Is G4S really the right choice to run sexual assault referral centres?
G4S Forensic and Medical Services already provides similar services in Essex, Worcester and Telford [Image: David Jones/PA].
Fine – so why does this inept and dangerous organisation keep winning plum contracts from the Conservative Government?
Only today (December 16), the Prison Service had to take over Birmingham Prison because of what appears to be a riot – that this security-based company cannot control.
If G4S can’t control rioting prisoners, why is it running a prison?
This is the latest in a series of cock-ups that go back through the years.
Can anybody forget the fact that G4S completely messed up its contract to run security at the 2012 London Olympics, forcing the Tories to bring in the Army at extremely short notice?
Now this mob has won a contract providing medical exams and counselling for rape and sexual assault victims – who deserve far better.
Considering the way the benefits system has been perverted to put people off claiming, one has to wonder whether this choice is to put people off reporting these serious offences.
G4S, the controversial private security company, is to run services providing medical examinations and counselling for victims of rape and sexual assault in the West Midlands.
The company has been awarded a three-year contract to take over two sexual assault referral centres (Sarcs) in Birmingham and Walsall. The national network of 33 centres across England which have developed over the past decade also allow rape and sexual assault victims to report attacks without going to the police first.
The decision to award the contract for such sensitive services to the company, despite widespread criticism over its failings in the Olympics security contract, was made by local NHS commissioners who have recently taken over responsibility for the network of Sarcs from the police.
Union leaders and violence against women campaigners sharply criticised the “sell-off” of such sensitive services to a private company with such a chequered record.
Source: G4S contract to run sexual assault referral centres damned | Business | The Guardian
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Some years ago someone I knew worked for 4gs. He was a convicted criminal yet he drove there van without a licence and was a security guard. Who in this government has conceptions to this company and why was it not closed down years ago
Was it a real sell off or yet another give away to get shot of yet another area of Government. Totally bizarre decision which leads one to suspect yet another government goon with limited brain cells has made a crap decision. G4S track record is appalling in the game of grab the contract first and then worry about how to deliver it afterwards…..with what with what qualified staff?? Total Cons madness and their usual trade mark of lack of common sense and smelling a profit for their mates. Next thing there will be allegation of persuasion to drop charges expecially if the victims attacker was someone important with connections.
That a very iffy and sometimes criminal company like G4S keeps getting government contracts is one of life’s mysteries.
Despite everything, CQC has only inspected four of the twenty services currently run by G4S Forensic and Medical Services. Of those, only one received a full clean bill of health – HMP Rye Hill still had serious failings on reinspection in April but has yet to be rechecked, Yarl’s Wood was somehow cleared in May after failings were found on an earlier visit, and only one of three sites of the Gatwick Cluster Immigration Removal Centre was checked back in 2014 so this shouldn’t be classed as a full ‘pass’.
The stock CQC line for the 80% services still uninspected is that they have been assessed as ‘likely to be safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led’. Where on earth did they get that idea from?
Digging further, I looked at websites for three sexual abuse services – The Bridgeway, Horizon SARC and The Oak Centre. None of them gave any clue that they were run by G4S that I could find; none linked to CQC including the one with a report (The Oak Centre); and none appears to provide guidance as to how a service user could make a complaint. These are three pieces of information you would expect to be readily available.
In conclusion, G4S is still being given free rein by an absent regulator and the abuse victims, offenders and immigrants in their care deserve one hell of a lot better.
Links:
CQC: https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/1-292003004
The Bridgeway: http://www.thebridgeway.org.uk
Horizon SARC (serving the West Midlands as per your article, open and uninspected since early 2014): http://www.horizonsarc.org.uk
The Oak Centre: http://www.northdevonhealth.nhs.uk/sexual-assault-centre/about-us/
Last nugget of the day: G4S provide the healthcare in publicly run prisons but not their own. At HMP Birmingham, the site of last nights riot, the local NHS PCT continue to do this. Unlike any G4S prison healthcare service, this one easily passed its inspection.
Links: http://hmpbirmingham.co.uk/about/about-haw/about-haw-h/
https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/RYWZ2/inspection-report/INS1-1278770362
G4s shouldn’t be the choice for any security area the public sector officers always have to get them out of the mess their understaffing and poor training causes such as the current problem at Winson Green.
G4S, the largest private security company in the world, is involved in brutal human rights violations at detention centers worldwide, including in Israeli prisons where Palestinian political prisoners and children are tortured and held without trial.
The U.N. officially opposes these violent and illegal practices, yet it purchases more than $22 million in G4S contracts each year, ignoring G4S’s transgressions and the U.N.’s own guidelines.
G4S say that May’s husband has nothing to do with the company, but this company’s directors have a previous record for being “economical with the truth”. Once again, this is just a cash cow for the Tories – they couldn’t care less about the ethics or the service.