy Rhyming-Slang, eager for a headline moment, says that the
CQC cover-up crew “may lose their pensions” – emphasis on the “may”. Remember
Sharon Shoesmith.

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 22:32

More balls……

rabbitaway June 21, 2013 at 21:13

Did anyone watch Jo Brand in that series ‘Getting on’ – it was funny in a
dark way – cos it seemed so ‘true to life’

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 21:11

That last comment was meant for the Commentariat in general, rather than
Anna. Just to make sure that there is no ambiguity

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 21:09

I’ve only bad a quick squit at some of the derogatory effluent posted in
the comments and right now have more to do than waste my time on them one by
one.

But just remember, you are no friend of liberty or justice if that which
you dispense is limited to those that fulfill your own prejudices. Otherwise,
you’re just another hypocrite, who happens to draw your line in the sand
somewhere different

ivan June 21, 2013 at 22:08

Ho Hum, be careful your red side is showing, i.e. you are spouting the
leftie manual.

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 22:29

If you had read my comments on prior articles, you would know that’s
drivel….Given your name? Risible, even.

And I can’t see you as some sort of Ivan Denisovich….

Terrible, aren’t I?

Frankie June 22, 2013 at 20:55

Ho Hum… I think that if anyone is being a ‘Twat’ on this blog it is most
certainly you…

It is fairly evident that you have issues and you are breaking all the
accepted norms of civilised blogging. Merely venting your spleen against all
and sundry here, including the host; erudite people for the most part
(myself, perhaps not included) is not good form. It is possible that, away
from this site you are a frustrated individual, seeking solace on this forum
for whatever inadequacies bedevil your normal existence by lashing out at
everyone here present who would dare to contradict you.

None of us, particularly our host deserves this kind of treatment. On
other postings I have vehemently disagreed with the thread of Anna’s
posting, but I would never, ever, go so far as to accuse her of being a
stranger to the truth, as you have done, in a most impolite and disagreeable
manner, not to mention making very impolite remarks about other contributors
that are completely undeserved.

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 21:30

I love a good diagnosis
To continue in parodying form, might I presume that you also like Tribbles
.. better than you like me?

There? See how easy it really is to write something that is actually
quite funny in overall context, with all sorts of lateral allusions, but
which, if misread or misunderstood, can appear to be insulting?

Somehow I rather sadly doubt if even with the explanation, that, any
more of the rest of what I have written seems to have, will arrive at too
many places out there and be received intact, containing with the inherent
content, intent, tone and humour with which it left here.

Daedalus
Paracetamol June 23, 2013 at
00:29

Frankie,

Well said.

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 20:53

For someone who seems to get quite upset, and properly so, when people are
condemned by the media, and all and sundry elsewhere, before the whole facts
are investigated and proved, you do seem a tad too ready to dish out the same
sort of opprobium on those who fall into the castes that you don’t seem to
like.

Maybe you could do with taking a cold shower before you put fingers to keys
sometimes? Just saying…

Stevegee June 21, 2013 at 20:43

I think we are letting the politicians off in this. There was a huge
advantage, politically, in inventing a health watchdog in 2000 called the
Commission for Health Improvement, replacing it with the Healthcare Commission
some four years later, then replacing it with the Care Quality Commission
sometime after that. That meant that each organisation spent its time either
in looking to secure appointments in the replacement, or in inventing
processes and systems to deliver what the politicians through legislation had
dictated. With this turnover, it made sure that no-one was ever in a position
to make criticisms of the government that could not easily be refuted by
clever arguments. Add to this that as each organisation was folded into
another, shed loads of senior executives, commissioners or non-executives were
given payoffs, and you made sure that umpteen government placemen/women
received payouts/pensions at each transition. It has been a magnificent gravy
train, sadly brought to a halt by the eventual recognition by the public that
this useless arrangement has not only cost them a lot of their taxpayers’
money, but has delivered a minimal contribution towards improving care in the
meantime. And this is only in one sector of the unbelievably complex alphabet
soup that makes up the quangos engaged in health regulation.
My contention
is that all this is entirely deliberate. Where are the politicians who set up
this dog’s breakfast? I hold no brief for Cynthia Bowers who to me is the
worst kind of public sector apparatchik, but this was a system designed to
deflect attention from the politicians of both administrations who have, with
malice aforethought, designed systems that would ensure that they received the
least possible calumny for their incompetence.

johnd2008 June 21, 2013 at 20:11

It has long been my contention that for most higher ranks in any
organisation, public or private, they are there running that organisation for
the benefit of those running the organisation. Customers, clients, call them
what you will,are just an annoying irrelevance in the grand scheme of
things.
Perhaps some of those affected will get together and sue for some
of that big pension pot.

Frankie June 21, 2013 at 19:50

Cynthia Bower & Jo Brand, identical comedienes – separated at birth.
The only problem with Ms. Bower’s brand of comedy is that it isn’t funny…

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 20:56

If I might possibly take the words out of her mouth, “don’t be such a
twat”

Ed P June 21, 2013 at 19:15

Ah, the modern “makes any old fool look intelligent” spectacles! I might
buy some if I thought it’d help me get a £65,000 job/pension.

ZeroTolerance
June 23, 2013 at 09:08

No influence on Britain.

The neo Monarch, non-Brit multi billionaire, unelected tax-dodging,
‘alleged’ criminal mind rapist Rupe ?

Pull the other bell, it’s got legs on.

ZeroTolerance
June 21, 2013 at 18:27

Ex-NHS carers knew from Mag’s Fraud Market ongoing , unchecked.

You cant’ trust NHS Trusts.

When money rules, Care falls.

Predictable result, a national disgrace, ‘Don’t Care Health Care’.

Moor
Larkin June 21, 2013 at 19:09

@zeroTolerance
It is certainly worth noting that the CQC doesn’t DO
Healthcare, the NHS Trusts do. Presumably, if the CQC didn’t exist “we, the
people” could just blame the Trusts and deal with their leaders accordingly
– if they haven’t already dealt with whoever they need to deal with
first.

@Engineer
I daresay there is no “screaming hordes” effect about the
NHS itself, because most of us go into it, and come out fixed. A very few
see their dearest ones die in there, but I imagine we all know of someone
who did do that very thing. Hospitals are dangerous places – full of sick
people. I recall that a family friend who would be my age now, went into
hospital with one thing and died of something else, he caught in the ward.
That must have been in about 1977 or so.

None of us ever come into contact with people like Jo Brand however and
we know it will make no difference to us whether she is there or not, but
this fuss seems to designed to make us think the CQC is essential, so I
suppose it will continue.

ZeroTolerance
June 22, 2013 at 10:50

Ye Olde Anglo traditional Masks, Smoke & Mirrors, CQC, NHS, GCHQ,
unending queues…

Backed by an all-Murdochized mass deception media, supporting layer
upon layer of Fraud Market faceless, overpaid, gutless, uncaring backward
Brit bureauprats.

And they have the nerve to try and trash, Murdoch-free modern Europrats
doing real Health Care.

Engineer
June 22, 2013 at 14:09

There may well be many people to blame for the ineptitude and
downright incompetence of the NHS system, but I just cannot see how
Rupert Murdoch is one of them. He publishes papers and runs television
channels, he doesn’t organise UK healthcare.

Daedalus Parrot June 22, 2013 at 14:49

First rule of loony troll avoidance: Don’t feed the loony
troll.

Moor Larkin June 22, 2013 at 16:54

@ First rule of loony troll avoidance: Don’t feed the loony troll.
@

Hmm…. David Icke and Operation Yewtree comes to mind………..

ZeroTolerance June 22, 2013 at 20:53

Feed ‘em facts, not conspiracies.

No effect non-Brit Rupe – WTF ?!

Check unelected tax-dodging NON-Brit Rupe’s late 1970s ongoing
Right wing SUNazi/SewerOfTheWorld/SUNday.

Top Brit sellers winning 4 x Tory elections, plus Rupe’s 1997-2010
pet pawn NuLab=OldeTory.

All backing to the hilt Mag’s 19Hateys anti-social war on the
Welfare State, including her Fraud Market NHS Trusts, in which we
can’t trust

Next…

Engineer June 21, 2013 at 16:53

Bower was a very senior figure involved in the Mid Staffs hospital scandal
before becoming the Right Hand of another very senior figure involved in the
Mid Staffs hospital scandal, David Nicholson.

Something that puzzles me – why are the screaming hordes that called for
‘no rewards for failure’ after the banking crisis so silent about the
perpetrators of the NHS crisis (actually, crises)?

ivan June 21, 2013 at 20:40

To try and help your puzzlement – those put in charge of all things NHS
were lefties appointed by the last government, while bankers were supposedly
capitalists. Most people have been brainwashed to believe capitalists =
bad.

Cascadian June 21, 2013 at 20:50

You make a very good point, however what perplexes me even more, is why
the camoron party did not have their “bonfire of the quangos” as promised.
It would have sent a powerful message to the inept and down-right
incompetent.
The only conclusion I can come to is that camoron encourages
ineptitude to avoid the label “nasty”.
Meanwhile, the National Death
Service flourishes.

Jabba the Cat June
21, 2013 at 14:23

It’s called the National Homicide Service for good reason…

Ted Treen June 21, 2013 at 14:16

I know I’m repeating an earlier post, but never has it seemed more
apposite…

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy:-

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the
organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational
bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at
NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet
Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself.
Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many
professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA
headquarters staff, etc.

In every case the second group will gain and keep control of the
organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the
organization.

Jerry Pournelle wrote it some years ago:- remarkably prescient, and our NHS
(inter alia) have adopted it as a modus operandi

Kingbingo June 21, 2013 at 15:45

It fits just as well here as it did on the other post. It is indeed an
‘Iron Law’.

Joe Public June 21, 2013 at 13:50

One uttered the euphemism “Gusset Typing” on national television; the other
is a w@nker?

Anna
Raccoon June 21, 2013 at 13:57

It has also been suggested via e-mail that ‘one takes the piss, the other
leaves you in the piss….’!!!!

Mudplugger June 21, 2013 at 13:30

But still, Lin Homer at the HMRC can make Cynthia Bower look positively
competent in comparison. But at least she’s only wasting money, not lives.

Do we detect the grubby hands of Harriet Harperson in their many
appointments, accelerated promitions and proflligate rewards ?

Kingbingo June 21, 2013 at 13:27

Any conversation with your average Brit about the national religion which
is the NHS is rather tortuous because before you can get anywhere you must
first disabuse them of the notion that the only alternative to the NHS is no
healthcare system at all, except for a few very rich individuals who currently
use Harley Street clinics. Quite frankly it’s rare to get past this initial
hurdle.

Presumable if the state currently had a monopoly on food, let’s call it the
‘NFS’ then people would find it utterly impossible to accept that things like
Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, Pizza Express, Bob’s greasy spoon and Terry’s high
street hot-dog stand (and literally thousands of other examples) could exist
at all. They would defend the NFS with a passion, I imagine something like
this:

“Yes I know the food is pretty awful, and we have to wait in a queue for 2
hours a day to get our rations, but thank God for the NFS, I can’t afford to
eat every day in one of those fancy Harley street restaurants, besides they
don’t have the capacity, without the NFS everyone would starve, only a
heartless evil right-wing bastard could suggest any alternative to the
NFS”

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 21:04

You know, Anna could have a hash tag called #fuckthefacts. Comments like
this could then be filed appropriately. A bit like the drivel shovelled at
Nick Clegg recently for refusing to pass judgement for not knowing what
really did happen. Only politician with any real balls out there.

Kingbingo
June 22, 2013 at 10:24

Did you want to have a stab at actually making an argument. Or are you
happy hurling around abuse and some very vague reference to an undisclosed
‘fact’. I appreciate its hard to counter my arguments so if you don’t feel
up to it please continue with the the abuse, its nice to know ‘I’m
winning’.

Unless of course your just winding me up, the hilarious reference to
Cleggy suggests perhaps so.

Daedalus
Parrot June 22, 2013 at 14:42

KingBingo,

That is an excellent analogy, thnaks. I would like to make use of it
sometime, if you don’t mind.

Another good comparison is when Margaret Thatcher’s government
privatised the telecomms part of the GPO (General Post Office for any
youngsters out there) in the 1980s. Before it happened, there was much
loud wailing and gnashing of teeth by many, including, I will freely
admit, my very young and naive self. In the 1980s, most of us had been
brought up on post-war socialist organisations like the NHS, the GPO,
Brititsh car makers and so on. It was all we knew. Privatisation was a
new, shocking and alien creed that no-one believed would work and many
were afraid of.

    ”Sacrilege, you can’t sell our family silver
like this!”
    ”How can you let our lovely,
public-owned national treasure of a telephone system go into that nasty
profit-centred private
sector.”
     etc.

These protestation were repeated despite the fact that, like the NHS,
people had no choice, had to wait ages for a crap service and there was
no choice (products were always the same shape, size and colour).

Roll forward 30 years and who now, apart from the insane and the
hair-shirt lefties (usually both), would object to a privatised national
telecomms company.

If BT hadn’t been privatised, we would now probably have no mobile
phones, all landline phones would be gigantic electro-mechanical devices
permanently wired into one phone junction, with no easily unpluggable
phone connector. Oh, and only available in one tasteful shade of
grey.

Ho Hum
June 22, 2013 at 14:59

Go and look at the stats as to how many people in other systems have
no coverage at all, the causes of personal bankruptcies etc, and then
tell me that no one other than a heartless evil bastard would suggest
alternatives to the NFS that would almost certainly result in people
landing in that position. And I don’t care if you are right or left
wing.

Fat Steve June 21, 2013 at 13:03

Yes Anna I have heard that the French system knocks the socks off the
English system by chums who have retired as you have done. The NHS has become
as much if not more about Managerialism than it is about Medicine —what the
public don’t appreciate is that scandals such as this are just the tip of the
iceberg—-possibly not in terms of failure but certainly in terms of
Managerialism becoming an important function –perhaps even the overriding
objective in the case of many employed in the NHS.

Moor
Larkin June 21, 2013 at 12:56

@ Agree £11.2 million in severance pay agreements with the Treasury ………..
the Nation Audit Office have now agreed that contrary to popular belief – none
of the golden handshakes actually included a ‘gagging clause’…they were just
written in such a way that the benighted employees thought they did! @

The BBC might need the services of the NAO to grant them succour too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10128702/BBC-spent-28m-of-licence-fee-payers-money-gagging-500-staff.html

Ho Hum June 21, 2013 at 20:59

Out of idle curiosity, have you ever approved, or signed, a compromise
agreement?

Moor Larkin June 21, 2013 at 21:04

No, I was just summarily dismissed………..

rabbitaway
June 21, 2013 at 21:10

@Moor – I’ve sent you the radio times article

Ho Hum
June 21, 2013 at 21:16

I’ve done both.

Neither was fun though, even though I volunteered for one. LOL

Moray June 21, 2013 at 12:55

Jo Brand is in the first picture. However, were they separated at
birth?

Anna, what a weird story – makes me glad I’m livng in Canada.

Mike June 21, 2013 at 12:53

In passing, it’s actually slightly odd that the NHS doesn’t want its
patients to be consumers, but for a long time eschewed the term ‘patients’,
preferring ‘clients’.

I think this episode will do a lot of good. To paraphrase Mao, kick a
couple and scare thousands, and there are thousands of admindroids in the NHS
who will be looking back through their archived sent emails, and deleting some
in the hope that the NHS server hasn’t kept them.

JuliaM June 21,
2013 at 12:24

I thought both of them were John Prescott in drag!

Dioclese June 21,
2013 at 11:27

An interesting pair of lookalikes, Anna. I share no such qualms of
mislabelling, so watch this space…

The real question is “Which one is the best comedienne?”

Moor
Larkin June 21, 2013 at 11:26

Jo Brand is the one who takes the piss out of herself.