Memorandum submitted by Jane Betts
I am writing following a conversation with Jane Hanna
who alerted me to your committee's important work. I was chairman
of the Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority at the time of
the treatment centre debacle and resigned because of it. I now
chair the CAB in the south east of England and am vice chairman
of the Gangmasters' Licensing Authority as well as being chief
executive (part time) of the Comparative Clinical Science Foundation
(chaired by Lord Salisbury) established to promote integrated
medicine for humans and man—particularly apposite as we
wait the arrival of avian flu!
It became clear to me that, on the issue of the treatment
centres, my role and that of my board and the executives had been
completely subsumed to the will of Richmond House. This placed
my staff in a position of great stress and made my board impotent.
We became a conduit for communication rather than being able to
handle the issue ourselves. I seem to remember that even the chief
executive of the NHS Nigel Crisp who at one point said that it
was a local decision (on R4) then had to retract this embarrassingly
24 hours later.
Jane Betts
24 November 2005
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