Friday 26 November 2010
Peter Howson was born in London
Thursday 25 November 2010
Care homes 'closed' for poor standards remain open
Care homes 'closed' for poor standards remain open
But a BBC investigation has found a dozen were still open under the same ownership.
The CQC admitted errors, but said it was determined to clamp down on providers where there is a risk of neglect or abuse.
In some cases the regulator had allowed homes to close and then reopen on the same day, if the home applied to do so, which they can under the current rules. Damning reports about their past records were then removed from the CQC's website, so potential residents and their relatives could no longer read them.
Some of the homes said they were not even aware the regulator had placed them on an official list of providers which had closed.
The CQC announced the closures in September, saying it demonstrated a new determination to "get tougher". It said 42 providers had shut because of enforcement action, and the rest closed voluntarily after receiving poor reports.
Clean slate
But the BBC found some were actually allowed to remain open despite concerns about standards, while others had never been rated "poor" at all.
When reporters visited the Wykenhurst care home in Hereford, the owners admitted social services had tried to remove some of their residents last year.
Inspectors had previously expressed fears that the home was ill-equipped to deal with very frail residents, that nutritional standards were poor and that some residents were at risk of falls.
The owners of Wykenhurst pointed out that since the official closing and reopening, they had been visited more recently by inspectors who found their service to be "adequate".
The home had officially been unregistered and then re-registered on one day in November 2009. Subsequently, its previous history of poor inspection reports was wiped from the CQC's website.
To a family looking for a home for a relative, the home looked as if it was newly opened. Several other providers closed by the CQC had in fact been allowed to do the same.
Eileen Chubb, founder of the Compassion in Care charity, was the first to raise questions about the CQC's "tough" stance.
"Basically they were given a clean slate and people weren't told," she said. "That's totally wrong and totally dishonest. There's nobody out there looking for the vulnerable residents in these homes."
'Mistakes'
Amanda Sherlock, director of operations for the Care Quality Commission, admitted mistakes had been made. But she said the homes' histories should have remained on the commission's website, and promised to look into it.
Wykenhurst Care Home said in a statement that it had been unaware of the CQC's database error until it was informed of it by the BBC: "We explained to you that we had changed our systems to more in-depth personal care plans, as did many other homes in the last year.
"All identified previous issues raised by CQC were addressed to the satisfaction of CQC and the local authority."
Lighter touch
The revelation comes at a turbulent time for the regulator, which was launched in April last year. In October it introduced a new, lighter-touch inspection system which it believes will allow it to focus on providers which are causing concern. There will be fewer inspections in well-run care homes where there is no cause for concern, so inspectors can concentrate on those where there may be a problem.
But charities and inspectors have claimed the system is unable to cope with such radical change.
“Start Quote
End Quote Inspector (anonymous) Care Quality CommissionIt's inevitable something will happen which will shake the system. You just hope it isn't one of your cases”
"As far as I'm aware there are no plans for any additional staff, so the chances of inspectors getting out on visits seem more remote than ever.
"The biggest concern for everyone is there's going to be a major incident in a home, as we're not in there as often seeing for ourselves.
"Inspectors know it's going to happen somewhere. It's inevitable something will happen which will shake the system. You just hope it isn't one of your cases."
70 major amputations a week carried out on type 2 diabetes patients
Variation in amputation rate 'shocking'
Variations in the amputation rates in diabetes patients in England have been described as shocking by a charity.
Department of Health data reveals the rate of major amputations in the South West, at three in 1,000, is almost twice the rate in the South East.
The Diabetes UK charity says the majority could be prevented.
The government says it is publishing the information, which also covers other conditions and has been dubbed an "atlas of care", to help improve care.
The amputation difference is one of the most striking revealed in a series of 34 "maps" of healthcare produced.
Treatment of last resortIt also looks at key treatments for some of the most serious conditions including stroke, heart disease and asthma.
There are more than 70 major amputations a week carried out on type 2 diabetes patients in England. It is thought 80% of amputations are potentially preventable.
“Start Quote
End Quote Sir Muir GrayMost people in the health service are so focused on what they're doing, working so hard, they've got no idea if they are doing better or worse than someone else”
Diabetes can lead to a loss of sensation in the feet so minor injuries can become badly infected without the patient noticing.
If the infection becomes too severe, amputation of a foot or the leg below the knee becomes the treatment of last resort.
Barbara Young, the chief executive of Diabetes UK, said "The existing situation around foot care and amputations is shocking, given the that the majority of amputations can be prevented."
The atlas also reveals a big variation in the percentage of people with diabetes who are receiving all the essential checks to monitor their condition.
This includes the simple foot checks which can help prevent amputation.
While some geographical differences would be expected, researchers say unwarranted variation is a cause for concern. They adjusted their data to take account of different populations in different areas.
Sir Muir Gray, the public health academic who led the research within the Department of Health, said: "Most people in the health service are so focused on what they're doing, working so hard, they've got no idea if they are doing better or worse than someone else.
"The atlas is now going, for the first time, to give them a clear idea of where they are. "
Unwarranted variationThis is particularly true in areas of care where the evidence is clear. Patients with a suspected mini-stroke are at higher risk of a major stroke. The national guidelines recommend they should have specialist tests within 24 hours.
The atlas shows a greater than 10-fold difference in the percentage of patients who are getting that gold standard treatment.
A handful of areas are managing for all the patients at risk but in many parts of England that falls to fewer than half.
Some experts believe reducing the variations to give priority to treatments backed by evidence could help find the savings it needs.
Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King's Fund, said "If performance across the NHS can be brought up to the level achieved by the best, then much of the pressure on local NHS budgets can be relieved without having to cut services for patients."
The data in the atlas predates the coalition government but ministers have supported its publication.
Health minister Lord Howe said: "Making this information available will help to identify and address unwarranted variation to better meet the needs of their local populations."
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Monday 22 November 2010
Carbon emissions fell in 2009 due to the recession therefore can we conclude
Carbon emissions fell in 2009 due to the recession therefore can we conclude
2009 carbon emissions fall smaller than expectedBy Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
Related stories
Carbon emissions fell in 2009 due to the recession – but not by as much as predicted, suggesting the fast upward trend will soon be resumed.
Those are the key findings from an analysis of 2009 emissions data issued in the journal Nature Geoscience a week before the UN climate summit opens.
Industrialised nations saw big falls in emissions – but major developing countries saw a continued rise.
The report suggests emissions will begin rising by 3% per year again.
“What we find is a drop in emissions from fossil fuels in 2009 of 1.3%, which is not dramatic,” said lead researcher Pierre Friedlingstein from the UK’s University of Exeter.
“Based on GDP projections last year, we were expecting much more.
“If you think about it, it’s like four days’ worth of emissions; it’s peanuts,” he told BBC News.
The headline figure masked big differences between trends in different groups of countries.
Broadly, developed nations saw emissions fall – Japan fell by 11.8%, the UK by 8.6%, and Germany by 7% – whereas they continued to rise in developing countries with significant industrial output.
China’s emissions grew by 8%, and India’s by 6.2% – connected to the fact that during the recession, it was the industrialised world that really felt the pinch.
Back on track
Before the recession, emissions had been rising by about 3% per year, with the growth having accelerated around the year 2000.
The new analysis suggests that after the recession, those rates of growth are likely to resume.
“Probably, we’ll be back on the track of the previous decade, 2009 having been a small blip,” said Dr Friedlingstein.
The figures come just a week before the start of the UN climate summit, held this year in Cancun, Mexico.
Little progress is expected, following what is widely regarded as the failure of last year’s Copenhagen summit.
But the projections – produced by the Global Carbon Project, a network of researchers around the world – may focus delegates’ minds anew on the enduring issue in tackling climate change: decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions.
Speaking last week at a meeting of Indian and British business leaders aiming to develop joint clean energy projects, UK climate minister Greg Barker conceded this was the missing ingredient.
Fundamentally, he said, the question was “whether a transition to a low-carbon economy is compatible with continued economic growth – and no-one knows the answer, because no country has made the transition yet”.
Related stories
- Businesses urge low-carbon path 15 NOVEMBER 2010, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
- Concern over lack of climate cash 08 OCTOBER 2010, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
- Action call on low-carbon future 19 JULY 2010, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
- EU ‘half way to emissions target’ 03 JUNE 2010, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
- India’s carbon emissions increase 11 MAY 2010, SOUTH ASIA
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The government is planning the biggest ever shake-up in the history of the NHS in England.
By Sarah Montague Today programme |
Doctors will soon be prescribing the future of the NHS |
The government is planning the biggest ever shake-up in the history of the NHS in England. Will it work?
It wants GPs, rather than managers, to decide how and where to spend money for their patients and it will hand them £80bn of the NHS's £100bn budget.
The existing management layers will be scrapped and all this will happen within the next couple of years.
In the village of Ramsey in East Anglia, it is already happening. The Ramsay health centre is one of 10 surgeries in Huntingdonshire that make up the Hunts Health Consortium. It's one of the first GP groups to take over control of a real budget from their Primary Care Trust (PCT).
Paul Zollinger-Read, the head of the PCT in Cambridge, told me that a year ago he realised that if they carried on doing what they were doing then in three years time they would be £100m in debt.
|
He decided to work with local GPs because GPs write the prescriptions, make the referrals and are responsible for the majority of NHS expenditure.
"So put them in charge of making decisions and you have a much better model of healthcare," he told me.
His aim is to do himself and his colleagues out of a job because, he admitted, they were getting in the way and "frustrating the changes GPs could make".
The GP in charge of Hunts Health Consortium and who now controls the purse strings is Simon Brown.
The change, he told me, is revolutionary - it used to be difficult to get innovation which GPs see as obvious through, but now they can make "logical decisions from the patients perspective".
He and his colleagues will set guidelines for all 10 surgeries - what they think is the best and cheapest drug to prescribe for different conditions, what they consider the most effective way to treat conditions like diabetes and how they want to manage - and prevent - the particular health care problems that crop up in their area.
If a surgery wants to join their group they have to sign up to their way of doing things.
He says that it should mean fewer hospital admissions. Where patients are admitted, it should be for shorter periods.
Many in the NHS have been taken by surprise by how radical it is and the scale of it Nigel Edwards, NHS Confederation |
Not all GPs are so keen. A short drive away, the surgery at Alconbury and Brampton has decided not to join the consortium yet.
The personal view Dr Duncan Outram, of one of the GPs there, is that it will damage the doctors' relationships with their patients.
At the moment, he argued, GPs are patients' advocates. But if consortia go ahead, then patients may start to worry about whether their GP is acting in their best interest or trying to balance a budget.
He also thinks patients will end up blaming their doctors for cuts that otherwise would have been seen as the responsibility of government.
It is a point Simon Brown is willing to acknowledge, but argues that at least, with GPs making the cuts, the decisions will be made "in rational ways".
Healthy debate
Hunts health consortium is ahead of the game. But over the next few months every single doctors' surgery in England is expected to make plans to join a consortium so the new system can be up and running by April 2013.
Some fear NHS reform will open the door to a privatised health service |
It's reckoned there will be about 500 consortia. That should allow some GPs to take a back seat while other have a more active role running the finances.
The planned changes represent a huge shift of power to GPs.
Many support the thinking behind it, but there is concern about how it will work in practice.
A BBC survey of more than 800 doctors found that less than a quarter thought the changes would lead to a noticeable improvement for patients.
Chris Ham, chief executive of health think-tank the Kings Fund, has cautioned about the pace of change.
"It's quite risky to move from the current system to the new system at this speed and pace," he told me.
Others have voiced concerns about whether GPs have the necessary skills.
Paul Jenkins, chief executive of the mental health charity Rethink, has warned that people with mental illness don't necessarily get a particularly good deal now.
In 10 years' time, shareholders in a large American-style healthcare company could have more influence over what services are provided by whom than a citizen Sarah Gorton, Unison |
GPs themselves say that they are a lot less comfortable in treating mental illness than they are treating physical conditions.
He questions whether GPs have the skills, knowledge and interest in mental illness to make it a priority in the new world.
GPs may also decide that they'd rather spend their budgets on some conditions and not on others. Those decisions will vary across the country.
So, says Michael Dixon who chairs the NHS Alliance, you could be turned down for treatment at one surgery for something like IVF, when a neighbouring consortium is offering it to its patients because, for example, they have prioritised heart disease or cancer.
"That's the sort of flexible arrangement you can't have at the moment," he says.
"Ultimately what each consortium is doing is trying to make the best of the money it's got and therefore there will be winners and there will be losers.
Layers of management are to be stripped from health care provision |
"But the main thing is that the clinicians and the local population feel corporate responsibility for what they decide."
And that is the aim of the reorganisation - to put the patient, with their GP, in the driving seat. It's a far cry from the way the NHS has worked over the years.
Since it was launched 62 years ago, such have been the demands on the service that it has turned into one of the biggest employers in the world.
As patients have wanted, and needed, more, the number of front-line staff has grown and so has the number of managers.
The government says the changes will cut management costs by 45% over four years.
Out goes all the existing architecture: Primary Care Trusts, Strategic Health Authorities and much of the power of the secretary of state.
It is, says Michael Dixon, "a fantastically brave and fantastically good option" and something that both GPs and their patient would embrace "very wholeheartedly".
Private concern
There are those, however, who fear it won't be long before big business muscles in.
"You can very quickly envisage a situation where the GPs aren't actually doing the commissioning themselves," warns Sarah Gorton of the union Unison.
"They're setting the criteria but they are handing over the commissioning - which isn't just about contract management, it's about identifying what the needs of the population are and then identifying who's going to be the potential provider for that and then awarding and managing the contract.
Many people in the NHS have been taken by surprise by how radical it is and the scale of it Nigel Edwards, NHS Confederation |
"There is a danger that we could see a creep to handing this over to the private sector.
"In 10 years' time, shareholders in a large American-style healthcare company could have more influence over what services are provided by whom than a citizen, a taxpayer, in a community in England."
Even Michael Dixon accepts that this is a threat. The way to ensure it doesn't happen, he says, is for GPs to embrace the change wholeheartedly, take ownership of it and make sure that they get their managers in to do the job.
It's not just the fear of privatisation in the commissioning of healthcare - some fear the increasing privatisation of those who provide health care services.
Chand Nagpaul, a GP with the British Medical Association, says one of their big concerns is that the government's ideological attachment to competition "permeates the NHS".
In particular he points to the setting up of a new body, Monitor, whose role is to promote competition within the NHS and intervene if it believes anti-competitive behaviour is taking place.
Dr Nagpaul asks if, as a GP, he decides to work with his local hospital to develop services, would that be anti-competitive and will Monitor tell his surgery to refer instead to private providers and the independent sector?
He warns such an arrangement would fragment care and undermine the efforts of GPs to serve their local communities with their local hospital.
Monitor will work alongside a new independent commissioning board whose job is to divide money up between the consortia and oversee what they do.
Much is unknown - not least exactly who is responsible for what and what happens when things go wrong.
Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents most of the organisations that make up the health service, says that if GPs make decisions that they're not going to provide certain types of treatment, it's not clear who holds them to account.
He points out that if a hospital is not being successful in the market for orthopaedics and decides it wants to stop, under the new system it can do so unless it's an essential service.
"It can just exit the market in the way a shop might leave a town," he told me.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley knows the NHS inside out after spending six and a half years shadowing his current role. This is his idea.
In opposition he talked about giving more power to GPs but the full scale of what he would propose was not clear.
One senior NHS figure said that this is the sort of change that takes 10 years in times of plenty and we are being asked to do it over 18 months while cutting budgets.
That David Cameron decided to sign off on it could be seen as a huge political gamble.
"I think many people in the NHS have been taken by surprise by how radical it is and the scale of it," says Nigel Edwards.
"It's a complete intellectual system which looks very much like the way gas and telecoms were deregulated in the 1980s rather than a healthcare reform.
"So we've been confronted with what looks like a very elegantly constructed piece of machinery with lots of cogs and levers and things connecting but we've absolutely no idea what will happen when you switch it on."
Friday 19 November 2010
I don't care.
Thought you might like to read this letter to the editor of a British national newspaper. Ever notice how some people just seem to know how to write a letter?
Here is a woman who should run for Prime Minister!
Written by a housewife, to her daily newspaper. This is one ticked off lady.
'Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on 7 July 2002, and in New York on 11 Sept 2001 and have continually threatened to do so since?
Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered that day in London, and in downtown Manhattan and in a field in Pennsylvania ?
Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?
And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured by a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in a brutal insurgency.
I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11 and 7/7.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief of which is a crime punishable by beheading in Afghanistan
I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Afghanistan come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques and behind women and children.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of Nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the British media stops pretending that their freedom of speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting at home to hear about them when something happens.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a British soldier roughing up an Insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this:
I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take this to the bank:
I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner - who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and 'fed special food' that is paid for by my taxes - is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts:
I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.' Well, believe me!! you guessed it .......
I don't care!!
If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behaviour!
If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country! And may I add:
'Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. Our soldiers don't have that problem.'
I have another quote that I would like to add, AND........I hope you forward all this.
Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The British Soldier.
3. The Australian Soldier.
4. The US Soldier.
5. The Canadian Soldier.
One died for your soul, the other 4 for your freedom.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON, AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET ABOUT ALL OF THEM.
AMEN!
ECOLI INFECTION LINKED TO LONG TERM HEALTH PROBLEMS
Thursday 18 November 2010
Social care 'everyone's responsibility'
Social care 'everyone's responsibility'
Social care should no longer be seen as a right from the state but instead "everyone's responsibility", the government says.
The attempt to change the perception of the sector was made as ministers set out new plans for England.
To achieve this, they promised more support for carers, an increase in personal budgets and a greater role for the voluntary sector.
It comes as an independent commission is looking at social care funding.
Councils are increasingly struggling to provide services such as home help and care home placements because of growing demands.
“Start Quote
End Quote Paul Burstow Care services ministerSocial care is everyone's responsibility. It is not about getting care on the cheap”
It is hoped a new system of funding - social care is currently means-tested - could alleviate some of the problems.
FundingBut whatever conclusions are reached next year, councils are still bracing themselves for making funds stretch further and further in the future.
The policy paper unveiled by the government on Tuesday effectively paves the way for this by attempting to change the image of social care.
Richard Jones, the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, said the sector was facing a "significant funding challenge".
"It is about a shift in perception and helping people understand there is a partnership between the individual, families and the state.
"In the public mindset, people still think you get it free."
The plans set out include an extra £400m over four years for providing more breaks for carers and a £3m fund next year to help invigorate the voluntary sector.
Social care: The sums
The social care budget in England this year stands at £16.6bn - the equivalent of about half of all the spending by councils.
Just over £2bn of the sum comes from personal contributions as social care is means-tested which means everyone with assets of below £23,500 pay some or all of their costs.
In October's spending review, ministers said social care would get an extra £2bn by 2014. The NHS will contribute £1bn of this and the rest will come in the form of a grant from central government.
But with the overall local government pot falling by a quarter, councils and campaigners fear it will prove impossible to fully protect social care budgets.
The government cited projects such as befriending schemes to help tackle social isolation and handy man services for preventing fractures from falls when elderly people try to do DIY as a way community-based schemes could help.
It also set councils a target of achieving full roll-out of personal care budgets by 2013.
Just over a tenth of those eligible currently have the budgets, which allow individuals to decide how their state allocation is spent.
Personal budgets are seen as a prime lever in which to promote greater involvement as they establish a clear agreement about what the state can do to help.
Care services minister Paul Burstow admitted people needed to be more aware of the realities of social care.
But he added: "Social care is everyone's responsibility. It is not about getting care on the cheap."
Wednesday 17 November 2010
The release of climate-science e-mails last November ripped apart Phil Jones's life.
Climate: The hottest year
Twelve months ago, Phil Jones was a productive, if not particularly outspoken, climate scientist. That was the way he liked it. Head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, Jones worked with the Met Office to compile data from weather stations around the world into a monthly series showing global average temperature. He had much on his mind — not least a puzzling drop in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures during the mid-twentieth century that he had recently helped to discover. It was a curious finding, but Jones would soon have bigger things to ponder.
On 19 November 2009, someone released roughly 1,000 e-mail messages and documents stolen from a server at the CRU. Many of them contained Jones's private correspondence, which sometimes showed him in an unflattering light.
He gloated about the death of a prominent climate sceptic, and suggested to colleagues they should delete e-mails to keep sceptics from gaining access to information. Most famously, he boasted that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in a temperature chart.
Very soon, members of the sceptic community had pounced on these messages as evidence that Jones and others had concealed flaws in their temperature data and abused the peer-review system to gag critics of climate researchers. Jones faced a storm of accusations that ranged from scientific misconduct to plans to install an autocratic world government through the spread of false hysteria about global warming. He received some 200 abusive or threatening e-mails, the most troubling of which targeted him and his family. "Someone, somewhere, will hunt you down," read one. "You are now blacklisted," read another. "Expect us at your door to say hello."
The e-mails also triggered several official investigations, including one by the UK Parliament, which ultimately determined that Jones had not committed any serious offences. Case closed.
In March, when a frail and hesitant Jones answered questions before an investigating parliamentary committee, his appearance reminded many of the distressing 2003 case of David Kelly. Kelly was the UK weapons inspector outed as the source of a media story about government exaggeration of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He was also questioned by a parliamentary committee — and subsequently killed himself. "I made the connection," Jones says about the Kelly case. "But I didn't talk about it."
Jones has regained much of the lost weight, and he no longer takes the medications that kept him calm during the day and asleep at night. He is back in charge of the CRU (he stood aside for some eight months while enquiries were pending). So, how have events of the past 12 months changed him?
"I'm a little more guarded about what I say in e-mails now," he says. "One thing in particular I'm doing is not responding so quickly. I might have got an e-mail in the past and responded with an instant thought in the next 10 to 15 minutes, whereas now I might leave it a day."
“I did wonder why supportive scientists didn’t go to the media.”
Although other scientists were quick to defend the reality of man-made global warming, public support for Jones was harder to find. Officially, senior figures in the UK science establishment say this was because they did not want to prejudice ongoing enquiries. Privately, they say that the e-mails looked bad, and should the CRU scientists have been found guilty of misconduct, they did not want to get dragged down with them.
"I was getting lots of messages of support from my fellow scientists," Jones says. "And I did wonder why they didn't go to the media and say the same things they were saying to me."
The CRU server that held the stolen information was seized long ago as evidence from the cluttered desk where it sat in one of the unit's cramped offices. The unit itself is housed in a curious four-storey cylindrical tower at the heart of the busy UEA campus, and it brings to mind a Norman keep within a medieval castle. An appropriate analogy, considering that its occupants have weathered an extended siege that left visible scars on the tower's exterior. Its doorbell was removed to shield the scientists inside from the incessant ringing of journalists and film crews.
Outsiders are often surprised at how small the unit is, with just three full-time staff scientists. Jones's office is on the top floor, where the computer on which he typed many of the e-mails sits amid a carpet of scientific reports and papers. Keith Briffa, a tree-ring specialist, has an office across the landing. Climate researcher Tim Osborn is next door, struggling with a familiar problem. "My inbox is full and I need to delete some e-mails." Then, with a thin smile: "But I'm not allowed to now, am I?"
Temperature data analysed by these researchers serve as the foundation for countless studies, which have steadily identified and analysed the signal of global warming caused by human activities. The growing importance of this work made Jones and other CRU scientists a target for Internet bloggers sceptical of their methods and the conclusions drawn from them. Long before the e-mail scandal, Jones and his team found themselves fielding enquiries about their research from outside the conventional scientific community.
An independent inquiry headed by former senior civil servant Alastair Muir Russell examined many aspects of the work done at the CRU, looking specifically to see if the centre had committed fraud or some other type of scientific misbehaviour. The investigation found no reason to doubt the honesty and integrity of the CRU scientists, but it did criticize the way those scientists responded to information requests, or in some cases, failed to respond. The report said there had been a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness".
Some scientists echo these conclusions. Mike Hulme, a climate researcher at the UEA who worked at the CRU from 1988 to 2000, said that certain aspects of the culture in the research unit were "unwise and unhealthy". He notes in particular that the CRU was slow and inconsistent in responding to data requests, and says it suffered from "intense tribalism". But Hulme says the work at the CRU "was not fraudulent, and certainly did not justify the personalization of the attacks subsequently made on them".
In his defence, Jones says he wrestled with how open scientists should be to requests for information. "I started responding to those back in 2003 and 2004, but they just asked more and more questions and it was just a drain on resources. That's when things probably went awry." He claims he changed tack when he saw that the information he supplied was not used by those who demanded it. Rather, each response simply triggered more questions. "I just realized it was taking up too much time," he says.
By failing to answer all requests properly, Jones says he wasn't acting any differently from other researchers. "There are some people I have sent requests to, other scientists, who have never replied. I've asked people for data and reprints of papers and I've never got a response. So I think I responded quite well and the CRU responded quite well."
“I don’t know that I can offer advice. Whatever you try to do, the goalposts keep moving.”
When he did review papers, the stolen e-mails revealed, he told colleagues he "went to town" to make sure that those manuscripts he did not like were not published. The Muir Russell report found there was no abuse of peer review and said such robust exchanges were typical in science. Jones says he learned long ago that he needed to be absolutely clear with editors, because in the past he had written what he thought were critical reviews only to see the papers in question get published. "I realized that to make sure an editor rejects a paper you have to go a bit stronger in the review."
He adds: "The whole point about trying to pervert the peer-review process is that it is impossible to do it. There are so many journals and if people are persistent enough, they can get their papers published."
He says the description of weather-station movement "has been completely misinterpreted". The set of 84 Chinese stations referred to in the paper were drawn from a larger group of 265, for which the Chinese had location histories. Jones and his colleagues did not claim that none of the selected stations had moved, only that they picked out ones that had moved the least, he says.
Such shifts do not significantly affect results, Jones says, because there was no general pattern to the station relocation: on average, ones moving to colder places were balanced by ones moving to warmer spots. But the Chinese scientist who supplied the station information has now retired and the authorities there have not released the full station-history data — making it impossible for Jones, he says, to provide the evidence to support the statement.
One issue critics continue to badger Jones about is whether he deleted e-mails that had been requested through the freedom of information process. Jones insists he never did, as that would have qualified as an offence. What about deleting e-mails that could be requested by future freedom of information requests? Britain's Information Commissioner's Office, which adjudicates such cases, says it is allowed. However, the Muir Russell report said that this kind of pre-emptive deletion is not consistent with the "spirit and intent" of the law, and there is evidence that CRU scientists took that questionable approach. When Jones is now asked if he deleted such messages, he says: "No, I deleted e-mails as a matter of course just to keep them under control."
So why did he urge colleagues to delete messages in which they discussed, among other things, the preparation of a report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? An attempt to thwart critics, perhaps? "That was probably just bravado at the time," he says. "We just thought if they're going to ask for more, we might as well not have them."
Then Muir Russell was correct? Had Jones broken the spirit of the law? "Not necessarily, if you've deleted them ahead of time," he says. "You can't second guess what's going to be requested." Jones goes back and forth on his motivations. Deleting e-mails would simplify his life if people requested them in the future, but that was not why he got rid of them, he says. "I deleted them based on their dates. It was to keep the e-mails under control," he repeats.
A source close to the CRU says it is almost impossible to determine who deleted what and when — much less why. More certain is the conclusion that the hack of the server was a sophisticated attack. Although the police and the university say only that the investigation is continuing, Nature understands that evidence has emerged effectively ruling out a leak from inside the CRU, as some have claimed. And other climate-research organizations are believed to have told police that their systems survived hack attempts at the same time.
Jones and others connected to the CRU fear the hackers may be sitting on more stolen e-mails, but Jones feels confident the worst is behind him. "It really is not somewhere I would like to go through again. But having been through it once, I think I am a bit hardened to it."
Can Jones offer any advice to research scientists who wake up one morning to find themselves the centre of a worldwide scientific scandal? "I don't know that I can. The thing to point out is that whatever you try to do, the goalposts keep moving." As soon as he responded to one criticism, another popped up.
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