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news
Jeremy Hunt (licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 by Ted Eytan on Wikimedia Commons).JPGHealth secretary Jeremy Hunt in row over £44k bathroom to let him "freshen up" after bike commute
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is at the centre of a row over a £44,000 shower room and toilet in the Department of Health’s new headquarters, which The Sun claims is for his personal use but the politician insists is available to any member of staff who cycles to the office in Victoria.
According to the newspaper, the 15 foot by 8 foot bathroom suite adjacent to Hunt’s office on the top floor of the building, which is located at 39 Victoria Street, includes floor-to-ceiling tiling, sensor-activated lighting and a power shower.
It added that there are already shower facilities by the bike racks in the £25 million building’s basement, but said Hunt wanted his own private space where he could “freshen up” after his commute by bicycle.
The Sun quoted a ‘whistleblower’ within the ministry as saying: “It’s a disgrace that Hunt talks about the need to save money while getting the taxpayer to pay for a private bathroom fit for a king.
“People across Britain are waiting on trolleys at hospitals because there are no beds and waiting lists are getting longer by the day.
“But that’s OK so long as Jeremy doesn’t have to queue for the bathroom.
“How can he justify it while telling everyone else in the NHS to tighten their belts?”
The row comes at a time when Hunt has ordered the NHS to make savings totalling £22 billion.
But the Conservative minister, who is Member of Parliament for South West Surrey, insisted on Twitter that anyone who rode into work at the ministry was entitled to use the bathroom, adding that he wanted to encourage people to commute by bike.
1/2 Today's @TheSun story totally false. TRUE I requested shower for long dist cyclists in new Dept Health offices (as in current office)
— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) August 13, 2017
2/2 FALSE it was for my own use. My cycle 2work only 10 mins so no need 2'freshen up' as story elegantly says.But let's encourage cyclists!
— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) August 13, 2017
Many Twitter users replied by pointing out – as The Sun had done – what else £44,000 could fund within the NHS.
The £44,000 spent on Jeremy Hunt's bathroom suite could cover the annual wages of 2 nurses, 169 sessions of chemo or 15 delivered babies.
— Rachael (@Rachael_Swindon) August 13, 2017
Others tweeted pictures of the facilities that staff in NHS hospitals are expected to use.
Why are you too good to use same facilities as other staff? Anyway, this was the staff shower at a hospital where I used to cycle to work. pic.twitter.com/x7GZz1auTW
— Coffee (@coffeeheadaches) August 13, 2017
£44k shower upgrade for DOH office cyclists...whilst #nhs staff cycling to work have no taps. pic.twitter.com/7xpHGk5S1e
— Beth I (@BIkponmwosa) August 13, 2017
Can't wait to see your new work loo Jeremy Hunt! Send pics so we can compare and contrast @Jeremy_Hunt pic.twitter.com/CURU1meDnp
— NHS Roadshow (@NHS_RoadShow) August 14, 2017
In a statement, the Department of Health said: “The Health Secretary has not approved any costs relating to the department’s new building, but has requested facilities for all cyclists and runners in line with those the department currently has.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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26 comments
I've worked in quango land for the last 20 years and pay has been shite no matter who was in and wastage has been large no matter who was in.
It's not bosses wasting money on our place it's mainly workers who 'NEED' (I know my rights, ailment of the week people) a special £1200 chair, a £1200 riser desk that they then keep in one position anyway. Some silly cunt got £30k of chairs and stored them on the wrong place, had to chucked as they got covered in mold. Don't even go into the horrendous procurement ripoffs paying £100 for something Maplin sell for £15, the maintenance men who can only do temporary fixes as everything lasts 3 months then breaks again so round it goes and business is good. If we were a business we'd have either toughened up or gone bust long ago.
I can't see what the problem is, I mean no one wants a Stinky Hunt in the office
And even fewer would want to use a shower that he'd been using.
The Daily Mash, and they should know, reckons he used the same plumber who installed the NHS computer system.
If you produce a large amount of crap, you need suitable facilities to dispose of it. £44k sounds like a bargain in this case.
Just when you thought it impossible for any more people to despise this odious man he is revealed as a cyclist. May I just register my disappointment that none of the younger element on here has been along to comment 'You ain't no cyclist, bro. You ain't no cyclist"? I'd do it myself, but I hardly feel qualified to do so.
All do a 100 mile sportive and then rock up to Department of Health demanding to use the showers as a protest?
I can't say I believe a single word written by the Sun, but 44k for a shower?!
The actual work including parts is only about £8k, the rest goes on Risk Assessments, Method Statements and PPE...
Plus the rest of the bathroom. And labour cost's ain't cheap these days!
Use wetwipes if you're too good for the regular showers you bellend.
Respect for the lad for getting a froth up on his 10 min commute.
#Twat!
Isn't his name is spelt with a 'c'? That is the radio 4 version at least!
Do as I say not as I do Tory shocker.
Not suprised, shower in a can for you plebs!
Here we go again. How quickly we forget all the gravy training from ALL of these people. Seems like yesterday Prescott needed 4 houses and 2 Jags.
Find me someone in power and you'll probably find an abuse of it.
As for the NHS....it didn't exactly turn into anything better when Labour were in charge, did it.
Power meters are cheaper under the Tories, as are carbon frames. Must be a link.
I'm pretty confident that tory cuts have had a lot to do with the 4 hour A&E targets being missed. Before you claim that it's still Labour's fault that cuts had to be made let's not forget that A: Labour didn't cause the financial crash and B: George Osborne said he'd match spending during 2007, just before the financial crash:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm
People always blame whichever Government is 'in' and never remember that each trust decides where it's money is spent. The amount of utterly pointless spend on IT alone I saw in my NHS years made me sick:
Consultant sees colleague with new laptop, Consultant wants new laptop, despite his being only a year old. Uses Dept Chiefs name to go over the Head of IT and get costs approved (!) New laptop not compatible with old docking station, new docking station req. And keyboard. And monitor. Consultant has second office in different part of the hospital, insists on new docking station et all for that office too, despite NOT HAVING ONE THERE TO START WITH.
Don't think it's all 'elitist' either:
Called to investigate second PC failure at Nurse station. PC wet - WET! - inside (it's not tea for a change, that's literally a weekly occurence somewhere) Nurses adamant they know nothing 'must be a ceiling leak' Ceiling's dry. Hmm. Replaces PC.
The next day - THE NEXT DAY - walking by nurses station on way to a different call, sees a potted plant ON the PC being watered.
Trust me, that's at the tame end.
Friend of mind did IT consultancy for whichever Trust is in charge of Hereford. Consultancy was basically sticking new PCs on desks. Did three years, retired to Spain on the proceeds.
Jeezus are you mental!! NO ONE can talk about the NHS or how they deem to spend their money.... do that and you'll be hung drawn and quartered in the court of public opinion by the doctors and nurses union PR machine! Now get back in your box and watch as facilities management charge £60 to change a light bulb, you maniacs!
Actually the NHS (especially considering its size and scale) is comparatively pretty efficient compared to other national health organisations
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-myth-busters
Although it's not perfect, I really don't think it would be wise to attempt to make a strawman/scape goat of the health care professionals who will perhaps one day save or life, or nurse you back to health (wiping your arse, changing your dressings etc) while they are in effect taking a pay cut while their workload goes up exponentially every year.
Mate of mine was a salesman for the firm that supplied the PCs for a local trust maybe 10 years back. Money for old rope, and horrible to see: they'd sell PCs (Dell, IIRC) that you or I could build via the Dell Website for £4-500 and charge the trust over a grand, plus a 3 year support contract that cost something like another grand. An admin guy could've ordered the PCs individually, whacked Dell's 3-year support fee on for the same level of cover provided by my mate's 'consultants', and got them at least two for the price of one.
The government was regularly saying national procurement was screwed, back then - I hope they've fixed it...
When in doubt, whatabout. The thing is this man is in power NOW so we should do something NOW. Rather than mental gymnastics to avoid doing something about what's in front of you it's better to try and effect a change while you can.
If Labour get in power then they will need to be held accountable for their behaviour too - it's not about attacking the others because your "team" are in power and you need to justify that it should be like this now because it has always been thus.
Actually there was a vast improvement under labour. Waiting times for many of the patients I anaesthetised on my regular lists were down to a few weeks rather than the current wait of well over a year.
I have 23 years service as a doctor in the NHS including the past 14 as a Consultant Anaesthetist; I know what I'm talking about. If you can't afford private health insurance, you can't afford to vote Tory!
My GPs solution to my 85 week wait for surgery, "can you afford to go private?".
With respect, your personal experience is just that: personal. The NHS is a an enormous organisation. It's the fifth biggest employer in the world, with of the order of 1.5 million employees. The reasons you see what you see are far more complex and nuanced than "Tory cuts" - nothing is ever so simple.
I can only assume that you must know this, so your statement can only be intended to promote your political affiliations.
I think it is obvious from the outset of this article where most political affiliations are on this website.
I think if one were being fair in respect of these changing facilities you would need to understand how many people these facilities are supposed to be for. Most employers these days try to offer their staff some sort of showering and changing facility for cyclists and that should be applauded. More and more people in my office are choosing to ride to work because it is cheap and healthy.
You can only really challenge the value the cost is over priced (maybe a procurement issue, rather than lavish spending) and if the facilities go to waste. But given that most readers here would appreciate these if they worked at the DOH I don't think we can judge.
i see someone has talked about the 'straw man' argument (a bi-word of the left wing press) but that is surely what is being created here. The question is not about how many nurses this pays for (over one year!?!), but whether the DOH has adequate facilities for its staff.
To say that the money should be better spent elsewhere is a matter of opinion, but if you want to walk down that utilitarian tightrope you may not like the answer you get.