NHS trusts gambling on the horses next?
Since when have NHS Trusts been allowed to gamble? AIM-quoted shares are an extremely risky asset and the Trust accounts should have been heavily qualified by the directors and auditors as not a suitable investment for such an institution. If they accepted the shares at all they should have been immediately sold for cash and not held.
There should be an official enquiry into how these shares ever appeared on these balance sheets as an asset. Have the Finance Directors who allowed the shares to be included in the annual report been disciplined?
Venture capitalists tell us they assume 9-in-10 of their backed companies will fail but 1-in-10 will make more than 10x gains. That is fine if your business is being a venture capitalist. It is not fine if your business is running a health service and, what's more, you are only holding shares in a single high-risk company!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
