Received an e-mail from Harry Cayton OBE the chief executive of the CHRE. This is the body that year after year congratulates Margaret Coats and her storm troopers for the excellent job they do, prosecuting vexations cases, harassing and threatening patients who dont want to complain and wasting millions of pounds of chiropractors money “setting standards”, “protecting the public” and “promoting the profession”. I know since 2009 they no longer perform some of these activities,. I am not sure which and I doubt if anyone noticed the difference, when their statutory responsibility was changed.
If readers are hoping Harry e-mailed me to inform us that they were ordering an audit into the way Margaret Coats has perfumed her regulatory duties at the GCC, I am afraid you will be disappointed. Harry is just another one of those weedy guys Margaret likes to have around her. The type that when Margaret shouts jump, they ask how high, Margaret has them cloned in the basement at Wicklow street especially for regulatory bodies and committees.
For those of you who dont know “the CHRE aims to promote the health, safety and well-being of patients and other members of the public and to be a strong, independent voice for patients in the regulation of health professionals throughout the UK”.
Their stated “Values” and “Principles” are the same as those of the more wordy GCC version. The CHRE claim that:
“Our values and principles act as a framework for our decision making. They are at the heart of who we are and how we would like to be seen by our stakeholders.
Our values are:
- Patient and public centred
- Independent
- Fair
- Transparent
- Proportionate
- Outcome focused
Our principles are:
- Proportionality
- Accountability
- Consistency
- Targeting
- Transparency
- Agility
Anyway below is what Harry OBE had to say. I wonder if Margaret Coats called him an idiot for sending out an unredacted letter in a FOI. When the GCC makes a mistake, they deny and cover it up with weasel words. For example; I said Margaret Coats was a liar for saying “there was no evidence that deputy registrar Greg Price had made anti chiropractic postings from the GCC server” at a council meeting . A week later GCC chairman Peter Dixon informed me that I had heard her incorrectly. Margaret Coats minutes of the meeting clearly stated what she had said “there was no evidence that deputy registrar Greg Price had made anti chiropractic postings from the GCC server, on US websites”. Peter Dixon had e-mailed all the other council members asking them if they agreed with Margarets minutes and they did. The problem I had was I only had evidence Price had posted on my blog and only Peter Dixon and Margaret Coats had the “circumstantial evidence” he had posted on US websites. I was screwed.
So Margaret Coats was not lying, I had defamed her had to apologise and was thrown off council. Harry Cayton congratulated the GCC on their “prompt action”, by not allowing me legal representation, insurance to cover my legal fees, and refusing to disclose whether Greg Price was working the days he made posting on US websites.
Dear Mr Lanigan,
It has come to our attention that you have published a copy of the joint professions ‘no confidence’ letter to the GCC on your website under the heading of Letter the Associations sent the General Chiropractic Council four months ago expressing no confidence in the regulator (made public by CHRE under FOI)’.
The letter that you have published was not released by CHRE under the Freedom of Information Act. We released a redacted version of the letter – a version that had personal data of certain individuals removed.
Please will you remove the letter from your website and confirm you have done so you or amend the heading to make it clear that CHRE did not publish this unredacted version of the letter.
Yours sincerely
Harry Cayton
Harry Cayton
Chief Executive
This is my response
Sent: 01 March 2011 12:46To:
Dear Harry,
Thats the letter I was sent, happy to report your denial. Perhaps your office sent the original by mistake in the FOI. Can you send me a copy of the letter you intended to send so I can put that up instead.
Amazing how quickly you people respond when Margret Coats shouts, you still have not contacted the Chiropractic Patients Association about their lack of confidence in the regulator 4 years ago. You would think Margaret Coats had more important things to be doing than following my blog. The GCC IP number is sometimes logged on for hours, thats how I knew some one at the GCC offices was posting obscene messages about me on the blog back in 2006. I am a member of the public who would like to be protected from people like this, I have never had so much as an apology from the GCC over this.
The CHRE were not concerned when I complained about the GCCs Deputy Registrar Greg Price posting these obscene messages or the anti chiropractic messages he posted on US websites. You were not concerned that the Registrar Margaret Coats covered up for him so he could work at another regulator, UK Psychotherapists. Not forgetting your lack of concern when The CHRE told me, that the GCC is the only health regulator that uses Private investigators. Were you concerned that the ICO had to order the GCC to release personal information to me under Data Protection because they did not want the public to see how they had used private investigators trying to entrap me into saying I was a chiropractor. Then there is Peter Dixon refusal to put complaints by former council members on the agenda of a closed meeting and his denial that police had conducted an investigation into allegations that money had changed hands to make complaints go away.
I have a FOI of information response from the GCC (2004) telling me a complaint I had made against a chiropractor had been presented to the IC. Then when I became a member of council in 2007, I asked to see the complaint and written on top is “not to be sent to the IC” . The complaint about a chiropractor trying to extort £2,000 from a patient never went to the IC and now we have 700 complaints (most of which are about chiropractors not dotting their Is and crossing their Ts) going to PCC.
I am delighted you contacted me as you wont be able to say you knew none of this if you are contacted by a journalist in the next few weeks. I suggest you familiarise your self with my statement to Council members in March 2008, none of the content is disputed by the GCC: https://www.chiropracticlive.com/not-fit-for-purpose/ . My statement describes a very different regulator from the one the CHRE gives “gold stars” to every year. The CHRE has filed away many complaints in recent year, because you can not interfere with their regulatory status of the GCC and can do nothing about the fact, Peter Dixon and Margaret Coats investigate each others complaints.
For the life of me I cant see what the CHRE’s purpose is, even when you find something wrong you dont have the authority to do anything about it. Hardly surprising the Government will not fund CHRE anymore. I have to tell you there is more to regulation than seeing whether the GCC will have the funds to pay your wages next year. Perhaps you should start by speaking to members of the Chiropractic Patients Association and ask them if they feel patients are being protected by the Margaret Coats and the GCC. The GCC could ask them for advice on best practice in the future, after all this is all supposed to be about “patients”.
Yours Sincerely
Richard Lanigan
