HOSPITAL MAJOR INCIDENT FIRE: SGH Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer Fail To Answer Urgent Questions on Fire Safety

 

Paul Grundy Chief Medical Officer UHS NHS Foundation Trust
Photo: UHS

UPDATE: A response from Corporate Affairs has now been received, but it is not very helpful and no response to each individual and direct question has been received from either the CEO or CMO, nor Corporate Affairs. 

Please sign Andrew Pope's petition for sprinklers here. 

Andrew Pope says:

"When I contact people directly that I have been in touch with before, including David French about Park and Ride, I expect a direct response from them directly.

And not a feeble response from PR people trying to gaslight patients, staff, local residents and firefighters. I will be going back and asking for a direct response - and not for the first time.

Despite the non-response, it seems that Mr Grundy is now away. So others have been asked to respond in his stead.

I have sympathy that they have been dealing with a Major Incident, but this is somewhat self-inflicted when insufficient fire safety was in place before the Major Incident. The cost of the Major Incident could have been much reduced with better fire safety in place.

I heard similar excuses that these PR people at the Hospital have given now, as compared with the Labour-run Southampton City Council 8 years ago when I put them under pressure after the Redbridge Towers fire. And the Tory Leader of Kensington Council at Grenfell.

The PR response totally justifies the petition that I have created, because the Hospital seem to think it is acceptable to not do it because they are not required to by law or regulation.

Local people think otherwise - the petition has received good response in its first week, both online and offline. Please sign it, if you have not already, and share it."

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Co-Founder of Southampton Independents Andrew Pope has been asking questions of the senior executives of the Trust Board at the Southampton General Hospital (SGH), also known as University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. Andrew's follow-up letter to the CEO David French and Chief Medical Officer Paul Grundy, is below:

Dear David and Paul,

Please answer urgently the questions that were sent to you before, and followed up on 2nd February. I have repeated them below.

I asked Joe Campbell, via Emily Hudson of the BBC, to ask about sprinklers and the response on the BBC South Today Monday before last seemed to be that patients might get wet, equipment might get wet and the building(s) are old. 

 

Where did those rather flippant and unhelpful answers come from please? PR people or from the Trust Board?

1. Were there sprinklers where the fire broke out? The BBC broadcast to say there were not. Please provide more information.

2. If there were sprinklers, did they contain the fire? No, see 1.

3. If there were sprinklers, why didn't they put the fire out? No, see 1 and 2.

4. Will the hospital review fire safety in this building and across the hospital estate, and install sprinklers? If so, where, by when?

5. If there were electrical, medical or other reasons why sprinklers were not appropriate for that location, please provide those.

I have asked to speak at the next Trust Board, but have not received any response. And the same at the Council of Governors."

 

On sending the follow-up letter, an auto-reply email suggested that Mr Grundy is on significant leave. To be clear, the CEO was also asked and no reply was received.

 

The letter also mentions Andrew Pope's credentials on the topic, and record in Southampton on campaigning on fire safety. 

 

Andrew Pope chaired the Southampton City Council Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee when he led an inquiry into hospital transport, the report of which mentioned a Park and Ride as well as other recommendations that Andrew followed up on. He also wrote his Masters degree thesis on "How Democratic Are NHS Foundation Trusts?" where he interviewed 60 people on their views on the topic. 

 

Andrew also led the campaign for sprinklers to be installed in all Southampton City Council tower blocks, months before the Grenfell Tower disaster in London and after the fatal Shirley Towers fire in 2010 and the near-miss Redbridge Towers fire in 2017, where thankfully nobody died. As documented elsewhere on this website, both Southampton Labour and Kensington and Chelsea Conservatives claimed that residents did not want sprinklers. Labour or Tory, same old story, residents said.

 

In 2018, six months after Grenfell, Andrew brought BBC Radio 5 Live's investigative journalist Adrian Goldberg to Southampton, showing Adrian major fire safety failures in Council tower blocks. These failings were described as "disgraceful" by fire safety expert Dr Stephen Battersby in the radio programme. A short video is here on the BBC website. 

 

As reported by the BBC in 2017, after the Grenfell disaster, "Sprinklers would have saved tower".

"A fire safety expert previously contracted to work on Grenfell Tower has said sprinklers would have stopped the fatal fire from spreading.

Paul Atkins said sprinklers give people a "99% chance of survival" and would have stopped flames taking hold."

Sprinklers are not mandatory in all hospitals and care homes in England. So as with his successful campaigns in and around Southampton, Andrew Pope has started a petition. You can sign it here.

 

 

Redbridge Towers Fire in 2017
Photo: Southampton Independents

Andrew Pope quoted in Daily Echo Redbridge Towers 2017
Photo: Southampton Independents

Front page Daily Echo after Redbridge Towers Fire 2017
Photo: Southampton Independents

 

 

Our Emblem

Andrew Pope when Southampton Independents Councillor for Redbridge
Photo: Southampton Independents

 

 

Sign Andrew Pope's Petition For Sprinklers at the SGH and Make Them Mandatory In All Hospitals and Care Homes in England

 

Southampton General Hospital
Photo: Southampton Independents

You can go straight to the petition at the link here.

You can find out more about the petition here. 

People died at Grenfell Tower because there were no sprinklers. Kensington Council didn't bother. Firefighters died at Shirley Towers in 2010. Sprinklers would have saved lives and property, because they are proven. Don't let it happen again. Please sign the petition. 

Or you can read more about Andrew Pope's leadership on fire safety over nearly ten years in Southampton on this website by using the site search facility and searching for 'fire safety', or clicking the links below:

• here 
•   here 
•     and here. 

And if you are in the Shirley ward, please Vote Andrew Pope Independent Network. 

 

Independent Network Emblem

Andrew Pope Letter Daily Echo on By-Election
Photo: Southampton Independents

 

HOSPITAL FIRE: BBC CONFIRMS NO SPRINKLERS IN MAJOR INCIDENT FIRE IN WEST WING

West Wing Southampton General Hospital
Photo: Southampton Independents

 

Redbridge Towers Fire in 2017 with no sprinklers

"Were there sprinklers at yesterday's major incident fire at Southampton General Hospital? I am asking the hospital Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officers this and other questions. I have also contacted the Fire Protection Association, who are experts on sprinklers."

says prominent fire safety campaigner Andrew Pope, who is standing as the Independent Network candidate in the 26th February 2026 Shirley by-election.

Sign Andrew Pope's petition here to demand that sprinklers are installed, and made mandatory for all hospitals and care homes.

Joe Campbell on BBC South Today 2nd February 2026 confirmed that sprinklers were NOT installed. It appears that the hospital's attempt at explaining why, is that the West Wing is "old" and that sprinklers might get expensive equipment wet and patients wet. We are asking more questions, and asking the Daily Echo and BBC to ask more for patients and local residents.

The ITV News report is here. 

What do you think of the hospital's "explanation" of no sprinklers? 

Andrew says:  

"I noticed in the BBC's original report that sprinklers were not mentioned. So I raised sprinklers with the BBC's Emily Hudson and true to her word, she raised this with the reporter Joe Campbell. I will be thanking Emily and Joe for getting an answer. More answers are needed now though, once the immediate chaos caused by the fire has receded."

Why have Southampton Independents campaigned for sprinklers, ever since the first year we started in 2017?

Because sprinklers save lives. Sprinklers save property. They are, in the words of Nick Ross CBE in the video by the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association (BAFSA), "phenomenally successful". 

If you have any doubts about sprinklers, please watch the BAFSA video above. 

Sprinkler Saves reports: "Southampton City Council demonstrated its commitment to fire safety by agreeing, in June 2017, to fund the retrofitting of residential sprinklers within its twenty high-rise buildings as part of a phased programme, in response to the Grenfell Tower fire."  

We began our campaign earlier in 2017 after the Redbridge Towers fire, the Labour-run Council's Cabinet Member for Housing Warwick Payne said that residents did not want sprinklers and that the Council did not have the money. We made them commit to doing it and find the money. 

Please see a selection of reports of the below incidents where our campaign has saved lives and property, and the City Council and taxpayers money, and protected firefighters from tackling a worse incident, in Southampton:

• 13th August 2025, Irving Road, Southampton: HFRS incident reports: "high-rise sprinkler system in Southampton played a key role in containing a kitchen fire, protecting residents, and enabling firefighters to bring the incident under control". 
• 23rd March 2025, Redbridge Towers, Southampton: HFRS incident reports: "It is further reassuring to know that had this fire occurred inside one of the flats and not the sterile communal area, that the building is fitted with firefighting sprinklers. These would have contained the fire prior to our arrival but also protected the residents and assisted in their escape."
• 20th April 2021, Millbrook Towers, Southampton:  HFRS incident reports: "The sprinklers in Millbrook Towers did exactly what these systems are designed to do. By confining the fire to one room, the potential for this being a much more significant incident was averted."

This is just some of the incidents in tower blocks. Southampton City Council issued this update in 2024, with all 20 tower blocks having sprinklers installed, saying: 

"Since the sprinklers have been installed we have had five flat fires in our high-rise blocks. All of these have been suppressed by the sprinkler systems before the fire service arrived." 

Southampton Independents has continued its pressure, checking up on the Council's work. 

On the day of the fire at the Hospital, Andrew Pope sent concerns of Shirley Towers residents over fire safety to the Labour Cabinet Member for Housing at the Council, Councillor Andy Frampton. He flatly refused to answer their concerns, in writing. Shirley Towers residents told us, when we told them this, that he deserves to lose his Council seat. According to the Council website, his seat is up for election in May 2026. If you would like to stand against him, please get in touch with us.

Our campaign worked. Contrast the above safety improvements after our campaign with the incidents at Redbridge Towers in 2017, Shirley Towers in 2010 and Albion Towers in 2017. Sprinklers were not installed then. Both Labour and Tory-run Councils failed to do it, until we started our campaign.

It is now time for the Hospital to do the same, and for Labour to be held to account for its failings on the Council.

 

Andrew Pope, Fire Safety Campaigner

 

HOSPITAL FIRE: "Were There Sprinklers at Yesterday's Major Incident Hospital Fire?" asks Andrew Pope Independent Network Shirley By-Election Candidate

 

Redbridge Towers Fire in 2017 with no sprinklers

"Were there sprinklers at yesterday's major incident fire at Southampton General Hospital? I am asking the hospital Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officers this and other questions."

says prominent fire safety campaigner Andrew Pope, who is standing as the Independent Network candidate in the 26th February 2026 Shirley by-election.

Joe Campbell on BBC South Today this evening confirmed that sprinklers were NOT installed. It appears that the hospital attempt at explaining why is that the West Wing is "old" and that sprinklers might get expensive equipment wet and patients wet.

Sign Andrew Pope's petition here to the CEO of the Hospital to demand that sprinklers are installed, and made mandatory by law for all hospitals and care homes. 

Andrew says: "I raised sprinklers with the BBC's Emily Hudson yesterday and true to her word, she raised this with the reporter Joe Campbell. I will be thanking Emily and Joe for getting an answer. More answers are needed now though, once the immediate chaos caused by the fire has receded." 

 

Andrew Pope, Fire Safety Campaigner

Andrew says: 

"This Major Incident reminds me of the terrifying near-miss fire in early 2017 at Redbridge Towers when I was an Independent councillor for the Redbridge ward. Nobody died. But firemen did at Shirley Towers. Sprinklers were not installed back then in either of the Towers.

I campaigned and won for sprinklers to be installed in all Council tower blocks.  

Just yesterday though, I heard allegations by Council tenants in Shirley Towers that fire safety may have been compromised. The Cabinet Member for Housing, Labour Councillor Andy Frampton refused to answer the concerns that residents raised with me over fire safety. 

I am asking the same questions now of the Hospital's Chief Executive and Trust Board that I asked the Labour-run Council in 2017.

Although there are differences, this seems to be a very similar scenario. I have offered the Hospital's senior management the right of reply.

I hope that the hospital management do not pretend like the Labour-run Council did, that residents or patients do not want sprinklers. They do. And they need them. 

And this fire would very likely have been prevented completely, or better contained, if sprinklers were installed and working.

Sprinklers save lives and property and in the vast majority of cases, they contain or extinguish fires.

There would have been no need for over one-hundred firefighters to attend, and hundreds of patients moved internally and outside Southampton, and no need for a huge emergency service response, if sprinklers were installed and working in the endoscopy unit. Perhaps they were installed and failed, so I am asking Hospital senior management." 

The questions that Andrew has put to David French, the outgoing Chief Executive, and the Trust Board and Governors are as follows:

1. Were there sprinklers where the fire broke out?
2. If there were sprinklers, did they contain the fire?
3. If there were sprinklers, why didn't they put the fire out? 
4. Will the hospital review fire safety in this building and across the hospital estate, and install sprinklers? If so, where, by when?
5. If there were electrical, medical or other reasons why sprinklers were not appropriate for that location, please provide those.

If you want Southampton residents and patients to be protected from fire, please vote for Andrew Pope Independent Network at the 26th February Shirley by-election.

 

Independent Network Emblem

Perhaps hospitals are a special case where sprinklers do not work? No, definitely not. The experts on sprinklers, BAFSA, the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association, said in 2024:

 "The impact on UK hospitals and healthcare premises from fire is significant with 636 fires in hospitals in the year to September 2019.

The government’s fire standards for the NHS briefly mention, but do not commit to, the installation of sprinklers. The guidance also repeatedly states that where sprinklers are used, other fire prevention measures may be reduced to prove cost-benefits and design flexibility. Despite this even some new builds have not included sprinklers and almost no mental health trusts have sprinkler systems.
All sprinkler systems will save lives and: 

Protect firefighters
Limit the size of a fire
Control fire spread
Provide additional time to evacuate
Limit fire damage
Be beneficial in terms of business continuity
Compensate for any impairments in passive fire
protection measures"

 

Images and photos from Andrew Pope's previous campaigning work on fire safety are below and on many other posts and pages on the Southampton Independents website. This is just a selection of his work.

 

Daily Echo Front Page after Redbridge Towers 2017 fire

Daily Echo quoting Andrew Pope and Redbridge Towers residents

Damage to Redbridge Towers in 2017 Fire

Andrew Pope appearing on ITV News in 2017

Demo truck at Albion Towers, Southampton

Sprinkler Demo at Albion Towers

Evidence from Andrew Pope Investigation into Fire Safety in Council Tower Blocks

Andrew Pope Investigation into Fire Safety

Andrew Pope Investigation into Fire Safety

Andrew Pope Investigation into Fire Safety

INVESTIGATION: Empty Park and Ride Buses "Not Good Enough" says Campaigner Andrew Pope

 

Southampton Public Park and Ride Bus at Adanac Park
Photo: Southampton Independents

Campaigner and Founder of Southampton Independents Andrew Pope went along to investigate the new Park and Ride for the public to use at the weekend, to see if it met his expectations, having campaigned for it for over a decade. 

His letter was published in the Southern Daily Echo on Monday 13th October 2025.

Bluestar buses, the Chief Executive of University Hospitals Southampton and Southampton City Council's Cabinet Member for Tranposrt, Councillor Christie Lambert, have been offered the opportunity to comment. At the time of writing, only Bluestar have responded.

 

Andrew Pope Park and Ride Letter in Southern Daily Echo
13th October 2025 

The full text of the letter is below. 

 

Former Councillor Andrew Pope Speaking to BBC South Today

 

Park and Ride Not Good Enough  

"As a long-term campaigner for a better Southampton for residents and visitors, I was very pleased that a campaign that I began in 2013 has been successful.

A Southampton Park and Ride is finally here, after years of road chaos and pollution caused by visitors and workers who do not live here.

Bluestar and the Hospital were always helpful in this campaign. Southampton City Council dithered and delayed for over a decade.

So I had to remind councillors at the recent Planning meeting about the delay. It seems to have worked, as weeks after my speech there, and after such a long delay, it finally happened.

And now it is here, but it is not good enough. Now it is here and it has to be made to work, and work all week, not just at weekends.

So when I checked up on the actual Park and Ride that is operating over the past few weeks, I was concerned to see the poor promotion of it. And almost empty or completely empty buses, which I confirmed with the drivers.

Yes, it will take time for people to start to use it, and it is early days, only a month in.

But the signage and information, marketing and promotion need to be improved dramatically, and quickly.

It all seemed to be reliant on online information, and obviously that is no good for someone who is driving.

Apart from a tiny sign on a lamppost, there was no information at Adanac Park about fares, parking costs, how to get a ticket, or who to get it from.

And there were no signs on the M271 telling passengers to go off at Junction 1. I noticed this, and so did the bus drivers, who said they had told bus management. 

So Park and Ride passengers would be confused and annoyed, and either end up at Romsey, back on the M27 or in Southampton - defeating the purpose of a Park and Ride completely!

I can hear the lame excuses from the Council already, saying that the M271 is Highways Agency or part of a road is Hampshire County Council. Frankly, I don't care about passing the buck, I heard that countless times when I was a councillor for eight years. 

It's the Council's job to co-ordinate in any partnership arrangement.

Fixing all of the above will improve passenger numbers, visitor satisfaction and drive Southampton towards a permanent and daily Park and Ride, something our City badly needs. I will carry on campaigning."

Southampton Independents Emblem

UPDATED (22/12/22) - OPINION: Why Is Privately-Educated Rishi Sunak's Conservative Government Causing Chaos Across The Nation?

 

Rishi Sunak
(Source: HM Treasury)

UPDATE (22/12/22): Today's Mirror and Telegraph front pages have quite different headlines. 

Mirror 22nd Dec 2022
(Source: BBC News)

Telegraph 22nd Dec 2022
(Source: BBC News)

Having repeatedly said it is nothing to do with them and done by the supposedly "Independent" pay board, the Government appears to be offering a deal, according to the Tory-friendly Telegraph. Whereas the Labour-friendly Mirror front page tells quite a different story. 

Both have their own editorial narrative, which could be construed as misinformation or even (deliberate) disinformation or "fake news", depending on your point-of-view and the level of sourcing they provide to evidence their headlines. Neither of them are headlined - OPINION, though!

---

by Andrew Pope, Master of Social Sciences (Global Politics and International Relations, Southampton University, 2010), small business owner, former postman, union representative and Labour and Independent Councillor and Parliamentary Candidate

 

Southampton Independents has investigated the claims of the Prime Minister and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak about his connections with Southampton, and with Southampton Football Club ("Saints"). 

We have published some of the results of those investigations. National media outlets have conducted investigations too and in a democracy worth anything, so they should be.

A Meteoric Rise of An Out-of-Touch Prime Minister in A Failed Government

Why have we done these investigations? Because it is relevant to Southampton, it is relevant to our democracy and because in Government, whether Chancellor or PM, Mr Sunak regularly mentions his family and his background in Southampton, including in attempted defences of his performance and of the Government. 

In a democracy, Member of Parliament (MPs), Ministers and Governments must be held to account. They are public figures that deserve some privacy. But where the line is drawn is an open question and the actions of the public figures themselves can drag the private into the public realm.

Mr Sunak tries to make out that he is in touch with the common man and the common woman, and has regularly used examples from Southampton. He is clearly not in touch, based on his actions and inaction, and it is more of the image-cleansing that we have already commented on. His rise has been described as meteoric. How and why that was requires examination, especially in the light of the image-cleansing that has accompanied his rise.

The revelations about Mr Sunak's wife's wealth and tax status prompted Mr Sunak to complain that his family was being unfairly targeted. Perhaps he had a point, if he himself did not drag matters out of the dark and into the light.

Yet Mr Sunak himself was quoted in the Daily Echo using his parents as a defence when under attack by the Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. Sunak said:

"Whenever he attacks me about where I went to school, he attacks the hard-working aspirations of millions of people in this country. He's attacking people like my parents."

 

Daily Echo, 1st Dec 2022

So Mr Sunak himself has politicised his own family. The personal has become the political by his own hand.

When a politician exercises rank hypocrisy like this, they are rightly open to criticism and to being derided, whether by public figures or the public at large.

And it has very real consequences for the citizens of our country.

Demagoguery and Damage

Saints legend Matt Le Tissier has derided Mr Sunak's claims that "Le Tiss" was his favourite player. Le Tissier said that he didn't care about it when interviewed (apparently) in Southampton on GB News by Nigel Farage. The Leader of the Conservative Group on Southampton City Council, Councillor Daniel Fitzhenry, appeared on the same programme. Cllr Fitzhenry got a hard time from Farage. 

Despite his own ill-advised public comments, the Saints legend Le Tissier received an ingratiating love-in from arch-demagogue Farage. You can draw your own conclusions as to why a populist like Farage would do this. And you can probably work out why the damage to Cllr Fitzhenry and "Local Conservatives" was engineered by Farage, even if it might be deserved.

Whomever in the local Conservative association thought that Fitzhenry's appearance was wise, might reconsider that decision. Perhaps it was Fitzhenry himself, having recently become Leader of the Conservatives again after being ousted by Marley Guthrie.

Out Of Touch With Working People

Mr Sunak attended private education. And he was filmed in the Southampton home of his parents saying that he had "no working class" friends. It does not take a genius to work out why, when he only attended private education, ending up at Winchester College after private schools, as reported by the Daily Echo. Michael (Lord) Ashcroft's book describes this.

An out-of-touch education leads to out-of-touch decisions. This has been the case throughout successive Labour or Conservative governments, going back decades in the case of the former and centuries for the latter.

Why is Mr Sunak's education and his lack of contact with the majority of the population of our country relevant? Because he makes decisions that are out-of-touch. I contend that it has been educated into him. And he has had a privileged upbringing and education that was ironically funded, at least in part, by the taxpayer via the NHS as both parents received NHS payments as GP and Pharmacist.

And the litany of industrial disputes facing our country show how out-of-touch he is with working people.

The chaos caused by the Conservatives is so bad that "advent calendars" of strikes have been produced for the entire month of December.

 

Royal Mail Strikes

Should the public sector workers, whether posties, nurses, railway staff or paramedics be blamed for wanting a fair pay settlement under sustained high inflation? 

No, when it is Rishi Sunak's actions and inaction that have caused the chaos in public services and the rampant inflation and cost-of-living crisis that workers face.

Mr Sunak is responsible, whether as Chancellor, as a member of the Government and now as Prime Minister.

And still Mr Sunak and his Government refuse to intervene, despite being the chief causes of the economic crash and resultant disputes over pay and conditions.

Why? How?

It is elected representatives that have to be held to account. That is what should happen. Indeed, if the United Kingdom is a democracy worth anything, that is what must happen.

Labour or Tory, Same Old Story

Like they did in the 1970s under Edward Heath, the Conservative Government will probably lose out due to these disputes. And they will lose the next General Election.

It is probably only a question of how much they will lose, not whether they will lose.

And that is what their failure deserves.

Whether a Labour Government will be any better...well, perhaps we should look at the 1970s again and the disastrous mismanagement of the economy by the last Labour Government under Gordon Brown. That is what led to the Tories gaining power.

And in the not-too-distant-future, a crackdown on workers' rights will result, whether under a Labour or Tory Government, making working people even worse off than they are already.

Labour or Tory, same old story...

UPDATED (9/12/22): Finance De-Regulation After Sunak Becomes PM - LOSER SUNAK BECOMES THE "WINNER" - Rishi Sunak's Image Cleansing Isn't Washing

Rishi Sunak
Former Chancellor
(Photo: HM Treasury)

UPDATE (9/12/22)

ITV News is reporting financial regulation is to be cut in a "major banking shake-up". They write:

"Jeremy Hunt is set to launch a major reform of the UK’s financial sector, with plans to rip up red tape and replace reams of EU regulations...

While promising to protect consumers, the government is also set to announce changes to ring-fencing rules, which currently require large banks to separate retail and investment arms."

Two years ago, The Guardian was writing that we do not need to worry, because of Rishi Sunak's background in finance. They wrote that :

"(Rishi Sunak) has a history of staying up all night worrying about his charges’ financial wellbeing."

Now, after such a background, Sunak is Prime Minister and is relaxing the regulation of finance and banking. As ITV reports, critics say about this relaxation that:

"the reform risks forgetting the lessons of the financial crisis"

(The financial crisis that occurred under the last Labour Government of Gordon Brown). Are you reassured? 

Or is it Labour or Tory, and the same old story?

UPDATE (24/10/22)

The BBC's Political Editor Chris Mason says today:

"September's loser appears on the verge of becoming October's prime minister.

With the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson out, the firm favourite to be the new prime minister is Rishi Sunak."

ITV's Political Editor Robert Peston reports on Boris Johnson "dropping out" of the race to be Prime Minister, but also comments that Johnson had no evidence of 100 MPs supporting him.

Co-founder of Southampton Independents and former Independent Councillor, Andrew Pope says:

 

Andrew Pope

 

"I predicted that Sunak would become Prime Minister last week. It was clear to me that the Conservative Party had already decided that this would happen. I listened carefully to what Conservative MPs in the 1922 Committee said and what they did. 

And I saw what they did not do, which is to find someone good enough to be Prime Minster and lead our country out of the serial disasters created by the Conservatives themselves.

Rishi Sunak lost to Liz Truss, who was the best the Tories could do.

So what we have now is someone who could not beat the disastrous Liz Truss.

Nothing has changed about his suitability to be Prime Minister since he lost to her, apart from Truss bringing our country to its knees and costing people their mortgages and their standards of living, when they are already suffering a crisis with bills.

And nothing has changed with the attempted image cleansing of Sunak and his cronies - what we have published below is the tip of the iceberg. Mr Sunak wondered why his private education meant he knew nobody who was working class. It doesn't take a genius to work that out, but he could not.

What a disastrous situation our country faces. I very much hope that the local media in Southampton and national media too now begin to look properly into Rishi Sunak's background, because it is in the national interest that they do.

We must have a General Election now. The winner needs to be our country, not more Tory failure bringing our country into disrepute."

---

UPDATE (9/8/22)

Amongst Conservative MPs, Rishi Sunak was the leading candidate to become Leader of the Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister, following his resignation from being Chancellor and from Boris Johnson's Government. 

But survey after survey has shown that Sunak's popularity amongst Conservative Party supporters does not match the enthusiasm of Tory MPs. The latest one here reported by The Independent, showed that Tory supporters prefer Truss. 

"Liz Truss extends polling lead over Rishi Sunak in race for prime minister."

Also differing from the Tory MPs views are Tory Party members. Southampton Independents understands - from the contacts it has with Conservatives (admittedly not very friendly, but we do have channels) - that Conservative Party members prefer Truss to Sunak. 

Sunak is seen by Conservative Party members as the one that "knifed" Boris Johnson - despite the fact that Sajid Javid resigned from Johnson's Cabinet on the same day as Sunak. Javid's bid for PM faltered early on.

Perhaps also a factor is the image washing that Sunak has been engaging in - before his meteoric rise - and even before he became a Parliamentary candidate, the PR pretence over Sunak began. Read on for our original article. 

We have more information, but we are not publishing it yet. 

Why? Because we expect the Daily Echo, local BBC, the Local Democracy Reporter and national news organisations to be big enough and brave enough to investigate Sunak and to report the full truth about Rishi Sunak. Maybe they will, maybe they won't - until it's too late?

More important than the views of a tiny minority - the Tory Party, its MPs and its members - are the views of the people of the United Kingdom, and YouGov polling shows that the public do not trust Truss or Sunak!

The public view Sunak as more out-of-touch than Truss, which given Truss' loose connection with the truth and reality, is remarkable. This is despite Sunak's image cleansing campaign.

It is now less than a month before we know which of these two people become Prime Minister. It's yet another change of Prime Minister mid-term.

More and more, with every false promise and attempt to launder both Sunak's and Truss' images, it is becoming a Hobson's Choice between proven failure and potential disaster.

We will leave you to work out which is which.

---

Rishi Sunak is making much of his Southampton background. Sunak was selected for a far-away Parliamentary candidacy in October 2014, according to ConservativeHome. Earlier that year, key business details relating to his parents' Sunak Pharmacy business, changed. Those business details were changed even before he was selected as a candidate.

Were these decisions related? We leave it for readers to decide for themselves on whether it was pure coincidence, or a matter of sequence, or neither.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are involved in the Conservative Leadership contest due to the resignation of Boris Johnson, in whose Cabinet both of them served.

One of them will become Prime Minister in September 2022.

During the BBC's lamentable "Our Next Prime Minister" programme on 25th July 2022, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and MP for Richmond (Yorkshire) Rishi Sunak mentioned Southampton several times.

Live on air, Mr Sunak mentioned the Sunak Pharmacy in Southampton, which his mother was involved in. He claimed to have worked in the pharmacy and even have done the accounts.

So we looked into the relationship between Mr Sunak, his family and the pharmacy.

It is in clear public interest that Mr Sunak's background is examined. And for Southampton Independents, it is even more so, now that he has mentioned Southampton and made much of his connections with our City. 

Mr Sunak's father was a GP ("doctor"). Mr Sunak's mother was a pharmacist ("chemist"). This has been documented widely, including by investigations and reports by Channel 4, by The Mirror and in a book by Michael Ashcroft, the well-known Tory. There is much controversy over Sunak's background.

Sunak's Pharmacy was located at the top of Hill Lane in Southampton.

But if you go there now, you will see that it is not called Sunak's Pharmacy any more.

It is now called Bassett Pharmacy, as shown on the NHS website.

The mighty Highfield Residents Association noticed a name change in April 2020, saying on its website:

"The Bassett Pharmacy at the top of Hill Lane was formerly the Sunak pharmacy.
It was run by the mother of our Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak. His father was also a local GP. Rishi is a Saints supporter and his favourite player is Matthew Le Tissier."

It is an interesting message. Note their use of "our" instead of "the Chancellor", which might be significant. 

So when did the name of the pharmacy change? Many years before the HRA noticed.

And what was the connection with Rishi Sunak's family?

Public records at Companies House show that aspects of the business were changed in 2014:

• the name of the business
• its registered business address
• who its people were, plus 
• other details of the business

These changes preceded, by a year, Rishi Sunak becoming a Member of Parliament ("MP").

Rishi Sunak was first elected to Parliament in 2015. This was not in Southampton but almost 300 miles away in the Richmond (Yorkshire) constituency. It was former Conservative Leader William Hague's Constituency. Sunak was selected for the candidacy in October 2014, according to ConservativeHome.

Hague was unsuccessful at leading the Tories to a General Election victory in 2001.

Perhaps the same fate awaits Rishi Sunak, if he beats Liz Truss in the Conservative Party members' vote and becomes Leader of the Conservatives?

Time will tell.

In the meantime, it is worth considering that ConservativeHome described Sunak as follows:

"A businessman who co-founded a large multinational investment firm and now invests in small and fast growing British businesses, Sunak is also a Governor of the East London Science School and runs Policy Exchange’s BME Research Unit. He went to Oxford and did an MBA at Stanford University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He recently came second in the Hertsmere selection."

No mention is made of Southampton in this brief biography.

Earlier in 2014, Sunak lost the Hertsmere selection to Oliver Dowden. Dowden is now the former Conservative Party Chairman, after he recently resigned from that role following the Conservatives' disastrous by-election results in June 2022. Those results contributed to the votes of no confidence in Boris Johnson, Sunak's resignation, the apparent Cabinet mutiny, and Johnson's resignation speech in Downing Street.

Sunak attended Oakmount School, then Stroud School and Winchester College. All of these require private payment, as documented by OpenDemocracy.

The NHS pharmacy and Rishi's father's role as a GP - itself a highly-paid NHS role - must have contributed in some way to their son's attendance fees. Sunak also has two siblings. Both of them are mentioned in records at Companies House.

It could be argued that Rishi Sunak himself is a public-private partnership (PPP), with public money from the NHS funding his private education, via an NHS GP and NHS pharmacist.

While he remains a public figure and is aiming to be Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak's background must be examined in more detail, as must be Liz Truss. But Liz Truss has not claimed any connections to Southampton that we are aware of.

Southampton Independents may be providing further information in the public interest.

3 YEARS ON Are People Safe at NHS Southern Health?

3 years ago, we heard of the Mazars Report into the unexplained deaths at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, which is supposed to care for people in the South of England.

We were astonished at what we discovered. So we did some work to contact those affected and to find out more.

As a service to the public, to patients of the Trust and their families, we updated this website with our work to expose the failures in care, and what we found out.

The more that we worked to expose the Trust's failures, the more concerned we became at how people had been put at risk by the failings of the Trust -  and we held those responsible to account - the Trust Board, its executive and non-executives directors and the then Chief Executive, Katrina Percy.

We pushed for the BBC and ITV, and the local Daily Echo, to report on the failings.

The then Chair of the Trust Mike Petter, and the Trust Board tried to stop the media from attending meetings. He also refused the recording of meetings. We continued to push and now the meetings are recorded.

After we had forced them to allow the media in to their meetings, Mr Petter told us when we challenged him in public, despite the unexplained deaths and the Mazars Report that: "There would be no resignations".

The media then reported on the failings. And resignations followed.

Only one of the then governors, John Green, had the guts to ask the questions that mattered to the Trust Board. That is, to do what governors are supposed to do and hold the Trust Board to account. And he resigned.

The public were told by Katrina Percy via the media that "lessons would be learned".

But then we heard of more unexplained deaths.

We were sceptical as to whether lessons had really been learned. Also sceptical were the families of those who were let down by Southern Health.

Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope

Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope asked the Labour and Conservative councillors on the Southampton City Council Health Scrutiny Panel (there were no independent councillors on the Panel) to hold a vote-of-no-confidence in the Trust Board and Governors. The Panel is supposed to hold the local NHS to account.

Andrew says:

"All Labour and Tory councillors refused to hold a vote-of-no-confidence, with the Chair of the Panel Labour Councillor Sarah Bogle, leading the refusal.

I had urged them to do this. Denise Wyatt attended the Panel with me. But all councillors on the Panel refused the vote-of-no-confidence.

Why did they refuse when the Board and Governors had presided over such dreadful failures?"

Then we heard of the prosecutions of Southern Health. And fines for deaths and the suffering of families, that could have been avoided.


With the Chief Executive gone, with the Chair gone too, and then more directors resigning, we questioned whether the Trust really had changed.

Denise Wyatt

So in July this year, the Leader of Southampton Independents, Denise Wyatt, stood and was elected as a governor of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, representing the Southampton area on the Trust's Council of Governors.

Denise has been asking questions internally at the Trust and is now even more alarmed at the answers, as well as the lack of answers to important questions.

Denise says:

"As a Governor representing Southampton residents, I will continue to ask the questions that Southampton people and NHS patients want answers to, and to try to hold the Trust Board and Chair to account. I am pleased that some other governors also appear to want to do this, but I am disappointed that others seem to want to ignore their responsibility."

Andrew Pope Southampton Independents Works For You

Andrew Pope

Our Official Party Emblem

Our Southampton Independents Parlimentary Candidate for Southampton Test, Andrew Pope  has:

1. exposed Labour and Tory cuts & failures
2. fought NHS & care closures
3. exposed Labour and Tory councillors wasting MILLIONS on the "Arts Complex" when YOUR basic Council services are cut
4. spoke up for you on crime & safety
5. stood up for you against developers, reducing bad impacts on your area
6. won compensation from power cuts
7. worked with you to stop plans to build on Southampton parks and to protect sport
8. fought Labour and Tory plans for joining Southampton with Portsmouth in a disastrous "Solent Devolution Deal"

plus a lot more. Like our Facebook page "Southampton Independents" and explore this website using the tags and the search facility for more information about Andrew Pope and Southampton Independents.

Pensioner Sylvia Priestley from Redbridge says:

"I wish you all the very best Andrew for Thursday, thank you for your concern and hard work you do for the constituency which is very much appreciated."

Sue Painter from Millbrook says:

"I don't care who doesn't like it I'm voting for Andrew Pope Southampton Independents party. 

If you want things done then vote for him."

Southampton residents Mr and Mrs Taylor say:

"Andrew listens to YOU. Andrew works for YOU. Andrew stands up for YOU. Vote for Andrew Pope Southampton Independents for Southampton Test in the 2017 General Election."

Disabled resident Julie Jones from Redbridge says:

"Nothing false about Andrew Pope. He does what he says he's going to do! He's definitely got my vote."

Vote for Andrew Pope Southampton Independents to see what he can do for you, your family and your area!