IOM DHSC & MANX CARE

[Gladys]

1 hour ago, The Old Git said:

When covid was getting started someone who wasn't that long retired from Nobles told me Ewart was arrogant and stupid. Thought it was a bit harsh at the time, but now see they were spot on. 

She does have a lovely smile though. 

[Gladys]

14 minutes ago, cissolt said:

And who paid for the hotel room?  And travel and expenses?  Pretty sure we all know the answer to that...

Why did they have to take place in the UK? They could have done it virtually from an office in the DHSC with Magson dialling in. That is what most businesses did.  She was the one, presumably, who decided not to relocate here for the duration of her appointment. 

[Gladys]

Could someone a better understanding of Tribunals answer this question please?

Why was the credibility of witnesses given its own special analysis?  I have looked at a couple of decisions, and have not seen credibility as a distinct topic.  There may be an aside, "Mr A was found to give consistent and clear evidence and was considered a credible witness" but not an analysis as in this decision. Or perhaps I have missed it?

 

[Roger Mexico]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Grumpy said:

And why did they have to take place in a 'private hotel room' and not in one of literally thousands of office spaces available for booking ona daily basis all across the UK?

I'd assumed it was at a meeting room hired in an hotel, but none of the three possible candidates in/around Marston seem to offer that facility.  Given the seriousness of what was being discussed and the technical problems where some participants are physically present and some remote you'd have thought something more formal was essential.  You can't just run that sort of meeting in a corner of the bar.   Given the uncertainty over dates I would have thought a phone call to the appropriate venue would have been helpful to confirm against their records (and who paid and where are the invoices?) but maybe the participants can't remember where they were either.

These are supposed to be top, well-paid and responsible professionals but whole thing is about as unprofessional as you can get and it there's either a lot of dishonesty and/or incompetence going on here.  And this reflects not just on Magson but Cope and especially Forster from Manx Care[1] and the people from the Cabinet Office Change Team and HR who may or may not have been involved.

 

[1]  Cope had only recently been recruited, which might reduce responsibility, though you would have thought that would have meant she would have taken more notes about what happened.  She also seems to have kept all the the relevant information on a computer of the previous employer and it is all mysteriously not available now.  Both of which are things I find completely implausible.

[Roger Mexico]

3 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Could someone a better understanding of Tribunals answer this question please?

Why was the credibility of witnesses given its own special analysis?  I have looked at a couple of decisions, and have not seen credibility as a distinct topic.  There may be an aside, "Mr A was found to give consistent and clear evidence and was considered a credible witness" but not an analysis as in this decision. Or perhaps I have missed it?

Because in a lot of employment cases it comes down to a lot of 'he said/she said' and rather than try to determine the truth of each particular incident separately (which may not be possible), it's more sensible to assess the reliability of a witness as a whole when what they say can be matched up with external sources such as documents and so on.  It's pretty much what we do in everyday life if you think about it.

[Gladys]

6 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Because in a lot of employment cases it comes down to a lot of 'he said/she said' and rather than try to determine the truth of each particular incident separately (which may not be possible), it's more sensible to assess the reliability of a witness as a whole when what they say can be matched up with external sources such as documents and so on.  It's pretty much what we do in everyday life if you think about it.

Yes, I understand that and it is a natural process that we all do.  But to devote a section to that analysis is what I am getting at. 

[Roger Mexico]

21 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Why did they have to take place in the UK? They could have done it virtually from an office in the DHSC with Magson dialling in. That is what most businesses did.  She was the one, presumably, who decided not to relocate here for the duration of her appointment. 

At the time Forster, Magson and Cope were all in the UK and travel to/from the Island was difficult.  Whether the Cabinet Office people were there or not is uncertain, presumably they were on Teams or whatever, but for such an important meeting or rather meetings, for which people would have had to travel some distance at a time when business travel was rare, everyone seems to be very vague.

[Manxman2000]

59 minutes ago, Dr. Grumpy said:

And why did they have to take place in a 'private hotel room' and not in one of literally thousands of office spaces available for booking ona daily basis all across the UK?

Hotel chains across have a number of rooms that can be changed to small conference suites.  Also some have suites that are used for tribunal hearings of around thirty people.

[quilp]

7 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Yes, I understand that and it is a natural process that we all do.  But to devote a section to that analysis is what I am getting at. 

Possibly to make it easier to define the motivation of each of the 'witnesses', how particular situations came about, how an outcome was decided and who played a part and why. Making connections between personal or collective decision-making within management on all levels, and who is actually responsible for what. 

Who was working who? 

[Roger Mexico]

27 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Yes, I understand that and it is a natural process that we all do.  But to devote a section to that analysis is what I am getting at. 

I think it's just a reflection of the size of the Decision.  I've not recently seen a Decision with a Table of Contents before for example.  As you said such matters are normally mentioned, but only in passing, perhaps summing up all the witnesses in a paragraph or two.  In this case there was so much information they needed to formalise the structure that is normally inherent in the report they give and that included a more formal assessment of the main witnesses.

[Roger Mexico]

29 minutes ago, Manxman2000 said:

Hotel chains across have a number of rooms that can be changed to small conference suites.  Also some have suites that are used for tribunal hearings of around thirty people.

That's what I though, but when I looked at the likely venues, none of them seemed to offer that sort of facility.  I presume the location was chosen the equidistant for the three main participants, but it's all very odd.

[Dr. Grumpy]

20 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

That's what I though, but when I looked at the likely venues, none of them seemed to offer that sort of facility.  I presume the location was chosen the equidistant for the three main participants, but it's all very odd.

Was it even legal for people from different households to mix at that time?

[Dr. Grumpy]

1 minute ago, Dr. Grumpy said:

Was it even legal for people from different households to mix at that time?

Is that why they were cagey about exact dates and people who attended?

[Roger Mexico]

Something the Decision does explain is two incidents that puzzled and annoyed us at the time.  The first was the delayed vaccine rollout.  It turns out that (para 682):

Dr Ranson had considerable expertise in this field, having been a Commissioner on the Commission on Human Medicines, as Miss Magson well knew. The exclusion of Dr Ranson from the vaccine roll-out at the start, was intended to side-line and marginalise Dr Ranson, who was in fact an essential part of the process as a matter of statutory procedure.

From about 17th December 2020, Miss Magson later demanded that Dr Ranson take on the medical leadership of the vaccine roll-out and in doing so, cancelled Dr Ranson’s study leave and annual leave and on the 18th December 2020, Dr Ranson was asked by Miss Magson to sign the Patient Group Direction (PGD) for the new Covid-19 vaccine. Between that date and about 21st December, Miss Magson unreasonably continued to demand that Dr Ranson sign the PGD despite knowing that she had good reason for refusing to sign because the indemnity position needed resolving. Further, during a meeting on 18th December 2020 Miss Magson conveyed the impression to the Vaccine Group that Dr Ranson had failed to attend previous meetings and failed to sign the Direction and other documents. In fact, Dr Ranson had been told by Miss Magson that she was not to have any input into the Vaccine Group.

Of course if Ranson had been involved from the start, the indemnity side would have been started out in time and vaccination begun earlier.

The second was the sluggish response to the early January 2021 Covid outbreak (see para 708 onwards):

On or around 1 st January 2021 and in relation to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Complainant recommended an urgent Clinical Advisory Group meeting be convened. Miss Magson prevented the Complainant from doing this

In fact  Ranson texted Magson as soon as the news broke[1].  Magson ignored it and with Greenhow made sure that no such meeting happened.  (And then blamed Manx Care of course).  So there was no medical input into the government actions, despite all the confident statement about what the 'medics' said.

In both cases Magson, supported by Ashford and others in the bureaucracy prioritised being spiteful to Ranson over what was best for the health of the Island.

 

[1]  One of the many astonishing aspects of all this is that the medics had no immediate access to the details of how the outbreaks were progressing (para 719): Dr Ranson pointed out that for CAG to provide advice and know how to respond, firsthand information was needed. They had been driven to try to get such information from the Government’s website and broadcasts. Unsurprisingly, Dr Ranson pointed out that this was an inappropriate way to have to gather facts.  I'd add it also meant that the data were delayed by a day and couldn't be analysed at individual level to see how spread was happening.  Data that the public shouldn't have but should have been available to doctors and public health officials.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Roger Mexico
Lost last lines

[Attila]

It’s astonishing how much the ego of one person has had such a significant impact, both on Dr Ranson and the health and well-being of the people of this Island. Magson should be brought to account, in a Manx court of law for the shocking and disgraceful conduct she has displayed.