For many NHS patients, being referred for private treatment can sound quite appealing; you'll often be seen and treated quickly, with a more luxurious menu option to peruse in the comfort of your private room. But when it comes to the medical treatment, are patients getting the same level of care? Are private patients just as safe as those in the NHS? And when things do go wrong, how willing is the private sector to admit to mistakes? In this programme we hear from families whose loved ones died...
Oct 11, 2018•37 min
In the aftermath of the Winterbourne View scandal the government pledged to transfer people with learning disabilities and autism out of unsuitable hospital placements and into supported community living settings. A key milestone was to cut inpatient beds by March 2019 and to transform the lives of people who have been previously been ‘stuck’ in institutional settings. But File on 4 has been told that the target will be missed and that it’s unachievable. Without the necessary expansion of capabi...
Oct 02, 2018•37 min
In August, Jessica Hurst wrote to the media asking them to investigate how her dad’s debts of just under £12,000 became a bill of just under £73,000. Nigel Hurst killed himself a year ago after learning that bailiffs were to repossess his family home. It was the bailiff who found him. Student, Jessica, was left with a pile of debt recovery letters and bank statements which she hoped would hold the clue to his financial troubles. File on 4 reporter Helen Grady takes up Jessica’s challenge. Her fi...
Sep 25, 2018•37 min
Last year, File on 4 investigated whether some athletes and coaches game the paralympic classification system in order to win medals. We heard allegations that some competitors had gone to astonishing lengths such as taping up their arms to make their disability appear worse. A parliamentary select committee hearing followed into the way British paralympic athletes are classified and questions were raised over whether the system was fit for purpose. In this programme, we examine further claims o...
Sep 18, 2018•37 min
More antidepressants than ever before are being prescribed to young people in Britain, despite fears that they can cause harm in some cases. What are the driving factors behind the increase? Is there any merit to claims the drugs are ineffective - and, in some cases, have serious side effects in children? And is the NHS providing the proper support to young people affected by mental illness who are turning to medication to cope? This, however, is not the first time a surge in the rate of antidep...
Jul 24, 2018•38 min
File on 4 goes inside Altcourse Prison in Liverpool to meet the staff trying to stem the supply of drugs into the jail. Perimeter security has been tightened, searches have been stepped up and new technology is being trialled as officers deal with the influx of new psychoactive substances, such as spice, and more 'traditional' banned drugs, including cannabis and heroin. More widely, across England and Wales, the availability of drugs in prisons is posing huge challenges to their stability, as w...
Jul 17, 2018•37 min
In January, Britain's second biggest construction firm, Carillion, spectacularly collapsed under a £1.5 billion debt pile. Thousands of jobs were lost, pensions were put at risk, and around 30 thousand smaller subcontractors, who'd already completed work on projects, were left being owed a total of £2 billion. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called it a 'watershed' moment, and a report by MPs slammed the government contractor's 'rotten corporate culture', claiming those at the top treated suppliers ...
Jul 16, 2018•37 min
As the NHS reaches its 70th anniversary, Adrian Goldberg investigates why the very mention of the word "private" - or, even more, privatisation - in UK health care provokes fierce opposition. No party dare publicly claim anything less than unswerving support for the NHS and its supporting mantra that health care should be "free at the point of delivery." Yet millions of people are treated by a private dentist. Millions more think nothing of having to pay for eye tests and the spectacles prescrib...
Jul 03, 2018•37 min
If fake news is poisoning public debate, then what is it doing to the financial markets? Short-sellers - investors who bet on a company's shares falling, not rising- have a mixed reputation. For some they play a vital role, exposing weak companies - and can make big profits as a result. But others accuse them of using fake information to deliberately damage otherwise healthy businesses. File on 4 looks into the hidden world of the short sellers, the researchers who give them the information to m...
Jun 26, 2018•37 min
For years, the so-called Islamic State has managed to attract thousands of wannabe jihadis and jihadi brides to join their caliphate. The extremist propaganda, online videos and recruiters have seen thousands of people from all over the world flock to Iraq and Syria to join IS; including 850 men, women and children from the UK. The brutality of the terror group is now well known, partly due to their own publicity online. Videos and stories of beheadings, floggings and sex slaves have been releas...
Jun 19, 2018•37 min
File on 4 investigates mounting concern about forensic science in England and Wales - hearing the cases of two men who almost went to prison for rape because the police failed to properly investigate crucial evidence on mobile phones. Forensic science is increasingly important both in finding criminals and successfully prosecuting them. It's used for everything from investigating fires like Grenfell to huge terrorist cases. And it covers checking phone records, CCTV, DNA and fingerprinting. It's...
Jun 12, 2018•37 min
Selling passports. It may sound illicit but 'citizenship-by-investment' is a global industry worth billions - and it's completely legal. The idea is simple - invest huge sums of money and in return acquire residency rights or citizenship, even visa-free access to all European member states. The UK offers residency in exchange for an investment of £2 million - or for £10 million, the possibility of British citizenship within two years. And across the world, countries are vying to attract the supe...
Jun 05, 2018•37 min
Knife crime in England and Wales rose by a fifth last year, with stabbings in London at their highest level for a decade. So far this year, there have been more than 30 fatal stabbings in the capital - with knife injuries amongst young people also on the rise. What lies behind the rise in violence is complex with cuts in police numbers, use of stop and search, rise in mental health issues and a lack of youth services being cited as contributing factors. But Britain's most senior police officer, ...
May 29, 2018•37 min
During much of the 20th century unmarried women who became pregnant faced being condemned, stigmatised and shunned by their communities. Across the Republic and Northern Ireland thousands of women and girls were sent to mother and baby homes to give birth in secret and then gave their babies over for adoption. For some women, the homes which were mostly run by the Catholic Church, provided sanctuary and a chance for them to rebuild their lives. But others have claimed they were subjected to huma...
May 23, 2018•37 min
Simon Cox investigates the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim organisation Knights Templar International - not to be confused with the medieval Knights Templar organisation. In a recent interview its front man Jim Dowson described KTI as a "militant Christian organisation". KTI posts regular ads on social media to recruit new members and seek donations to fight what Dowson calls the "war between militant Islam and Christianity". In a recent interview he warned "we are going towards a war in the West....
May 04, 2018•37 min
Simon Cox investigates a series of failures in a mental health trust. Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust was formed last year from two former trusts. It provides mental health and community services to patients. Some of whom say there are serious problems at the trust. Some say they don't feel safe on wards, there have been a series of suicides and now there are serious new allegations emerging. The trust says safety is its top priority and its making progress and improving. But t...
Mar 20, 2018•37 min
The collapse of the construction giant Carillion has focused attention on the contracts it had with the Government, one of which involved cleaning, landscaping and maintenance at 50 prisons in the south of England. The prison contract came into effect in 2015, but within months major problems started to emerge, as prisoners, staff and inspectors reported long delays in getting cells, windows and toilets repaired. The Ministry of Justice acknowledged that Carillion was under-performing and ordere...
Mar 13, 2018•37 min
As controversy rages around whether the Bitcoin bubble is about to burst, File on 4 investigates the mystery of the missing Bitcoin billions. In 2014 one of the world's biggest Bitcoin exchanges - Mt Gox - suddenly stopped trading and filed for bankruptcy. It then announced that thousands of Bitcoins with a value of almost half a billion pounds had gone missing, leaving customers out of pocket and wondering what had gone on. For a while that remained a mystery, but recently US investigators have...
Mar 07, 2018•37 min
The Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have been accused of failing to disclose important information in several recent high profile sexual assault cases. But Allan Urry asks if the current disquiet about disclosure should also extend to the Magistrates' Courts where almost all criminal cases start off. Some defence lawyers say evidence that could be helpful to their clients' cases is being with-held and are they're concerned that justice isn't always being served. Reporter: Allan Urry Pro...
Feb 27, 2018•38 min
Can the NHS afford to run and replace its ageing hospitals? Many hospitals are crumbling and have huge backlogs of required maintenance work. It affects patients - sometimes life-saving operations are being cancelled due to lack of capacity - or practical problems such as leaks or faulty air conditioning. Money from capital budgets has been used to plug gaps in day to day spending - meaning an ever growing black hole of building work is backing up. So where to get the money? The Government is ad...
Feb 20, 2018•37 min
The homeless being denied end of life care. File on 4 hears the stories of the terminally ill left to die in hostels and on the street. An estimated 4751 people will sleep rough tonight in England. Many are seriously, even terminally ill. If you're living on the streets, who will care for you when the end comes? File on 4 hears from homeless people living with life threatening illness, who can't find a regular bed for the night, let alone a place where their medical needs can be met. A bed in a ...
Feb 13, 2018•37 min
UK companies are being used to launder dirty money as new transparency rules are flouted. One, registered in a Hertfordshire commuter town, helped the circle of Ukraine's disgraced ex-president profit from last year's Eurovision Song Contest, a File on 4 investigation has found. Billions of pounds of dirty money is alleged to have passed through opaque UK companies in recent years, over 100 of them registered at the same Potters Bar address. Tim Whewell follows the trail of one company linked to...
Feb 06, 2018•38 min
There were a record 3,744 drug related deaths in England and Wales last year. While many were linked to street drugs such as heroin, a growing number also involve prescription medicines such as benzodiazepines and Fentanyl. Fentanyl addiction has swept across North America where the drug and other synthetic opioids have been blamed for thousands of deaths. It hit the headlines here when it was linked to a spike in fatalities in certain parts of the UK after being mixed with heroin. Allan Urry tr...
Jan 30, 2018•37 min
There are more than half a million people living in sheltered housing, accommodation that offers additional support to the elderly, disabled or vulnerable. But currently, in England, these schemes aren't overseen by the independent regulator of health and social care the Care Quality Commission and councils aren't required to record cases of abuse and neglect in sheltered housing. It is leading to growing concerns that many vulnerable residents are hidden away and left to suffer without the auth...
Jan 23, 2018•37 min
File on 4 exposes a multi-million pound global trade in fake diplomas. A complex network of online universities sells degrees, doctorates and professional qualifications - for a price. Some of the buyers have gone on to trade on these credentials, including them on their CVs and gaining jobs in public life. Others, after making an initial purchase, were blackmailed by the sellers, who threatened to expose them unless they paid out huge additional sums of money. Despite criminal investigations in...
Jan 19, 2018•37 min
The head of counter terrorism Assistant Commander Mark Rowley has warned the extreme right wing pose a growing threat in the UK. He told the Home Affairs select committee last month that right wing issues had increased in the last two years which was a real concern, although Islamic extremism remained the main threat. Last month, two men alleged to be members of National Action - a banned extreme far right group - were charged in connection with an alleged plot to kill an MP. Adrian Goldberg inv...
Nov 14, 2017•37 min
What does the leak of files from offshore law firm Appleby reveal about how money is transferred out of the developing world and into the pockets of the rich? Using leaked documents obtained by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and working with the Consortium of Investigative Journalists, File on 4 delves into the records to find out how the rich use secretive tax regimes and corporate structures to divert money via the offshore jurisdiction of Mauritius. Producer: Anna Meisel Reporter: Davi...
Nov 07, 2017•38 min
There a risk we won't get new nuclear hooked up to the grid in time to back up renewable energy like wind power. There's an aim to generate 16GWe of new nuclear power by 2030. But experts doubt that's a realistic prospect, with Hinkley Point C years late, and questions over whether investors will risk capital on a proposed plant in Cumbria. And as plans for the future of nuclear power evolve, the legacy of the past also needs to be dealt with. The government's served notice on a £6billion contra...
Oct 31, 2017•37 min
Drug dealers from big cities are exploiting thousands of teenagers to traffic Class A drugs to smaller rural towns in what's known as County Lines. Children - some as young as 9 -are being used as runners to move drugs and cash from cities like London and Manchester hundreds of miles away to other areas of the UK. It's a massive problem which until recently was being ignored. File on 4 hears from some of the exploited young people who spent their teens travelling around the UK for months at a ti...
Oct 24, 2017•37 min
Fifteen years ago, promising young footballer Kevin Nunes was shot dead on a country lane in Staffordshire. Five men were convicted of his killing, and jailed for life. But just four years later, their convictions were quashed, following concerns about the way police handled a key prosecution witness. The Court of Appeal Judge said it appeared to be "a serious perversion of the course of justice," and an investigation was launched into misconduct claims against four of the UK's most senior offic...
Oct 17, 2017•37 min
