Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust Used Healthcare Funding to Attack Cycling on the Behalf of their Friends at Shell

An NHS Trust with an old-boy board linked to the mining industry sought to sabotage healthy urban design by advancing the interests of motoring. Having never complained about neighbouring seven-lane traffic, a slight reduction to make room for a cycle track was a safety violation too great, or so they would have people believe.

10 min readDec 23, 2016

This is part 4 of an investigation into the media war on cycling. Each is written without much need of previous installments.

During March 2016, Transport For London opened consultation on a 4b£ “road modernisation” for a horrible complex of lanes sprawling Westminster Bridge, past St Thomas’ NHS Hospital, and around then away from Plaza Hotel. The new design though still flawed, took a reasonably bold step reducing six motor traffic lanes to four enabling protected space for people wanting to cycle.

Student Maidstoneonbike, had already come up with a far more elegant, comprehensive and efficient solution that accomodated each transport type, which leaves many scratching heads fathoming why transport authorities produce such awful urban environments. Hopefully this work (pictured below) would have been submitted and the relevant planning department taken notice.

Sadly, not all reactions were as positive, progressive or constructive. Predictably London cab drivers were opposed, however, people were surprised to find Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Hospital became the loudest antagonist beginning a months long, organised black PR campaign. On May 13th 2016, they launched their “KEEP OUR BUS STOPS SAFE!” petition, which proposed no alternative than just to derail plans. The Trust wanted to protect cycling by denying safe infrastructure, and having pedestrians risking six lanes of motor traffic instead of the proposed reduction to four. More bizarre, cycling is already permitted on the stretch of pavement in question, so it’s as if “safety concerns” were pretext for some other interest. In their own words:

[This NHS trust] has serious concerns about the risks TfL’s plans pose to the safety of vulnerable road users — patients, many of who may be elderly or disabled or parents with children in buggies, cyclists and pedestrians. Join our campaign to persuade Transport for London to rethink its proposals for the provision of cycle lanes and bus stops on Westminster Bridge and to consult lawfully on any revised plans.
This petition calls upon Transport for London to rethink its proposals for the provision of cycle lanes and bus stops on Westminster Bridge and to consult lawfully on any revised plans.

Issued via separate press release, Chairman “Sir” Hugh Taylor decreed the following:

We support cycling as part of our commitment to promoting healthier travel to work and reducing environmental pollution, for example by enabling staff to buy bikes as a tax-free benefit through a salary sacrifice scheme. However, we believe that TfL’s plans for cycle lanes and so-called ‘floating’ bus stops on Westminster Bridge pose risks to both pedestrians and cyclists.

Labour MP Kate Hoey, the “elected” local councillor had gotten onboard claiming plans ignored the most vulnerable like “the elderly, pregnant or [those] with sick children”. Hoey has previously demanded bike registration, cycle tax and in 2003 put her name to the following attack on cycling:

The Real Menace On Britain’s Roads Are Selfish, Aggressive, Law-Breaking And Infuriatingly Smug Lycra Louts

Lambeth Pensioners Action Group creaked a melodrama asserting that “all Londoners have the right to safety on the roads and not to have their lives compromised”, so presumably all who cycle aren’t Londoners.

As with any anti-cycling noise of late, the Evening Standard were quick to launder this public relations campaign, verifying no claim:

Hospital angers London’s cyclists by trying to block Westminster Bridge bike lane (by Ross Lydall)

Such wonderfully coordinated ridiculous claims had bullshitometers off the scale, so much so, Freedom of Information requests were fired in defense. Meanwhile in the printed edition of the Evening Standard and for the same Ross Lydall story, some invisible hand had switched the headline…

Hospital fights to halt cycle lane ‘that endangers patients’ (by Ross Lydall)

The FOI process dragged on, and it was not until September people could reverse engineer the propaganda. Strangely, two requests completed at similar times, Road safety campaigner, Tom Kearney, revealed that Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust had used 10k£ of public funds to disrupt clean transport, and an unspecified amount of internal labour time.

As news spread, former political officer for the Liberal Democrats and property/PR consultant, Francis Gaskin, was quick to produce a narrative. Constructed from a selective reading of his own FOI request, Gaskin erroreously limited bad publicity to Labour MP Kate Hoey, writing the following:

£10k of NHS money has been spent [on a] legal campaign to try and prevent a cycle lane being built outside [and] it’s hard not to smell a rat. Turns out that the rat was called Kate Hoey, the MP for the local area. (The rat usually does turn out to be a Labour politician, doesn’t it?) In the FOI’d documents below, you can see how Kate Hoey initially contacted the Trust [April 27th] with a “great opportunity” to sabotage the cycle track.

However, in his own document release Gaskin overlooks a statement by St Guy’s chariman, “Sir” Hugh Taylor. Following is an extract from a 1100 word written speech addressing the Trust’s directors (as part of a 250 page document) published April 27th, the same day Gaskin claimed Hoey had “initiated” proceedings but obviously prepared in the days before:

Last month I visited the resource centre at the Tate Library in North Lambeth for people with visual impairment. For me the visit also re-inforced the concerns that we, as a Trust, supported by colleagues in the South Bank Partnership (a meeting of which I attended on the Trust’s behalf last week) and the South Bank Forum, have expressed about the proposal by Transport for London to replace the bus stops outside St Thomas’ — notably the extremely busy one on Westminster Bridge — with ‘floating bus stops’.
This means that patients and carers entering St Thomas’ from the bus stops will have to cross a cycle path before doing so. Since our last Board meeting [March 23rd] I have met TfL officials — who said they would consider a number of technical modifications to the proposed floating bus stop on Westminster Bridge. However we are not satisfied with either the process for the consultation of the proposed changes, or that our fundamental concerns about safety have been addressed. We have entered a formal complaint under TfL’s complaints procedure and are considering what further action we should take if we do not get a satisfactory response.

Taylor unequivocally describes antagonism months previously leaving two options: Hoey was not the instigator or had earlier involvement (though that cannot be proven with available information).

Perhaps Gaskin was blinded by party politics and eager to undermine the credibility of a rival “Labour” MP, but long before any petition or NIMBY pensioner was in the street, and before MP Hoey was alleged to be the instigator, an NHS chairman had decided to sabotage obesity fighting freedom of movement. He had already decided the proposals were unsafe, already met with TfL to informally complain then escalated formally, and then promised more action if he didn’t like the outcome. He’s also addressed this anti-cycling sentiment to his entire company and as is the way with hierarchical institutions, those not wanting to be shown the door probably have to get on board.

So what actually was the motivation?

Freedom of Information Findings

Gaskin’s FOI documents were released and published in a disorderly set of PDFs, so the first task was to sort a readable chronology which is available here. In a tediously fascinating read, the banality of bureacracy is made apparent and at over five-thousand words just in email exchanges (which is just a tip of an iceberg hiding hours long meetings, social media monitoring, unreleased documents and whatever lies behind “client-attorney privilege”), the resources poured into obstructing good health is made all the more shameful. I believe there was an over redaction as key protagonists were given anonymity, and the FOI reply was clearly incomplete missing at least one internal strategy document referred to as “The Comms Plan”. The bulk of the money expropriated went on undetailed “legal fees” which greatly inhibits inquiry, however, three main findings are readily apparent:

Events begin as a concensus of anti-cycling hostility from within South Bank Employers Group (SBEG), which is a lobbying group for Shell, Network Rail, ITV, Ernst & Young, (the infamous) Garden Bridge Trust, and including others, Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Trust. As joint chair of SBEG, Labour MP Kate Hoey would be a cog tasked to drive the private demands of these companies towards public policy, and of all involved (as far as I’m aware), only the NHS Trust went public with concerns.
Following directives issued by Trust chairman, Hugh Taylor, public funds were used to design then implement a multi-month, multi-person anti-cycling campaign even though they themselves admitted privately they had no evidence to support cliams. Without internal debate, employees were pressured, and despite internal objection, local groups were corralled to fake “grass root” discontent.
Rather than verifying claims or doing any original reporting, the media (specificially the Evening Standard) negotiated with the Trust giving editorial influence on how the story was presented.

A Shell Game at the South Bank Employers Group

Addressing the Trust’s monthly director’s meeting (April 27th), “Sir” Taylor admitted to already having a negative opinion of plans claiming safe cycling infrastructure was too great a threat to patient safety. Similar sentiment also came from former Trust Chair, Patricia Moberly (since deceased), who was quietly prodding her successor towards antagonism (email April 25th). However, her primary concern was the smooth running of bus services, nobody cycled therefore (by implication) encouragement was undeserving, and tagged on the end was the same baseless “safety” claims. However, in the words of Trust Secretary and Head of Corporate Affairs, Peter Allanson:

I don’t think [the Trust has] any evidence that [the plans] are unsafe — even though we think they are.

I wonder if they apply the same intellectual rigour to the medical treatments the Trust provides. Taylor also discussed the consensus of antagonism reached by the South Bank Employers Group which includes the following companies:

This is a great number of people who cannot find any evidence connecting cycling and reduced motoring lanes with pedestrian endangerment. Suspiciously only one organisation came out publicly to complain. There are however, a number of companies that clearly benefit from the maximisation of motor traffic, Shell being the most obvious but also EY construction, and ITV should get mention having until January been overseen by haulier Archie Norman, and with a business model reliant on car advertising. People close to Shell have already been caught this year faking petitions and creating popular antagonism for cycling infrastructure, so perhaps cynicism should be the default.

Occam’s razor suggests a network of private interests seeking to deny freedom of movement hid behind a “humanitarian” concern for the down trodden (and much runover) pedestrian, but if you are still skeptical let Labour MP and SBEG chair Kate Hoey, explain motive (email April 27th 03:02):

This is a great opportunity to just say they can’t have a cycle lane disrupting the bus stop.

Still unconvinced? St Guy’s and Thomas’ Trust has a privatised compartmentalised unit called Essentia which is responsible for all infrastructure and capital development, as well as infrastructure services across London. Essentia is directed by Steve McGuire, and he also represents the Trust at the South Bank Employers Group. Strangely his name does not appear once in dozens of emails, though he could be there as one of the anonymous participants. Predictably before joining the NHS he worked for the British Coal Corporation.

#FAKENEWS

The FOI request also highlights how the “fifth estate” is little more than an extension of the public relations industry. After strategising and astroturfing, the Trust (in their own words) “pitched” their tale to the Evening Standard, specifically Ross Lydall (email May 13th 08:46).

We pitched the attached press release this morning to the Evening Standard. They’ve already posted a story online which is attracting quite a few comments, some pro and some anti the Trust’s stance, as is the case on Twitter also. There will be a story on page 10 of the paper this afternoon. The story in the paper will be headlined ‘Hospital fights to halt cycle lane that endangers patients’ — I have asked for the headline on the online story to be changed to be consistent with this also. (email May 13th 11:11)

They act like ad-men, they speak like ad-men. Though the web article couldn’t be changed, the editorial of the paper edition did go in the Trust’s favour. They asserted as fact that which they knew was a fabrication, and good ol’ Ross Lydall thankfully didn’t ask any difficult questions.

I could be wrong and this was all just clickbait.

Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust Used Healthcare Funding to Attack Cycling on the Behalf of their Friends at Shell

Freedom of Information Findings

A Shell Game at the South Bank Employers Group

#FAKENEWS

Written by lstwhl