Head down, Sir Richard Branson is fiddling with briefing notes that are
becoming more dog-eared by the minute. The exuberant knight who transformed
the music and airline industries, is speaking out about the new cause to
which he is lending his considerable clout: fighting hospital superbugs.
But the devil-may-care attitude and toothy smile are in short supply as he
cautiously explains that he's “the new boy on the block” on NHS issues,
having decided to start his clean hospital campaign a month ago when he
became the vice-president of the Patients Association pressure group. There
was a strong personal motivation behind his decision to accept.
“When my 88-year-old father needed a hip replacement operation a couple of
years ago, I rang around trying to find a hospital that was MRSA-free, but
couldn't. In the end, we had to put him into a private hospital that had
never had a case of MRSA, despite the fact that my dad loves the NHS and
wanted to go to his favourite hospital in Chichester. That seemed sad,
because, in most areas, I think the NHS is better than private care.”
The reason that Branson's nose is so stuck in his notes is that taking on a
public institution is a new area for him. His plans are not totally formed,
and the facts are not at his fingtips. This is the first time that Branson,
58, has talked in detail about his new role in the tiny Patients
Association, and his backing for its agenda on tackling hospital safety and
infections.
For years it has been calling on the Government to make hospital-acquired
infections, which affect a quarter of a million British people every year, a
No 1 priority and consider more seriously far-reaching measures to stamp
them out. The association says the Government should consider more seriously
“search and destroy” policies that have proved successful in the Netherlands
and Western Australia (see box below).
Now, prompted by the experience with his father, and arm-twisting by Claire
Rayner, the president of the Patients Association, he will be contributing
his influence and unspecified amounts of Virgin cash to back the research,
which will make a clear case for the way forward in the NHS.
This comes after news that Branson plans to establish a chain of health
“polyclinics” integrating NHS and private services, and that his daughter
Holly, 26, having completed her university medical training, is taking a
year out of her job as a junior doctor to get some handy business experience
with her father (she's provided Branson with useful inside information about
what's good and bad in hospitals).
He runs the Virgin Active gym chain, a cord blood stem cell bank, and Virgin
Unite, the charitable foundation funding healthcare projects in Africa. So
health is at the top of the Branson agenda, even though he hasn't had to use
a hospital since he was 21, when he was treated by the NHS for an old knee
injury incurred at school football. Why the interest in health now? “Maybe
it's because I'm getting older!” he laughs.
Safety concerns
It's typical Branson that despite admitting to still being on a learning curve
he is prepared to speak out about superbugs and wants to shake things up a
bit at this early stage. Typical, too, that he (or his team) has already
identified the top seven people in the world who have made the greatest
leaps in tackling hospital infection, and has mentally booked them in for an
as yet unscheduled summit with UK ministers, “although none of them knows it
yet”.
But is he the right man for the job? He has clearly been briefed on some of
the crucial issues: the importance of staff as infection carriers; the
dangers of a blame culture that stops staff reporting errors. He's worried
about rubbing up doctors and nurses the wrong way “because 80 per cent of
the NHS is great”, and emphasises that he wants to work with hospitals and
government rather than against them.
However, he may not be prepared for NHS suspicion of an entrepreneur
interloper using his considerable personal influence to get what he wants,
especially since new statistics show staff have been bringing down infection
rates since 2004.
The NHS safety profile compared to the airline industry seems genuinely to
appal him. “The most frightening statistic I've learnt recently - I heard it
from Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England - is that one
person in 300 who goes into hospital dies of something completely unrelated
to what he or she went in for. That could be MRSA, or someone putting the
decimal point in the wrong place in a prescription, or somebody dying of an
overdose of drugs. If one person in 300 who walked into a Virgin Megastore
died there, they'd be closed down. Or if one plane in 300 crashed with 300
people on board, there'd be an outcry.” He's considering bringing in airline
experts to examine safety procedures in the NHS.
The comparison with industry is dramatic but not entirely fair. It's true that
there's a comparison to be made between hospitals and airlines on some
safety issues, such as the consequences of getting the decimal point in the
wrong place for calculating drug doses and air fuel. But people over the age
of 65 take up more than half of hospital beds, and many are vulnerable to
superbugs precisely because they are ill. Hardly your typical Virgin
Atlantic passsenger list. Showing he's aware of the differences between the
NHS and industry will be an important starting point.
Soon he's going to learn how deep NHS safety problems run, how ingrained
problems such as high staff turnover, loose accountability systems,
vacancies for trained staff, make it very different from the hire-and-fire
private sector.
Determination to speak out
We're talking in Holly's house in Holland Park, West London. Branson has just
flown in from giving a speech to businessmen in Sweden. Before that he'd
been in Bermuda, where he'd docked after bad weather thwarted his attempt to
sail across the Atlantic in record time with Holly, his son Sam, 23, and the
Olympic sailor Ben Ainslee. Tonight he is hosting a star-studded Virgin
event to raise money to fight fistula (an unpleasant maternal injury
affecting women in Africa).
He's not looking tired, but the words are painfully slow. “Jetlag,” he
explains. “Or maybe too much coffee.” When I ask him whether his reported
dyslexia has had an effect on his business career, there's a nervous
explosion of laughter: “Yes, as you can see from my articulateness!” Then he
adds, slightly defensively: “My dyslexia does affect me a little, but
hopefully I get my message across.” It was, he says, the reason he left
Stowe School at 15. Word blindness didn't stop him in his first business
venture, a student magazine, when he was 16. Then came Virgin record shops
when he was 20, the Virgin record label when he was 22, and Virgin Atlantic
when he was 34. His Virgin Group owns 200 media, travel, finance and health
companies, though things aren't as rosy as they were, with Virgin Media
recently announcing 2,200 job cuts.
Coping with dyslexia
“I think what dyslexics are good at, they excel at,” he says, “and hopefully
lead the rest.” He tells me that because he finds complicated jargon
difficult to remember, he uses language that people understand and that's
been an asset to him. Until recently, he says proudly, he never understood
the difference between net and gross. This might seem a fatal omission for a
businessman. But it has never mattered because he has asked the right
question - “Is that good news or bad news?” - when he hasn't understood the
figures announced to him.
At a board meeting on his 50th birthday a Virgin director announced that it
was time he understood the net/gross thing, pulled down a chart showing a
fishing boat at sea and explained that the fish in the net were the Virgin
profit, and all the rest were gross. All became clear with a visual image,
says Branson. “I get lots of letters from dyslexic kids who are struggling,
and their parents, and it's important that I show people that dyslexics have
managed to do OK.” He says that his habit of writing absolutely everything
down in notebooks is also the result of his dyslexia. It helps him to
understand words his way.
You wonder whether his insecurity with words has instilled a sense of constant
diligence and alertness, and it's this that's been as responsible as his
flair for a good business idea that's been behind his success. “I'm not a
worrier,” he says. But maybe you don't notice you worry if you're always
intense.
His son Sam comes in to the room. “Hello darling,” says Branson, hastening to
him. There are hugs and much excited talk about Obama winning the US
election the night before. Joan, Branson's wife of nearly 20 years, also
comes in with a bag of shopping. It's a warm interlude, and after our
interview Branson's going out for lunch with them all. But the family are
kindly encouraged out of the room so we can get on. Eyes back down, so he
can think about what he's saying.
Healthcare clinic plans
What about his other health ventures, I ask? In January he announced plans to
launch a chain of Virgin healthcare clinics, in which NHS GPs could work
alongside other NHS and private practitioners, such as dentists and
osteopaths. Virgin was one of the first businesses to move in with such
proposals after the Government laid out plans last October for new NHS
GP-led polyclinics, potentially run by private companies. There was some
outrage from doctors' leaders and speculation that Branson was at the
leading edge of NHS semi-privatisation. He insists that there has been a lot
of interest from individual doctors in running his clinics; he wouldn't have
proposed them otherwise. But all seems to have gone quiet on polyclinics, as
the economic slowdown has cooled commercial interest. Having announced six
health centres by the end of the year in January, Branson tells me that
there's only one experimental centre on the cards. “We're still exploring
sites, particularly in Manchester,” he says, “and it's more likely that
we'll open one to see whether people like the idea or not.” I wonder whether
his priorities have changed, now that he's getting older. He has always said
that having fun, not making money, was a main motivation, but is “making a
difference” what matters to him now? “I don't think my priorities have
changed dramatically, but I suppose as I've got older 50 to 60 per cent of
my time is spent on social issues, rather than entrepreneurial ones.” And
surprisingly, given his many adventuring ventures from world record attempts
by balloon and boat to abseiling down buildings in a James Bond tux, he
denies that risk is important to him; he always makes sure that he's
carefully strapped in.
“I love to test myself”
“I love to test myself and see what I'm capable of,” he says. “It gets you
away from these [he touches the BlackBerry at his left hand] and it teaches
you how to deal with crises.” But does he need to feel on the edge? Not any
more, he admits, after lengthy consideration. “As a young man I enjoyed it.
But now I think it's just a matter that if someone asks you whether you'd
like to break the transatlantic sailing record, and ‘yes' means an
exhilarating week or two, and ‘no' means you're going to sit in front of the
telly and watch someone else do it... I think most people would say yes.
Wouldn't you?”
He'll probably be pictured doing silly things for a good while yet. He comes
from a family “with ridiculously long lives”, with Mum and Dad 86 and 90
respectively, and various relatives having passed the 100 mark. He's
spending more and more time on his privately owned Caribbean island,
swimming, sailing, playing tennis and kite surfing. He watches his weight
and doesn't smoke, though he admits to drinking more than doctors advise,
because “I know how to party.”
That devil-may-care, lust for life type attitude is about to sweep into the
NHS. He may want to be diplomatic, but Branson isn't one to quietly make
things happen from the shadows. The prospect of him bringing a new broom to
a fusty institution that's harder to turn round than a pirate-occupied oil
tanker is one to relish. The Department of Health and the NHS needs to be
confronted with a big picture man, someone who asks: “Is that good news or
bad news?” But you suspect Branson's learning curve is a lot steeper than he
expects.
The Patients Association, www.patients-association.com;
helpline 0845 6084455
Richard Branson has identified hospitals in Western Australia as the best
in the world at confronting MRSA. He says the UK should copy their policies.
They are:
A search-and-destroy policy Constant active surveillance for superbugs,
carriers isolated and treated.
Testing all new patients for superbugs Putting them on separate wards if they
are carriers.
Regular screening of all hospital staff, isolated and treated if carriers.
Win some, lose some
1969 Founded the Virgin mail order record company, then opened a shop
on Oxford Street the same year
1984 Founded Virgin Atlantic Airways
1985 Failed to make the fastest Atlantic Ocean boat crossing
1986 Beat the record for fastest Atlantic Ocean boat crossing by two
hours
1991 As part of a consortium, lost out on a bid for three ITV franchises
1992 Sold Virgin Music to Thorn EMI, and put the profits into Virgin
Atlantic
1997 Founded Virgin Trains
1999 Beaten in his attempt to be the first person to circumnavigate the
globe by hot-air balloon. In the same year, was awarded a knighthood
2007 Started the Virgin Health Bank for stem cells. Government rejects
Virgin's offer for Northern Rock
Source: Times Archives, www.wma.com
