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Look what\’s happening at Southern Cross!

NHP is to run the Southern Cross care homes alongside Dr Chai Patel, the former boss of the famous Priory clinic.

The creation of the new business, which is yet to be named, helps to secure the future of more than half the Southern Cross care homes needing new operators.

Southern Cross, Britain\’s biggest care home group, announced last week that it was beginning an \”orderly closure\” after its 80 landlords decided to take back their 752 care homes. The company had tried to cut its £250m rental bill because of falling occupancy rates and fees.

Landlords such as Four Seasons and Bondcare said they will operate their own homes. However, more than 500 Southern Cross properties still needed new operators, sparking fears some could close.

Dr Patel said the deal between NHP and his company Court Cavendish will bring \”certainty\” to the 249 homes owned by NHP. The new company will be \”properly funded with a proper future providing high-quality services,\” he added.

So, private companies running public services.

I as and when one of them goes bust, do they then blow up the homes? Turf the elderly out onto the street? Go from having public services to not having public services?

No, that isn\’t what happens at all.

The management that fucked up is out on its ear. The shareholders stupid enough to hire them have lost all their money. The homes still exist, the elderly are still cared for and a new set of managers and a new set of shareholders step in to try and make money out of it all.

Now, perhaps this isn\’t the very bestest way of running the whole thing. I\’m certainly open to offers of new and different ideas. But the most important part of any such new idea will be: how do we get rid of management that fucks up? How do we incentivise those who own the system to hire good managers?

Only when you\’ve managed to create a system within the public sector that manages those two tasks do you have an idea that is worth considering. Oh, and good luck with that by the way.

5 thoughts on “Look what\’s happening at Southern Cross!”

  1. Oh, sh*t. I won’t be able to create another 15,000 publicly funded, guaranteed for life, even if you rape the bosses daughter, jobs for the boys, then.

    Damn this capitalism lark. It works better than it should. Nobody going to die then?

    Signed
    A tr*de u***n leader

  2. No healthcare merry-go-round is complete without the presence of the esteemed Chai Patel, that’s for sure.

  3. You ask a propos of the public sector – how do we get rid of management that fucks up? and how do we incentivise those who own the system to hire good managers? It seems to me that these are just as much of a problem in the private sector – the sorry tale of Cable and Wireless comes to mind.

  4. Feeble & Useless is an excellent example, since it’s either been forced to sell off or lost so much market share that it’s now irrelevant in all its businesses other than (CWC) monopoly phone provision in places too obscure for competition to be worth it (although Denis O’Brien is putting up a decent challenge) and (CWW) having the second-largest fibre network in the UK. In other words, either legislative or natural monopolies. In the areas where it was previously in a competitive market, as predicted by economics, it’s no longer active.

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