One Year On

This was the first post on the blog in June 2006. Since then the Surrey & Borders NHS Trust has backtracked on cutting payments but the so called ' Modernisation' of the Old Moat Garden Centre has simply resulted in incompetent managers within SABP , Surrey PCT, Surrey County Council , MCCH , SCMH and the Richmond Fellowship wasting public money or funds donated to them passing the buck.

During the same period it transpired that SABP Chief Executive Fiona Edwards and her husband Mark Edwards were underhandedly profiting from contracts between her Trust and his business Softools, a firm that also had a contract with one of the PCT's inherited by the Surrey PCT.

Softools claims to increase visibility of process and efficiency within and across organisations however one year on I dont think its just the workers at the Surrey & Borders Old Moat Garden Centre , who still face a totally uncertain future, who feel short changed.

The Surrey PCT has yet to get back to me with details about the Richmond Fellowship's revised proposals for the Old Moat Garden Centre.

Posted June 2006

Health Bosses Axe £3 a Day Wages

THE father of a man with learning difficulties is furious that health bosses have axed his £3-a-day wages for working at a NHS Trust owned garden centre.

By Joan Mulcaster

This means that for digging, hoeing, weeding, shovelling, planting, moving and potting at The Moat Garden Centre in Epsom, owned by Surrey and Borders NHS Trust, Brian Hall, 44, now gets nothing.

And the same goes for his other £3-a-day job, filling envelopes atthe trust's Office Project in Cobham.

Brian's father, David Hall of Green Lane, Ewell, said: "From very, very cheap labour he and his friends are now being used as free labour - how low can you get?"

Brian, who lives in a trust community home in Langley Vale and others housed in similar homes and also employed in its various commercial enterprises, are having their pay docked as part of a modernisation policy.

Bosses claim this is not a cost cutting exercise.

Mr Hall added: "I am disgusted at this treatment of the most vulnerable members of our society who carry out hard manual work for what is a commercial garden centre."


"News of this was broken at the centre last Friday.


"It was 'we won't be paying you any more' and some of the chaps didn't realise what was going on.


"It is disgraceful that this penny-pinching NHS Trust should penalise these vulnerable, disabled people working for them. Epsom and Ewell MP Chris Grayling said: "It is beyond belief that they save money by depriving the people who work for them.

"They paid them hardly anything and now they are paying them
nothing."

The Moat House Garden Centre was launched as a showpiece project to be run as a commercial enterprise and staffed by supervised adults with learning difficulties.


However, the £3-a-day pay - described by the trust as therapeutic reward money - compares badly with pay convicted criminals earn on prison enterprises.


A statement from trust director of operations Peter Quinsey said: "Payments are a throwback to the days of large mental health and learning disability institutions when patients were rewarded for work or therapy activities.


"This is now outdated and many mental health institutions do not recognise the practice so the trust has decided to end these payments.


"Work services are being remodelled to reflect modern practices which clearly distinguish between paid work, voluntary work, training and therapy."