CRITICS have asked “Where’s Wendy” after NHS commissioner Wendy Carberry refused for the third consecutive working day to speak to The Argus over the continuing crisis in Sussex healthcare.

Calls have been made for Ms Carberry to answer questions after we revealed on Friday that health regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) does not know whether ambulances which transported patients to appointments this summer were legally safe or licensed to do so.

Meanwhile health experts have come out in support of Caroline Lucas MP who last night in the House of Commons made an impassioned plea for help from the Department of Health over what she described as a “NHS crisis” in Brighton and Hove.

Gary Palmer of the GMB union said: “Where’s Wendy? There can be no more excuses this needs to be in the public domain.

“It’s Sussex patients that are suffering and Sussex workers that are losing their jobs, you can’t stand behind a wall of silence any longer.”

Wendy Carberry earns £100,000 per year as the chief officer of High Weald Lewes and Havens Clinical Commissioning Group(CCG), which is the lead CCG of the seven Sussex CCGs which appointed private company Coperforma to take over non-emergency patient transport in the county from April.

Its initial weeks were marred by thousands of patients missing their appointments and on Friday The Argus revealed that Coperforma subcontractor Docklands Medical Services Ltd - which ran a fleet of 30 vehicles for the firm over July, August and September - were not registered with the CQC as the law insists they must be.

The CQC told The Argus that after the company took over from the defunct Docklands Medical Services (London) Ltd, the regulator would need to investigate further to determine whether they were in breach of the law.

The Argus requested an interview with Ms Carberry on Thursday and Friday of last week, and again yesterday, but has been rebuffed.

So The Argus's graphic artist Neil Keeping created our own version of one of the popular Where's Wally images with a picture of Ms Carberry inserted for our front page.

Normally Where's Wally fans complete the puzzle by finding Wally and today readers can find Ms Carberry among all the Wallys in the bottom left without glasses on.

Meanwhile last night in the House of Commons Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas listed Coperforma alongside GP surgery closures, hospitals, ambulance trusts in special measures and underfunded social care services as symptoms of chronic underinvestment and fragmentation of the health service.

Yesterday a spokesman for the High Weald Lewes Havens CCG (HWLH CCG) said:

“Wendy, as Chief Executive of isn’t the right person to speak to you: need to speak either to Brighton and Hove CCG, or somebody who can comment on the wider issues, such as NHS England. Can I remind you again that the patient transport service was commissioned by all seven CCGs in Sussex, not by HWLH CCG?”

HWLH CCG was the “lead” CCG of the seven in Sussex which made the Coperforma appointment, and Wendy Carberry is its £100,000 per year chief executive.

SIX VIEWS ON THE SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT

David Liley, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove, said:

“We know the NHS and social care are structurally underfunded so more money would always be welcome. But everyone in the system is trying to do the best with what they’ve got. People inside and outside the system find it difficult to link these different issues together because they’re often tied up with different pieces of string. Just within the field of accountability and regulation it’s sometimes difficult know who should know what and who should do what.”

Gary Palmer, GMB Union, said:

“Where’s Wendy? There can be no more excuses this needs to be in the public domain. It’s Sussex patients that are suffering and Sussex workers that are losing their jobs, you can’t stand behind a wall of silence any longer. Only the CCG can sort this out but this can’t remain a secret society issue any more. On Caroline Lucas, I don’t disagree at all. For private companies the NHS is the fruit machine that keeps on giving - when it isn’t managed properly. At the hospital they’ve had a series of interim chief executives including Gillian Fairfield who has already had to apologise because her previous trust got such a poor report from the CQC.”

Linda Walker, 65, patient and wife of fellow patient Edwin Walker, 75, said:

“I feel good that Caroline Lucas is saying all that. I feel good that someone at last is doing something. I agree with all of that. The service we’ve had at the hospital has been fine but it’s the ambulance service. My husband and I go to hospital about once every three weeks and Coperforma is late the majority of the time. Last Monday they were two and a half hours late collecting us afterwards. Every time they’re late my husband misses his appointment and his surgery gets pushed back. He’s housebound at the moment and if he could get his operation he could get out more.”

Caroline Penn, Brighton and Hove City Council lead on Mental Health, said:

“I would largely agree with Caroline Lucas. I don’t believe fragmentation is an issue but the funding is, while we’re seeing a huge rise in demand. The cuts to social care have had a massive knock-on effect. And in Brighton and Hove specifically we’ve got the largest number of kids presenting in hospital self-harming, we’ve got a greater incidence of mental health problems. Now with longer waiting times problems just escalate - people are getting more and more unwell. Even when they’re hitting their waiting time targets, that can be 18 weeks and that’s too long. It’s a lack of funding and staffing while we’re seeing an explosion in demand.”

Katrina Miller, Sussex Defend The NHS, said:

“We’ve been saying this for years. We’ve gone to the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), we’ve gone to councils, we’ve gone to planning meetings for the new Sustainability for Transformation Plan, but they all just say ‘yes we’ve got to improve the service.’ Caroline Lucas has been brilliant. What we want is for the Health and Social Care Act to be repealed and we want a properly renationalisation of the health service. This is a car crash now.”

Steve Barton, former Docklands driver, and former Secamb driver, said:

“Wendy does need to stand up, she can’t hide. All the CCGs are accountable for this mess. And the news about Docklands and the CQC doesn’t surprise me in the least. I worked for the NHS for nine years before working for Docklands and I worked at British Rail before that and if you look at Southern or if you look at Coperforma it goes to show privatisation doesn’t work. If it’s all in-house people know the rules but here the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and there’s not enough control. If hospitals are being put into special measures and if patient transport isn’t being run properly how can you expect patients to get the care they need?”

10 URGENT ISSUES RAISED BY MS LUCAS

  • There is an NHS crisis in Brighton and Hove. The very concept of a publicly funded NHS is at risk and the situation in the city reveals a host of systemic problems.
  • NHS services are held together by deeply dedicated staff who often work beyond their hours to keep things going. This is not a criticism of their efforts.
  • The Royal Sussex hospital is in special measures for both quality and finance. In July there were more than 9,000 people waiting more than 18 weeks to start treatment which is the worst in the country.
  • Six GP surgeries in the city have closed this year and more than 11,000 patients have faced disruption. The Practice Group walked away from their five surgeries for financial reasons, but NHS England was not required to step in due to the terms of the contract - even though these contracts are no longer permissible.
  • The emergency ambulance service - Secamb - was placed in special measures on September 29 following a CQC report which rated it as inadequate.
  • The city’s mental health service, including those serving children and young people, are overstretched and underfunded.
  • Adult social care services in Brighton and Hove face ongoing cuts. Over the next four years the council is proposing cuts of £24m and the complete privatisation of its adult social care including day centres and carers.
  • Non-emergency ambulance services for patient transport, provided by Coperforma and their subsidiaries, is in an unacceptable and untenable state. It has let down patients, subcontractors have gone bust, and now The Argus has revealed the regulator cannot confirm whether subcontractor firms have been licensed - which is unacceptable. Hospitals have incurred costs of more than £171,000 plugging the gap left by Coperforma. Will the Department of Health bring services back in-house?
  • The fragmentation and privatisation of the service creates a lack of transparency which makes it almost impossible to establish who is responsible when things go wrong.
  • The NHS is not sufficiently funded. Government figures of a £10bn increase may be as low as £1bn once NHS-specific inflation is taken into account. The required £22bn in savings the NHS is expected to find are impossible.