Quorate Public Affairs

Quorate Public Affairs logo

The services of Quorate Public Affairs, as described on Jacquie Forde's LinkedIn page. The term 'lobbying' has since been removed from the page. Screenshot taken on 15 February 2014.

Quorate Public Affairs is a small lobbying firm based in Glasgow. It says it is:

the only health professional public affairs agency in Scotland providing clients with specialist public affairs, PR, monitoring, Project management and Training Solutions.

It notes a particular specialism in pharma lobbying – notably ‘market access’:

Our team members have particular expertise in Market Access, Pharma, Medical Devices, NHS and Health Economics. We are based within Scotland but we work for our clients across the UK. Due to the nature of our base we have particular experience in the Scottish Healthcare market this includes Market Access involving Scottish Medicines Consortium, Health Boards, Scottish Government and Parliament .

Jacquie Forde is a director of both Quorate Public Affairs and The Wellbeing Alliance. Forde is also listed as secretary and treasurer of the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on Health Inequalities and secretary of the Cross-Party Group on Chronic Pain.

Call for probe into health forum link to Big Pharma

On 2nd March 2014 the Sunday Herald reported that Holyrood's Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee had been asked to probe two Cross-Party Groups (Cross-Party Group on Health Inequalities & Cross-Party Group on Chronic Pain) administered by Jacquie Forde of the Wellbeing Alliance because of her links to the pharmaceutical industry. Forde's other firm, Quorate Public Affairs, has the same Glasgow address and was created in the same month as the Wellbeing Alliance. The Sunday Herald reports:

Forde is listed as secretary and treasurer of the CPG on health inequalities and secretary of the chronic pain group.

She is also the sole shareholder of the Wellbeing Alliance, a not-for-profit social enterprise set up in October 2012 which lists its address as Newton Terrace in Glasgow.

Its website describes it as a team, of "public health trained social entrepreneurs who want to make a difference".

Forde's other firm, Quorate Public Affairs, has the same Glasgow address and was created in the same month as the Alliance.

Until recently, Forde's social media profile said of Quorate: "We provide high quality public relations and political lobbying services and our team have decades of experience working in and around the disciplines of Pharma, NHS, Media, Politics and Charities."

Clients

Quorate Public Affairs does not disclose a list of clients. In 2012 Jacquie Forde (Chief Executive of the Wellbeing Alliance and Director of Quorate Public Affairs) listed her clients on the WoW website where she advertises her services as a 'Business coach'. These included 'Johnson and Johnson, Almirall, Reckitt Beckinser, HRA, Lundbeck, Bank of Scotland, The Alliance amongst smaller business owners and individuals'.

In response to an article in The Herald Jacquie Forde stated that Quorate has one pharma client that is currently "non active". It is therefore unclear which of the pharmaceutical clients (Johnson and Johnson, Almirall, Reckitt Beckinser, and Lundbeck) are for Quorate Public Affairs or for Forde's other firm, the Wellbeing Alliance.

People

Malcolm Clubb – ‘Senior Policy and Communications Director’

Directors

Jacquie Forde | Jeremy Forde (appointed 25/03/2013) | Megan Forde (DoB 28.07.1993 - appointed 25/03/2013)

Contact

Web: quorate-publicaffairs.com (Website under construction as of February 2014.)

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/quorate-public-affairs

Facebook: facebook.com/QuoratePublicAffairs