We are being snuck into private healthcare, but with a fraction of the service level you would expect if it were our private choice, using medical insurance instead of this crippled institution. Sadly, as well as the public now paying the price, the poor genuine people employed in the NHS are also facing the brunt of inhumane treatment and desperately sick people.
Many of us have seen the disgusting behaviour of some entitled individuals that abuse people and show disregard to the NHS staff, but in recent years, I can honestly say that I have witnessed much more disrespect and verbal abuse, inhumane and lack of dignity coming from the staff to patients. It’s a crisis, and the two ends are clashing at the coal face while the real people to blame are hiding and scheming to get the rich, richer.
GPs are completely overwhelmed, hence the new NHS TV advert to now go to the pharmacist with some sicknesses, this however is also dangerous. My wife was recently advised to take a medicine that when I checked myself, was not compatible with some of the other medication she takes. My son had been back to the doctors three times with a problem and each time was seen by a nurse instead of the GP. Added to all this we seem to have administrative receptionists picking the bones out of symptoms as a medical gatekeeper to the healthcare professionals, with some people losing all dignity in a public breakdown of their symptoms in full earshot of a theatre full of bored patients in the waiting areas. Some also seem to be more and more rude to the patients. Sadly, this is not exclusive to where we live, pretty much everyone I speak to is saying the same from towns and cities all over the country.
My hospital referral process.
I got a hospital referral from my GP to E.N.T. for a problem that has caused me significant issues. I had one appointment completely cancelled. Then we went back to the GP and he escalated it and we got another appointment. Then that got postponed and got extended to 45 weeks. As things got worse, I was advised to go back to the GP to escalate. In my view, was this was adding more pressure to the GP who clearly already cannot cope. I complained to PALS and asked if hospital appointments now had to be escalated three times before they are taken seriously? Which is also quite insulting to the GP. During this time from which was well over a year I also got around 5 text messages from the automated hospital system. “Please confirm you still need the appointment”. Trying to get me off the referral waiting list. I replied with strong words how its insulting and not quite the Brexit advert we were fed. My conditions were getting increasingly worse and I had been back to the GP around 5 times. I replied to one message with this text…
“YES, or why would I go and get two escalations from the GP and already YES to 3 of these stupid insulting text messages. Maybe if you paid the doctors what they deserved and stopped wasting money on pointless software contracts like these to further make super rich richer that have also probably taken billions in VIP fast lane corruption, then there would be plenty of doctors to service the actual health of the public, like was promised by the former liar prime minister post Brexit. I’ve had enough, I will be complaining to PALs”. Which I did in August last year.
The third-party companies that step in under the NHS banner
Then I finally get an appointment within a reasonable time. I then got a text message from “NHS – no reply” to book a hearing test, needed prior to the consultant’s appointment. I followed the link and booked it. This comes in the same message trail as the one I get from the GP surgery. So, it seems this is the ‘NHS’ and must be trusted. But it says it’s from ‘ACHE’. The virtual appointment link only offered availability after the hospital consultant appointment; I was told in the letter I needed this hearing test prior to it, So, I called ACHE and they booked an appointment for the 6th March, I received a text to confirm. On the day of the appointment, I receive a call to say the appointment is cancelled and proceeds to tell me this is because “the consultant slept in”. They booked another appointment for the 8th March at 12.30. She advised me I’d get a cancellation text but don’t worry, Friday is definitely confirmed which is prior to the appointment at the hospital. A short while later I get a text that says the hearing test is booked, then another stating cancelled, and I ignore it as suggested. I then go to the hearing test which is a fair drive and I’ve now taken more time off work. I go to the healthcare centre at the address to reception, the lady tells me there is no appointment, then “oh wait, is it for ACHE?, right well they are not part of us they use a room here”. She tells me that they will just come out and call me and its nothing to do with them. I wait, which is fine, and I have never complained about waiting, it’s something I accept. But I notice a lady come from the doctor’s area and into reception. I’m now the only person left in the waiting room and the receptionist tells her “you have a patient there waiting” She leaves reception, still no acknowledgement, so I wait longer. As I had no one to ask, I decided to call the number for ACHE. I’m told I don’t have an appointment and it was cancelled as per the text…
I ask them “So you called me, arranged a booking, confirmed it, told me it’s definitely on then straight away sent me another text to cancel it?” She then told me, “well this is because the consultant had a bereavement”. When I questioned the process and systems in place, I was told this is because the ‘consultants’ don’t work for them. It was very un accountable.
I told them I thought they were failing and its clear they are a third-party company. I also expressed that I didn’t agree with people calling themselves ‘consultants’ when working in medical services because this implies an individual of higher medical qualification, and these people are medical practitioners/clinicians. I also don’t like that they are purporting to be the NHS, when they are not, and if this is the performance, they are failing the NHS and the public. I felt frustrated because I felt that this could delay my ENT appointment further after waiting for 18 months. Also, if I was elderly or impaired how on earth would I be expected to navigate all these confusing text messages. A lady called me back later and to be fair she was good and understanding. She said they were thinking of making some improvements as a result of my points and booked another appointment, even though it would now be after the hospital one. I had the hospital appointment today (12.03.24) and because they didn’t have the hearing test results, having turned up early I was asked to do it there. It took 10 minutes, and the guy was fine, quick, professional and easy.
So as always, I’ve never not shown up for appointments. So after, I called ACHE and asked them to cancel the one they rebooked for the 14th March. I also asked her if possible, and politely if she or someone else could answer a question for me? Can they please confirm that they are not raising an invoice and charging the NHS a penny for any services relating to me. Because, they had failed. This changed the tonality of the call, and they became very defensive. I was calm but clear, and made them aware I would write about the experience. She told me that I was being confrontational. I disagreed, this was at best an uncomfortable conversation, and it felt like a cop out to call it that, my wife was a witness to the call, and I stand by my point. This was a lot of added cost to me personally, lost work and certainly more cost to the NHS than was necessary. Overall, we have had the involvement of this third-party company, a computer system sending texts out that are unreliable and inconsistent and three unnecessary added appointments at the GP. And all this is meant to be streamlining of a system that is already broke in more ways than one?
I took a quick deeper look into this company, and I think someone should do a deeper dive as many of these types of companies are sweeping up these appointments to ‘help the NHS’.
This is a screenshot from the website of the organisation I had the displeasure of dealing with.
Time: Failed, if anything it would have added time, had I not managed it.
Cost: Failed, It never provided a service at all.
Efficiency: Failed, all this did was add confusion, added more time to audiology and I did not experience the values and ethos of the NHS
So, its clear that the organisation is working FOR the NHS. I’m sure they will have been on the bid portal systems to win this contract and as a small business it has accumulated net assets of over £1.4m of which the cash balance was over £1.2m. The business showed a turnover of just shy of £4m with a gross profit of around 30%. It seems that this must mostly be coming from three NHS trusts, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. The business seems to be billing around £330k per month and with what seems to be a low-cost base. So, it’s a good small business on face value, financially, but my point would be, what other small business get to run with what seems to be no customer accountability. Its very clever in that sense, because your performance goes unnoticed under the whole cloak of the NHS which everyone sort of accepts is just broken. So, expectation is at its lowest in my lifetime and most people I know say the same. Whilst this is a private company, I searched trust-pilot and it does not exist there. So, the actual people it comes into contact with will never review this company as an independent organisation. Surely this is a complete flaw in the whole system. I mean, even the very clear non-profit government organisations are all accountable and audited, schools, police etc. When you are spending our money, your accountable. So, who is auditing these private companies? Or maybe they really have no commercial interest at all and are just set up and run for the good of its people and the community it really does care about?
According to https://www.hear4u.co.uk/about/ache/ (Hear4u and Healthscreen Ltd)…
Many of us have seen the disgusting behaviour of some entitled individuals that abuse people and show disregard to the NHS staff, but in recent years, I can honestly say that I have witnessed much more disrespect and verbal abuse, inhumane and lack of dignity coming from the staff to patients. It’s a crisis, and the two ends are clashing at the coal face while the real people to blame are hiding and scheming to get the rich, richer.
GPs are completely overwhelmed, hence the new NHS TV advert to now go to the pharmacist with some sicknesses, this however is also dangerous. My wife was recently advised to take a medicine that when I checked myself, was not compatible with some of the other medication she takes. My son had been back to the doctors three times with a problem and each time was seen by a nurse instead of the GP. Added to all this we seem to have administrative receptionists picking the bones out of symptoms as a medical gatekeeper to the healthcare professionals, with some people losing all dignity in a public breakdown of their symptoms in full earshot of a theatre full of bored patients in the waiting areas. Some also seem to be more and more rude to the patients. Sadly, this is not exclusive to where we live, pretty much everyone I speak to is saying the same from towns and cities all over the country.
My hospital referral process.
I got a hospital referral from my GP to E.N.T. for a problem that has caused me significant issues. I had one appointment completely cancelled. Then we went back to the GP and he escalated it and we got another appointment. Then that got postponed and got extended to 45 weeks. As things got worse, I was advised to go back to the GP to escalate. In my view, was this was adding more pressure to the GP who clearly already cannot cope. I complained to PALS and asked if hospital appointments now had to be escalated three times before they are taken seriously? Which is also quite insulting to the GP. During this time from which was well over a year I also got around 5 text messages from the automated hospital system. “Please confirm you still need the appointment”. Trying to get me off the referral waiting list. I replied with strong words how its insulting and not quite the Brexit advert we were fed. My conditions were getting increasingly worse and I had been back to the GP around 5 times. I replied to one message with this text…
“YES, or why would I go and get two escalations from the GP and already YES to 3 of these stupid insulting text messages. Maybe if you paid the doctors what they deserved and stopped wasting money on pointless software contracts like these to further make super rich richer that have also probably taken billions in VIP fast lane corruption, then there would be plenty of doctors to service the actual health of the public, like was promised by the former liar prime minister post Brexit. I’ve had enough, I will be complaining to PALs”. Which I did in August last year.
The third-party companies that step in under the NHS banner
Then I finally get an appointment within a reasonable time. I then got a text message from “NHS – no reply” to book a hearing test, needed prior to the consultant’s appointment. I followed the link and booked it. This comes in the same message trail as the one I get from the GP surgery. So, it seems this is the ‘NHS’ and must be trusted. But it says it’s from ‘ACHE’. The virtual appointment link only offered availability after the hospital consultant appointment; I was told in the letter I needed this hearing test prior to it, So, I called ACHE and they booked an appointment for the 6th March, I received a text to confirm. On the day of the appointment, I receive a call to say the appointment is cancelled and proceeds to tell me this is because “the consultant slept in”. They booked another appointment for the 8th March at 12.30. She advised me I’d get a cancellation text but don’t worry, Friday is definitely confirmed which is prior to the appointment at the hospital. A short while later I get a text that says the hearing test is booked, then another stating cancelled, and I ignore it as suggested. I then go to the hearing test which is a fair drive and I’ve now taken more time off work. I go to the healthcare centre at the address to reception, the lady tells me there is no appointment, then “oh wait, is it for ACHE?, right well they are not part of us they use a room here”. She tells me that they will just come out and call me and its nothing to do with them. I wait, which is fine, and I have never complained about waiting, it’s something I accept. But I notice a lady come from the doctor’s area and into reception. I’m now the only person left in the waiting room and the receptionist tells her “you have a patient there waiting” She leaves reception, still no acknowledgement, so I wait longer. As I had no one to ask, I decided to call the number for ACHE. I’m told I don’t have an appointment and it was cancelled as per the text…
I ask them “So you called me, arranged a booking, confirmed it, told me it’s definitely on then straight away sent me another text to cancel it?” She then told me, “well this is because the consultant had a bereavement”. When I questioned the process and systems in place, I was told this is because the ‘consultants’ don’t work for them. It was very un accountable.
I told them I thought they were failing and its clear they are a third-party company. I also expressed that I didn’t agree with people calling themselves ‘consultants’ when working in medical services because this implies an individual of higher medical qualification, and these people are medical practitioners/clinicians. I also don’t like that they are purporting to be the NHS, when they are not, and if this is the performance, they are failing the NHS and the public. I felt frustrated because I felt that this could delay my ENT appointment further after waiting for 18 months. Also, if I was elderly or impaired how on earth would I be expected to navigate all these confusing text messages. A lady called me back later and to be fair she was good and understanding. She said they were thinking of making some improvements as a result of my points and booked another appointment, even though it would now be after the hospital one. I had the hospital appointment today (12.03.24) and because they didn’t have the hearing test results, having turned up early I was asked to do it there. It took 10 minutes, and the guy was fine, quick, professional and easy.
So as always, I’ve never not shown up for appointments. So after, I called ACHE and asked them to cancel the one they rebooked for the 14th March. I also asked her if possible, and politely if she or someone else could answer a question for me? Can they please confirm that they are not raising an invoice and charging the NHS a penny for any services relating to me. Because, they had failed. This changed the tonality of the call, and they became very defensive. I was calm but clear, and made them aware I would write about the experience. She told me that I was being confrontational. I disagreed, this was at best an uncomfortable conversation, and it felt like a cop out to call it that, my wife was a witness to the call, and I stand by my point. This was a lot of added cost to me personally, lost work and certainly more cost to the NHS than was necessary. Overall, we have had the involvement of this third-party company, a computer system sending texts out that are unreliable and inconsistent and three unnecessary added appointments at the GP. And all this is meant to be streamlining of a system that is already broke in more ways than one?
I took a quick deeper look into this company, and I think someone should do a deeper dive as many of these types of companies are sweeping up these appointments to ‘help the NHS’.
This is a screenshot from the website of the organisation I had the displeasure of dealing with.
Time: Failed, if anything it would have added time, had I not managed it.
Cost: Failed, It never provided a service at all.
Efficiency: Failed, all this did was add confusion, added more time to audiology and I did not experience the values and ethos of the NHS
So, its clear that the organisation is working FOR the NHS. I’m sure they will have been on the bid portal systems to win this contract and as a small business it has accumulated net assets of over £1.4m of which the cash balance was over £1.2m. The business showed a turnover of just shy of £4m with a gross profit of around 30%. It seems that this must mostly be coming from three NHS trusts, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. The business seems to be billing around £330k per month and with what seems to be a low-cost base. So, it’s a good small business on face value, financially, but my point would be, what other small business get to run with what seems to be no customer accountability. Its very clever in that sense, because your performance goes unnoticed under the whole cloak of the NHS which everyone sort of accepts is just broken. So, expectation is at its lowest in my lifetime and most people I know say the same. Whilst this is a private company, I searched trust-pilot and it does not exist there. So, the actual people it comes into contact with will never review this company as an independent organisation. Surely this is a complete flaw in the whole system. I mean, even the very clear non-profit government organisations are all accountable and audited, schools, police etc. When you are spending our money, your accountable. So, who is auditing these private companies? Or maybe they really have no commercial interest at all and are just set up and run for the good of its people and the community it really does care about?
According to https://www.hear4u.co.uk/about/ache/ (Hear4u and Healthscreen Ltd)…
"ACHE is a non-profit social enterprise"
"They invest 100% of profits back into training local healthcare staff"
Seems strange as the person told me the staff were contracted and there seems to be a lot of profit in the business. So as public services should be transparent, perhaps we should know where this profit is being distributed?
they say they partner with ‘ACHE’. What I want to know is, do others like me think this is misleading. Words like ‘academy/community’ seem to remove the corporate/commercial aspect of these enterprises and yet, the ownership is all around people with vast commercial portfolios. ‘ACHE’ has a very healthy cash balance according to their last filed accounts and it would be interesting to know if ACHE do indeed invest 100% of its profits back into local people, and if they do, is that their long-term plan? Looking a little bit deeper into them…
Academy of Community Health Experts (Limited) ‘ACHE’
https://www.achexperts.co.uk/
Immediately parent company is…
Community Health and Eyecare Limited – Owned by Imran Rahman, same registered address.
https://chec.uk/
The Ultimate parent company is ORACLE VISION TOPCO LIMITED Owned also by Imran Raham along with Laurent Ganem and Richard Hoenich. Both owners of several other associated financial and medical related companies and holding companies. Includes https://www.keys-group.co.uk/ and more organisations here and overseas in France and Luxembourg. This also includes https://gsquarecapital.com/ which is an investment firm boasting a huge portfolio of healthcare related businesses.
I guess you can see why I think this is a commercial enterprise with financial interest at its core. Perhaps its owners and investors are manoeuvring themselves for NHS developments that could prove hugely profitable and somehow, we are letting them off with these operational failures.
Summary
Overall, what was the saving by enlisting the third-party company? All it did is add to costs that were for something easily done in 10 minutes prior to the consultant’s appointment.
We’re getting private services from organisations we didn’t recruit, but then we should be treated better like a private “customer”. I personally used Bupa recently for a procedure. It was professional and well performed and I am fully aware of its financial and business model. I don’t have a problem with that, but I felt important and valued. Bupa is also openly reviewed and open to criticism and feedback.
I would like to know:-
· How are our details being shared and is that in line with GDPR? My private details are being shared with private companies without my permission and do they have access to my medical and personal details. (I believe they do and may be a breach of GDPR)
· Many private companies are hiding under the banner of the “NHS” and therefore almost unaudited with the perception being that they are THE NHS. No identity on trust pilot. Can somebody set up a system either on or like trust pilot to audit these organisations where they can be kept on their toes for performance levels?
· Are these organisations profiting from our (failing) healthcare? There should be a clear statement on a home web page that discloses the business status, its ownership and that it provides a service to the NHS. I also therefore want choice for us as consumers.
· It should provide a better operational service to patients and be visible on sites it uses, not add more weight to an already overwhelmed doctor’s surgery. Cutting costs, for increased profit and expecting the public sector employees to cover for them.
These organisations are not alone. Our friend’s husband has Alzheimer’s. She needed help at home and a government ‘sub-contractor’ was commissioned to show up twice a day. She told us that they were meant to wash him, they wiped him down with baby wipes and flushed them down the toilet. They were booked for 1 hour, they would do the job in 10 minutes and spend the rest of the hour sitting in the car chatting and, on their phones, we witnessed this ourselves. We are paying for that service. Real nurses are running around wards with no time to do anything, understaffed and under equipped, whilst we are spending money for others to sit hiding in cars to pass time, with company directors taking dividends of our money.
I might be on my own here, and if I am, I still don’t care, I will speak up, I’ve had enough, and its unacceptable. Our friends worked their whole lives honestly and the system will probably ultimately take their home to pay for the care, well, at least treat them with proper ‘care’, respect and dignity, with professionalism. Let’s get the profit driven companies reviewed and accountable, and like every other honest business, WE then get the choice!
Tony McCool
they say they partner with ‘ACHE’. What I want to know is, do others like me think this is misleading. Words like ‘academy/community’ seem to remove the corporate/commercial aspect of these enterprises and yet, the ownership is all around people with vast commercial portfolios. ‘ACHE’ has a very healthy cash balance according to their last filed accounts and it would be interesting to know if ACHE do indeed invest 100% of its profits back into local people, and if they do, is that their long-term plan? Looking a little bit deeper into them…
Academy of Community Health Experts (Limited) ‘ACHE’
https://www.achexperts.co.uk/
Immediately parent company is…
Community Health and Eyecare Limited – Owned by Imran Rahman, same registered address.
https://chec.uk/
The Ultimate parent company is ORACLE VISION TOPCO LIMITED Owned also by Imran Raham along with Laurent Ganem and Richard Hoenich. Both owners of several other associated financial and medical related companies and holding companies. Includes https://www.keys-group.co.uk/ and more organisations here and overseas in France and Luxembourg. This also includes https://gsquarecapital.com/ which is an investment firm boasting a huge portfolio of healthcare related businesses.
I guess you can see why I think this is a commercial enterprise with financial interest at its core. Perhaps its owners and investors are manoeuvring themselves for NHS developments that could prove hugely profitable and somehow, we are letting them off with these operational failures.
Summary
Overall, what was the saving by enlisting the third-party company? All it did is add to costs that were for something easily done in 10 minutes prior to the consultant’s appointment.
We’re getting private services from organisations we didn’t recruit, but then we should be treated better like a private “customer”. I personally used Bupa recently for a procedure. It was professional and well performed and I am fully aware of its financial and business model. I don’t have a problem with that, but I felt important and valued. Bupa is also openly reviewed and open to criticism and feedback.
I would like to know:-
· How are our details being shared and is that in line with GDPR? My private details are being shared with private companies without my permission and do they have access to my medical and personal details. (I believe they do and may be a breach of GDPR)
· Many private companies are hiding under the banner of the “NHS” and therefore almost unaudited with the perception being that they are THE NHS. No identity on trust pilot. Can somebody set up a system either on or like trust pilot to audit these organisations where they can be kept on their toes for performance levels?
· Are these organisations profiting from our (failing) healthcare? There should be a clear statement on a home web page that discloses the business status, its ownership and that it provides a service to the NHS. I also therefore want choice for us as consumers.
· It should provide a better operational service to patients and be visible on sites it uses, not add more weight to an already overwhelmed doctor’s surgery. Cutting costs, for increased profit and expecting the public sector employees to cover for them.
These organisations are not alone. Our friend’s husband has Alzheimer’s. She needed help at home and a government ‘sub-contractor’ was commissioned to show up twice a day. She told us that they were meant to wash him, they wiped him down with baby wipes and flushed them down the toilet. They were booked for 1 hour, they would do the job in 10 minutes and spend the rest of the hour sitting in the car chatting and, on their phones, we witnessed this ourselves. We are paying for that service. Real nurses are running around wards with no time to do anything, understaffed and under equipped, whilst we are spending money for others to sit hiding in cars to pass time, with company directors taking dividends of our money.
I might be on my own here, and if I am, I still don’t care, I will speak up, I’ve had enough, and its unacceptable. Our friends worked their whole lives honestly and the system will probably ultimately take their home to pay for the care, well, at least treat them with proper ‘care’, respect and dignity, with professionalism. Let’s get the profit driven companies reviewed and accountable, and like every other honest business, WE then get the choice!
Tony McCool
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