Priory Price Shock

[endplay]

From the Daily Mail

"The Ministry of Defence has paid £16million to a chain of celebrity rehab clinics under a controversial private treatment deal for traumatised soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Priory clinics – better known for helping celebrity clients with drink and drug problems – were hired five years ago when the last military psychiatric hospital closed to cut costs.

The deal was to be worth £5million over three years. But figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal treatment for servicemen, in the same residential facilities as the likes of Kate Moss and Paul Gascoigne, now costs £4million a year.

The Priory clinics were hired five years ago when the last military psychiatric hospital closed to cut costs
In 2004-05 the MoD paid £4.2million to treat 321 personnel.
In 2005-06 costs rose to £4.5million, and the following year totalled £3.4million. Last year the figure was £3.9million – averaging £13,500 per patient.

Yesterday veterans called on ministers to scrap the deal and criticised the treatment at private clinics. Shaun Rusling, of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said £16million was 'an appalling amount of money' and said he knew many servicemen who felt their treatment alongside civilians had been 'useless'. He added: 'We are failing our servicemen and it's time that proper care was put in place.'

Until 2003 servicemen were treated at the Duchess of Kent Psychiatric Hospital in Catterick, North Yorkshire. When it closed the contract went to the Priory Group – then owned by millionaire Labour donor Chai Patel.

He sold his stake in the clinic after becoming embroiled in the cash-for-peerages scandal. An MoD spokesman said the deal was up for re-tender next month."


Notwithstanding the views of Shaun Rusling what, exactly, is scandalous about an overspend on the treatment of our people and the fact that it is being done in a clinic more noted for it's traetment of celebreties?

Sounds like good news to me, or am I missing something?

[davejb]

I'd have thought the gist of:

said £16million was 'an appalling amount of money' and said he knew many servicemen who felt their treatment alongside civilians had been 'useless'.

Was fairly straightforward?

That the cash is being provided is good, but I can't help wondering how much expertise a civilian clinic, more used to detoxifying celebrites, has in dealing with the stress of combat?

[Al R]

Didn't the MoD know 5 years ago, that they might need to offer this kind of care? Wa#k#rs :ugh:. Does it never learn? Has it no sense of moral responsibility?

The last thing that you need, is to be consigned out of the system and into the hands of an organisation that you know is working to a price. Medical treatment within the MoD is prefunded and if you are being treated, you are around people who talk the same language and who won't try and relate your experiences to the maternal trauma of intrusive childbierth recollections. They won't be obsessed either, with taking peas back off your dinner plate because you have got 3 too many, need to go home because the overtime budget is twanging or be vanitised (I just verbalised something there, can you tell?) into gravitating towards the latest C lister who has got a really important issue with non polyphonic ringtones that needs addressing.

It really shows the MoD up for where its priorities lie, and I'm not having a go at the folk within the MoD who are treating the troops here, but the c##ts who made these cretinous decisions. I am sure that there is more to this story than meets the eye and I will come down eventually, but if it is true and was done to save money, then someone needs stringing up.

[Mr C Hinecap]

dave - are you confusing what you read in your newspapers with the truth - or is that the truth? I had a simple Google for the Priory Group and found:

The Priory Group - acute mental health, secure and step-down services, specialist education, complex care and neuro-rehabilitation services (http://www.priorygroup.com/pg.asp?p=home)

It seems they do a little more than treat celebs. If someone needs psychiatric help, then I'm happy they are treating them. Of course, more knowledge of battlefield trauma would be an advantage - but as I'm not an expert, I'm not quite ready to get on the outrage bus yet.

BTW - we don't just use them for PTSD - they serve a number of other cases too.

[Al R]

In an insular and machismo geared community like the MoD, stepping forward with an illness like this is a massive step for a young soldier to take - the issue is as much about not making a casualty feel cut adrift Hiney, as it is anything else. Someone who is suffering from PTSD does not need to feel like he / she is being farmed out.

A soldier, or whoever, will wnat to be treated in familiar environs, in a building that has the smell of cam cream and sweaty uniforms from patients doing fizz, SROs on the notice board, badges on uniform that a patient can relate to, faces that understand he is more than just a number - that he is a valued and needed part of the family who has made a sacrifice and now needs help, and has not just been farmed out to some civvy because its all too much trouble.

This step by the MoD seems to have been the mark of an organisation that knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

[BEagle]

Sounds like good news to me, or am I missing something?
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/nw969/Internet/zxzxz.jpg

What you're missing is the crass irresponsibility and treachery of the MoD beancounters who destroyed the excellent Defence Medical Establishments over the last few years - and the cost being paid is now a direct result of that ill-conceived policy.

Nocton Hall, Ely, Wroughton, Wegberg......gone but never forgotten..:mad:

[The Helpful Stacker]

Having experienced treatment at both DKPH (well actually Nuffield Trust Newcastle due to lack of space at Catterick) and at the Priory I feel I am perhaps qualified to speak on this subject.

Whilst it is true that as a serviceperson many would wish to be treated in a service environment it is also true that many service personnel don't wish to be uprooted from familiar surroundings and despatched off to a windswept garrison at the ar$e end of the country in order to seek treatment. The move to treatment by the Priory group was aimed at preventing further disruption to personnel under treatment as they could be treated more locally. The quality of care offered is also of very high quality and they are not purely drug addict clean up clinics.

On a personal note though I found the cognitive therapy offered by DCMH Brize Norton of the greatest help and will always be truly grateful of the assistance they gave me overcoming my problems.

Whatever is spent on mental health treatment for service personnel is not enough. As I have said before on the subject, we in the military will laugh and joke with someone who has perhaps broken their leg etc, sign their cast and listen over and over again at the story at how they came about it but we shy away from those who have through their service become broken of mind (a far easier thing to break than any bones) and it speaks volumes of how we as a humans shy away from what we don't understand.

[cazatou]

Back in June 1978 on a sleepy Sunday lunchtime at Northolt the telephone rang just as my wife was about to serve lunch for ourselves and 2 friends. It was the STC Controller who informed me that there had been a major terrorist incident in Belfast resulting in severe back injuries and burns to 2 Army Officers. He realised that Northolt was closed but they would not be able to generate a C130 for several hours so he asked if we would we be able put our Mk1 Andover into an aeromed roll and route Lyneham (to pick up Doctors, Nursing Staff, and Turning Frames from Wroughton) - Aldergrove - Northolt. We were airborne within 1 1/2 hrs in an aircraft that had been totally re -roled and sterilised.

The 2 casualties were in a Specialist Hospital on the mainland within 6 hours of the Incident. Could that happen today?

[davejb]

Mr C,
dave - are you confusing what you read in your newspapers with the truth - or is that the truth?

No, I was replying to the original thread opener's question, which was Sounds like good news to me, or am I missing something?

...querying why a Gulf Veterans' spokesman was so anti Priory.

I suggested that it was probably due to a perception of lack of relevant military experience. I would, personally, have thought it much better for a serviceman to be treated in a service establishment, where one could expect signifiant levels of expertise to have built up as a result of our virtually constant engagement in conflict. (Aden, Cyprus, N.Ireland, Falklands, Gulf, Bosnia - have we had a year of peace since 1945?)

The complaint is probably as much about the throwing away of all the expertise, The Priory's treatment of drug addled celebs just makes it easier to draft news headlines...

It's a common thread when anything is civilianised, expertise/experience is lost as the government of the day see a few quid to be saved, with little or no value being placed on what is being given up.

[cazatou]

davejb

IIRC 1968 is the only year since the end of WW2 that a British Servicman or Servicewoman has NOT died on Active Service.

[ORAC]

In the meantime, on the other side of the Atlantic....

Military hospital opens for dogs wounded in war (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/21/war.dogs.hospital.ap/index.html)

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- A $15 million veterinary hospital for four-legged military personnel opened Tuesday at Lackland Air Force Base, offering a long overdue facility that gives advanced medical treatment for combat-wounded dogs........

I wonder if they'll take the odd Brit as well as German Shepherds.... :(