According to newspaper reports, Julie Bailey, founder of the so-called patients’ campaign group Cure the NHS (Cure), has left Stafford – supposedly ‘driven out’ by a ‘hate campaign’ orchestrated by the people of the town who are said to hate her for her ‘tireless campaigning’, driven by grief for her mother and others who died at Stafford hospital and her desire, as she has claimed and as she has named her group, to ‘cure’ the NHS:
Supposedly.
Ms Bailey has been portrayed as a long-suffering heroine whose ‘Breaks’ cafe near the town centre was shunned by the townspeople, bringing her to the verge of penury. Such is the supposed nobility of her cause. As she claimed in a Daily Mirror interview:
And now she’s broke because her café in the town that used to provide her with a decent living is all but deserted these days – boycotted by locals because: “You don’t take on the town’s biggest employer without paying the price.”
Ms Bailey is now said to be in Portugal on holiday, which already starts to cast doubt on claims that she has been impoverished by a town boycott of her cafe. But there is a far bigger question mark over that claim – and over her entire, supposedly saintly and self-sacrificing, motivation.
A quick search of the internet will reveal the existence of an oddly-named company which has its headquarters at 5b Lichfield Road – the same address as the Breaks Cafe:
The company was founded in March of this year. Its directors include one Mr James Duff – a retired butcher and prominent Cure member – and Ms Julie Bailey, former cook, cafe owner and social care manager.
Ms Bailey claims that her motives are all about altruism and justice. She claims to only want to make the NHS better – even while appearing in the press and on TV at every opportunity to bad-mouth our greatest national institution, and trying to instigate professional sanctions against nurses simply for speaking out on the radio. Odd for someone who claims to support whistleblowers.
She also thinks highly enough of herself to believe that she is the one to ‘cure’ our supposedly ‘sick’ health service. Highly enough to found a limited company named (albeit strangely) after her mission.
But here’s the thing. Limited companies exist for one purpose: to make a profit. If you don’t want to make a profit, you found a ‘CIC’, a Community Interest Company, or one of several other non-profit company types that exist, usually for the purpose of some social good. Or a charity.
You only found a limited company if you plan to make a profit. Limited companies have to file reports, pay accountants’ and other fees, and incur various types of cost. So do CICs etc, but they aim to cover those costs, pay necessary salaries – and do good. Nobody takes money out of CICs in the form of profits – if you want to do that, a limited company is one of the easiest ways of doing it.
Those four words, ‘Cure the Health Limited’, speak volumes. The chief shareholders – in this case almost certainly the directors – plan to make a profit from the activities under the name of ‘Cure the Health’. Does that remind you of anything?
Can there be any doubt that Cure the Health Limited is a corporate vehicle set up to harvest profits from the profile and activities of Cure. Its existing as a limited company, consisting of shares that can be bought and sold, raises chilling possibilities of commercial health interests owning all or part of the company either now or at some point in the future – and so controlling a so-called “patients’ group” to whom the media pay massive (and undue) attention on all matters NHS.
Ms Bailey claims to be driven by grief for her mother’s death, and compassion for the loss of others. Yet she appears to be willing to commercialise that grief – and to profit from it, and from a constant negative campaign in the media against the NHS, while claiming to ‘cure’ it.
That’s not, of course, unique. There’s already a profession that profits from the grief of others.
We call them undertakers.
As those who have kept close watch on Ms Bailey’s activities and pronouncements have long feared, Ms Bailey has ‘come to bury the NHS, not to save it’.
By founding this strange, ominous limited company, one has to ask whether Ms Bailey has tipped her hand – has revealed her real motives and true psychology when it comes to the NHS she claims to be curing.
Kill or cure, indeed. That is the question.
Good post Steve.
Bailey seems mainly to post as NHSComplaint these days as I’m sure you’ve noticed.
Her claims are outlandish to say the least. Look at this completely unsubstantiated Tweet from this evening.
@gmcuk Your [sic] the worst medical regulator and the most corrupt in the country causing death, injury and harm to 1000s.
Why anybody in the mainstream continues to give Bailey a hearing is beyond me.
Is that her? I’ve suspected but never been sure. If it is, she sure has a lot of conversations with herself on Twitter!!
Hmm you’re right I couldn’t be certain. There was something that made me think so, but I can’t remember what.
No I must apologise to Julie Bailey, NHS Complaint appears to be someone called Alan! I think it was an earlier Tweet about being familiar with Staffordshire that confused me.
Yes Alan Edwards is NHSComplaint. Here he is with Julie Bailey.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9913790/Mid-Staffs-scandal-Sir-David-Nicholson-could-face-corporate-manslaughter-and-misconduct-charges.html
Quite astonishing tweet, though. Thanks for pointing it out!
I believe the person has more than one persona, writing styles are familiar, also if they “carn’t” spell repeat speilling their spelling mistakes as that other persona. Good post Steve!
From his tweets and other utterances, he’s certainly immature – sounds like a spoilt child, mad at not getting his way.
One day, this will fall down on her like a brick wall – unless she’s got something big on a lot of important people. Today’s darling of the press can become tomorrow’s Monster!
Here’s hoping that day comes soon.
Great work again Steve.
Useful to see that photo of them together though. He was of course the person who posted a defamatory blog about me earlier in the year.
I was noticing yesterday that NHS complaints was having a go at Tim Kelsey – who was eith Doctor Foster intelligence, but is now in the cabinet office.> overseeting things like the release of the new stats on surgeons performance etc ( a bit incestuos when you think about it). He was blaming DFI for not being willing to release the information on who looked at the Mortality data at Mid Staffs. – He thinks he needs this to builf his privat prosecution case against Nicholson.
the complex network of vested interests here is important.
This is a very interesting find, Steve, and great investigative work on your part. There’s more to this woman than meets the eye. You mention she’s a social care manager. Wonder if this means she’s got some kind of vested interest in private healthcare. Does she still work in this business?
By the way, I’ve always hated the word ‘cure’ when its connected to health because it conjures up images of the process of curing bacon. Basically its a process which alters the very essence of the meat, the proteins. forever, usually by rubbing salt into it.So the term always makes me think of rubbing salt into someone’s wounds and thus causing more pain – a cruel process. I prefer the term ‘heal’ which is a process that tries to preserve the original body and make it whole again. A much more appropriate term, I think, for a campaign claiming to have the best interests of our NHS at heart.
Like the analogies! For patients too, the issue is not the state of their disease but how it affects them – they are much more interested in healing than remission or cure (you only know you were cured when you look back).
This also applies to services – what it feels like for the people in Mid Staffs is that they have a hospital group that has healed (in a major way) – the reward for which is to have further injuries inflicted upon it.
Not sure about private health interests, but it’s certainly possible. The analogy’s brilliant!
She is one hateful,spiteful person & need to be brought to book.
I have long suspected something of this nature Steve. We will have to wait a while but next year they will legally have to file accounts with companies house. That could prove interesting.
Indeed!
There has always been much more to this story than meets the eye and the people of Mid Staffs have known that for a very long time – but been very inhibited by the overwhelming national, let alone local press coverage using one narrative (and, amazingly this is still the narrative being pursued despite considerable evidence to the contrary).
What is really behind the feelings and actions of CTNHS may never really be known and can only be guessed at now but what is abundantly clear is that they have been mercilessly exploited.
Steve, once again a fantastic article. If only the media would pick this up, us Staffordians may get some respite from this glory hound!
So is Mid staffordshire hospital healed or not?
Yes.
But very clearly that’s in spite of Ms Bailey, not because of her. Her refusal to acknowledge the improvements there is a big part of why she’s so poorly thought of by most of her fellow townspeople.
YES! It wasn’t as bad as painted by the media…as a long term patient I can rubber stamp that! It is one of the top 20 hospitals in the country! At the time of Ms Bailey’s allegations it’s mortality rates were well below the national average as stated in the Francis report.
This is beginning to smell like Common Purpose. Remember the other Julie, Julie Middleton.
AND ONE OF JB’S STRONGEST SUPPORTERS WALKED AWAY THE DAY THE FRANCIS REPORT WAS PUBLISHED!!! WONDER WHY????
Just a thought. Does Julie Bailey get a fee for some or all of her media appearances?
If so are these fees then paid into her Cure company account?
Could all this simply be a mechanism to avoid tax on the additional income she could be generating from her Cure the NHS activities?
Only asking the questions. Perhaps Julie B could supply the answers!
I think she should respond and tell the world just what the purpose and objectives of her company are, and where its income comes from and what it is used for, preferably on oath.
Come on Julie spill the beans, you know you want to. You’ll feel much better when you are being open and honest with all of us and start blowing the whistle about yourself instead of covering up and hiding the truth. Surely the last thing you would want to be accused of and condemned for is sheer hypocrisy. Surely you have a duty of candour to the public.You know the same duty of candour that you expect all NHS employees must exercise to expose the truth when things are being covered up.
Surely we are entitled to expect the same level of candour from all true NHS campaigners. Anything less would simply be totally unacceptable.
Come on Julie. Be a bean spiller about yourself and put our all our minds at rest. A simple statement in the Telegraph, Daily Mail or other paper of you choice or on TV or radio would do. After all you do have all the necessary media contacts you might ever need.
On the other hand if you are too busy we could write to all the significant editors and acquaint them of this conundrum and get them to ensure that you get asked about it when you next have dealings with their organisations. Just a thought.
I’m going to assume you’ve never started or been a Director of a limited company Steve? They are not all created to make “profit” as you put it. A Sole Trader can just as easily “make profit” and is not bound by the same governance that is demanded of a limited company. You will be able to view the limited companies records at Companies House, that is the right of anyone that requests it under stakeholder terms. You would have no such access to a Sole Trader’s accounts.
Tax efficiency is another benefit of limited status, so money saved on tax can easily cover any costs for professional services, but of course you only pay tax on profits. Intellectual property is also protected, no two limited companies can have the same name.
Liabilities are greatly “limited” – hence the name. Sole Traders have unlimited liabilities. Directors also have
to be legally appropriate to hold Director status.
If the limited company was started in March 2013 then accounts are not filed until 12 months later, and within 9 months of financial year end. So even if trading has commenced there is no Accounting requirement or costs until the end of 2014, if no trading takes place then a null return is required, along with a director statement.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the reasons for a limited company are many, and to claim it’s all about “profit” is laughably inaccurate. If profit was the motive then Sole Trader status would be far more effective
way to hide “profit”.
You clearly know very little about this topic, or do know but chose to play on the ignorance of those that don’t.
Limited companies are created for many reasons, turning a profit is not one of them as that can clearly be done, and hidden, through less complex ways. Ironically JB is forced to provide more info this way, rather than less, and given your opposition to her I would have thought that a good thing?
You assume incorrectly. Ltd companies are by no means the only vehicle for prifit-making, but you only start them for that purpose. They’re one of the more efficient ways of doing it – but they’re still for that purpose. If you don’t want to make a profit, there are more efficient forms of company, e.g. a community Interest Company, or CIC. If JB had started one of those I’d have had no comment to make.
Here and on Twitter, there are a lot of people who think they know a lot more than they actually do, evidently.
BTW – are you ‘Chubby’ on Twitter. Spookily similar arguments, and equally off target.
You are wrong, sorry Steve. I am the director of a successful company, we have in the last few years created 12 “limited” companies across Europe, having existed in the UK for a number of years. We did this not to increase profit but to have legal entities within each country. The reason is it makes trading easier, doesn’t mean we trade any more, or trade any less, it just makes the operational elements of the business far less complex. We can concentrate on the important services we provide, without the distraction of agreements with 3rd parties who were our proxy legal entities taking too much time. We went limited in the UK to reduce our personal liability if the business failed, many do, ours didn’t and hasn’t.
You clearly don’t understand business if you think that becoming a limited company is about profit. There are many reasons for becoming “limited” and I suspect strongly it’s about limiting personal liabilities, as this is the de facto reason.
I repeat, becoming a limited company will show you more than you can currently see. In investigative terms alone then surely that’s a good thing?
No, I’m not Chubby on Twitter. I have a twitter account but I don’t post, just follow. There is no debate worth having on serious matters that can be done in 140 characters, or how ever many Twitter provides. I suspect Chubby’s view may be similar to mine as he/she may know a thing or two about business, one area where you’re clearly lacking.
You will of course continue to assert that it’s all about profit, that’s the opinion you’ve arrived at, but it’s not an opinion you’re backing up with facts, as the facts for starting a limited company are numerous but don’t fit your narrative.
Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse. You have legal entities ‘to make trading easier’. You trade to… make a profit. Reducing complexity is about maximising profit or reducing costs and potential costs, which amounts to the same thing. Limited status would in no way reduce JB’s liabilities for libel etc, which is her key risk. No one would lend her money unless she expected to make enough profit to pay it back, so the debt aspect is either irrelevant or else proves my point.
As I’ve already said, very, very, very clearly – there are other vehicles for profit-making apart from limited company status, but the *only* reason for limited company status (as opposed to charitable, CIC etc) is to make a profit.
By dancing around the issue and trying to pretend it’s not there, you just make yourself look foolish.
I would have thought that the “limited liability” is more important here than profit. If you have limited liability then that limits the amount you can be sued for, and protects private assets from the activity of the company, for example (plucking out of the air here, no more that that) say damages for libel, or slander, or any other harm that could befall the public from the activities of the company rather than the individual.
However, a limited company would be appropriate for the set-up of a political lobbying company so that donations from sponsors or public speaking fees are not counted a personal income.
Just saying.
Now that IS interesting…
If she isn’t operating as a company and just as a campaigner, that’s irrelevant. Ms Bailey is fond of sweeping statements that may well be libellous, and ltd status will be no protection against those kinds of suit – what other liabilities is she likely to incur.
It’s still unquestionably about profit.
Steve. Your arrogance is astounding. You are now telling me why we made the business decisions we made. You know nothing of business, give it up, you’re embarrassing yourself
No, I think those 3 fingers are pointing back at you. Or do you do business for the love of it and give away all your profits?
You’re still showing yourself up, David.
So why is this James Duff involved?
James Duff is a butcher, whose wife, Doreen, died at Mid Staffs. He;s listed as a Director and Company Secretary of JB’s Cure The NHS limited company. No-one else seems to be involved in this company at least as Board members and shareholders.
I see JB’s going to try and get charitable status for Cure. I wonder if she realises that no charity can be political, hence the separation of those functions by Amnesty for example?
As a footnote, for the time being @NHSComplaint seems to have disappeared from Twitter
Alan Edwards has another account. It wouldn’t surprise me if the previous account was deleted by Twitter.
Steve mate, you are an absolute idiot!! There is so much hate against Julie Bailey in this article, I wonder what your real motives are for writing such a spiteful blog. Who do you work for really? Your so called “investigation” into Julie Bailey is amateur at best. There is no purpose pointing out the stupidity of your blog, seriously get a life, but you deserve to hear this: I hope you too lose someone close cruelly and mercilessly in the hands of a reckless and irresponsible doctor or nurse, and then let’s hear you talk about your grief when your loved one is snatched out of your life unnecessarily. That is, if you have any loved one in your life, by the sound of your article you write like a lonely moron with nothing else better to do that spit on the grief and misfortune of others. You…parasite of the society with nothing better to do, say or contribute. FUCK OFF and stop writing!
Go on, do you dare publish my comment or will you delete it?
‘Marianne’, I see no evidence that we’re ‘mates’. Ms Bailey’s account of her mother’s experience in Stafford hospital is full of holes and has been challenged by others who were also there. There is no crime in pointing that out.
Interesting that you say there’s no point in pointing out my ‘idiocy’, yet you take the trouble to do so nonetheless – and then betray your true level by the last part of your comment.
I’ll let readers decide who’s more likely to be giving a rational analysis, so thanks for your contribution.