Ashford Conservatives claim they’ll ‘save’ A&E – despite the party accepting £140,000 from Mark Quinn

The image below shows the many donations accepted by political parties from prolific local property developer Mark Quinn*. Mark Quinn is behind many large property developments in the South East, many of which have sparked controversy. Just search his name and numerous articles in local papers will appear revealing local residents unhappy with the final outcome of his building projects, concerns about incursions into green belt land and so on.

But what does this have to do with the NHS?

Mark Quinn – the man with the plan

Mark Quinn is the man behind the potential upheaval of A&E services in east Kent which has left Thanet and Ashford residents up in arms. Although the proposals to streamline and close some A&E, stroke and maternity wards in many UK areas is a national plan that first came to light in 2014, Mark Quinn radically changed the east Kent plans early on by putting in a proposal to local NHS execs which they felt they couldn’t reject.

The story goes like this. Peggy Pryor bumped into Mark Quinn entirely by chance in a Canterbury pub and she urged him to approach East Kent NHS Trust with a proposal to build a ‘new’ hospital in Canterbury. On receiving this proposal, the decision-makers were compelled to add a second option to their existing plans which followed his offer to the letter. It comprises Quinn providing the ‘shell’ of a new hospital building in Canterbury in exchange for permission to build 2,000 homes on adjacent land. It also spells out the demise of two nearby A&Es in the district hospitals of Margate (Thanet) and Ashford. This chance meeting may sound like a shaggy dog story, but it has been repeated in news articles, and the fact that it was Quinn who approached the trust and not the other way around has been confirmed in NHS documents.

Even if sceptical about the origin story of ‘Option 2’, it is undeniable that Quinn is playing a defining role in the potential closure of services in Thanet and Margate. The A&E reconfiguration is tied to the earlier stroke reconfiguration; this means that A&E, stroke and consultant-led maternity could all be removed from both QEQM Hospital in Margate and William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, and relocated in the ‘acute hub’ or ‘superhospital’ in Canterbury.

False promises in election literature?

Early in April I was sent some photos and screengrabs showing Ashford Conservatives claiming they will ‘ensure’ William Harvey’s A&E doesn’t close, despite the thousands in cash their party has taken from Quinn, the man who supposedly instigated the Canterbury option.

The political party that is being generously funded by the ‘Canterbury option’ property developer is not only making claims it cannot keep (the public consultation is still pending), it is bending the limits of credibility in expecting constituents to not see the links between party donations and lucrative building contracts.

This feels like an attempt by Ashford Conservatives to hoodwink the public during local elections. Conservative councillors across Kent voted in favour of the stroke centralisation plans at Kent County Council during 2018 and 2019, knowing that they could well result in Ashford and Margate losing their A&Es. The councillors knew this when they voted, because SONIK (Save Our NHS in Kent) warned them repeatedly. The Conservative party has also taken donations from the man behind the plans, Mark Quinn, on at least 21 occasions, amounting to almost £140,000. There could also be further donations under other company names.

When speaking for SONIK on this topic recently, I said “SONIK welcomes support [in resisting cuts] from local politicians but not when it amounts to hot air with no deeds to back it up. We know elections are coming. If they really want to halt the massive reduction in A&E provision in east Kent and save the A&Es at Ashford and Margate, they can simply put pressure on Matt Hancock. Tell him they’ll lose votes if they don’t keep our A&Es open. He has the legal authority to stop the plans dead. Why are they putting on this pantomime of caring about our hospitals when that is all they have to do?”

Precious little

The majority of Kent Tories (with a few notable exceptions) have done precious little to oppose the stroke, maternity or A&E plans apart from the occasional social media post/photo opportunity – and the truth is they have been in a position to do so much more. The Ashford KCC councillors have been absent from the debate, apart from Cllr Paul Bartlett (representing Ashford Central) who gave his full support to the stroke plans and voted against further scrutiny by an independent body.

During the build-up to 2019 general election, Ashford MP Damian Green verbally told various constituents in Ashford that there was no chance of Ashford losing its A&E or stroke unit – something that he couldn’t possibly give assurances on given the two options were very much in play and subject to various legal and democratic stages before a decision could be made. We learned about this from conversations SONIK members had with local people in Ashford at that time. It is essential that the outcome of public consultations are genuinely open and not pre-decided before commencing. In fact, if it can be proved that a public consultation is a sham, the NHS can be subject to legal action and forced to re-run the whole process from scratch.

So why was Damian Green allegedly making those claims to his constituents?

If true, it suggests that the process was either tainted from the start or that Damian Green MP was seeking to hoodwink the public in order to avoid losing votes on a topic very close to people’s hearts.

Maybe you are asking ‘what would genuine opposition to local hospital cuts actually look like?’ Well, for starters, being the party of government, Conservative councillors and MPs could very effectively unite and pressure Matt Hancock to scrap the plans and ensure that all three district general hospitals not only keep their acute care units, but undergo improvements too. This would require the return of some services to Canterbury. Matt Hancock, as Secretary of State for Health, has the power to single-handedly scrap the A&E and stroke plans. Maybe candidates should pursue this avenue forcefully before making empty promises on election leaflets?

Competing claims

In recent years it’s been noticeable that party political messaging at election time can completely contradict what is said by the same party in neighbouring constituencies. These competing claims are not challenged by the local or national media. In the last election South Thanet Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay promoted himself as fighting to save QEQM’s stroke unit, despite evading any efforts that would be effective, and whilst the neighbouring candidate in Canterbury – Anna Firth – insisted that the Canterbury ‘superhospital’ was best for all of east Kent, and that she would deliver it. This is a direct contradiction. PM Boris Johnson even amplified her claim and it appeared prominently in the Kent Messenger, only to be refuted by NHS Kent bosses; presumably behind the scenes their legal advisers were head in hands. The correction was never made with the same prominence as Johnson’s gaffe. Was it even a gaffe? It can be very hard to tell.

Damian Green and Anna Firth all reassured voters that they would not allow services to be cut in their area, despite the plans being very clear that it was one or the other. Craig Mackinlay and Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) put out a weaker message, both initially supportive of the plans then changing their minds under the pressure of public opinion. Gale told voters that there was no plan to close stroke units on social media at one point. He also allegedly told some voters on a day-trip to parliament that the closures were simply lies made up by left wing activists (the plans were very much in the public domain).

When Craig Mackinlay apparently changed his mind and vowed to fight for QEQM’s stroke unit, he refused to raise it in parliament or publicly pressure Matt Hancock. Instead he started his own petition that would never result in any effective change because the wording gave the health secretary a gaping loophole via which he could escape. Little else came from Mackinlay’s corner, and when the closure was officially announced, Mackinlay swiftly reverted to his former opinion that the plans were a very good idea. This did not stop him from using photos on his election materials holding a SONIK ‘save our stroke unit’ placard and presenting himself as a defender of local NHS services.

Damian Green reportedly described the Canterbury plans as ‘mad’, even while his party colleague and fellow candidate tweeted this:

It’s notable that Craig Mackinlay never put the Health Secretary under public pressure like this to stop the closure of QEQM. It’s also notable that none of these politicians thought to work together and challenge the assumption that one area must lose out. They were all claiming that services in their patch must be saved, but never thought to join forces and question why cuts must happen at all. Save Our NHS in Kent provided them with ample arguments to maintain good services in each area, and we exposed the fallacy of the need for closures. But the pantomime pretence of fighting for services, pitting one area against the other continued.

Of all the east Kent parliamentary candidates in 2019, only three explicitly contested the need for cuts and advocated for Margate and Ashford to both keep their Stroke units, with Canterbury seeing a return of services too. These were the Labour candidates for the North and South Thanet consitituencies (Coral Jones and Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt) and Mandy Rossi, Green candidate for Ashford. Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt and Dr Coral Jones participated in SONIK’s efforts and argued for three full A&Es in east Kent. Labour’s Rosie Duffield also addressed the matter to a lesser extent, advocating for a ‘new’ hospital in Canterbury but expressing a preference to avoid losses of crucial services elsewhere.

The ‘local bubble’ approach

Anna Firth ultimately had to row back on the announcement made by Johnson after local NHS bosses publicly disowned the claim. She said it was ‘clearly a mistake’. Boris Johnson himself never confirmed or denied this. It was left hanging in the air – in the month before the general election. Conveniently it allowed Canterbury Conservatives to capitalise on the impression that the PM had promised a shiny new hospital, while Tory voters in Thanet and Ashford could be reassured that it was just ‘a mistake’.

This is the benefit of the ‘local bubble’ approach. It allows a party to avoid a definitive stance on difficult topics. They can be all things to all people. It is dishonest, unethical and disrespectful to the electorate – but as long as few are paying attention and the media are tame, it is very, very effective.

What about Quinn donations to Labour?

The data from the Electoral Commission shows two donations made by Quinn to the Labour party as well as the twenty-one accepted by the Conservatives. The overall figure is far smaller. Whenever Quinn is challenged about his copious donations to the party that runs almost all local councils in Kent, and his simultaneous ability to get tricky and controversial building projects rubber-stamped, he tends to comment that he’s donated to Labour too. It’s a good deflection. How short-sighted of Labour nationally to have accepted these donations that simply serve to take the heat off businessmen like Quinn.

2021 local elections – more of the same?

Will we see the ‘local bubble’ tactic deployed once more in upcoming local elections? So far only Ashford’s Conservative election literature has been seen. It will be interesting to observe what claims are made by local would-be politicians in Thanet and Canterbury this time around.

Watch this space….