Tag Archives: NHS

BARTON HOUSE: A BUILDING PROFESSIONAL WRITES

An NHS property professional writes:

What a concerning (but unsurprising) mess this Barton House disaster is:

1. When building professionals assess a commercial building’s condition we – in my work life experience – work on an expected ‘life’ of 60 years.

2. Commercial organisations and public bodies with corporate manslaughter / public safety accountability have a duty of care. They therefore would want to evidence they had carried out regular (no more than 5 years apart in my experience) condition surveys to assess cyclical maintenance need / cost rate and ‘life remaining’ of the structure and fabric.

3. When end of life was approaching, they would want to commence contingency plans to replace the building OR (preferably) assess what is needed to retain it in a safe condition for x more years, allowing for planned major spend as necessary. It’s called good building management, professional responsibility and life cycle estate planning! Oh! And duty of care!

4. In the NHS, in my experience working for multiple NHS Trusts, we (every NHS organisation) were mandated to have a Major Incident Plan (MIP) for everything we could conceivably expect to go wrong (yup, including a pandemic) and have a ‘plan’ in place. This would be documented, regularly updated and occasionally acted out along with major responders. A real example being a suspected bomb being unearthed in work around the Haymarket leading to the wholescale evacuation of the BRI. I wonder what the BCC MIP was for a Grenfell etc type disaster?

4). The above said, 3 questions:

A. If a similarly constructie (I believe, I’m still investigating) building started to collapse (Ronan Point) in 1968, 10 yrs after Barton House was constructed, I’d assume VERY regular surveys would be carried out to asses and determine any movement or other concerns. If something went wrong, you would want to assure the public, the courts etc that you were on top of the issues and ‘managing’ one’s estate to assure of being in control, of professional estate management competence.

B. On a 60 year expected life this building was past its expected life in 2018. So what’s happened since? What was documented as BCC’s ‘plan’ for Barton House?

C) How many other Large Panel System (LPS) exist in Bristol? Or indeed around the country?

One has to conclude that it appears, from current revelations, that BCC has not / is not competently managing its estate which, after experiences such as Ronan, Grenfall etc, is a grave public concern.

FOIs will be submitted as above. Those poor tenants / occupants deserve so much better especially from a council which has introduced a licensing system to ensure private landlords provide adequate safe accommodation.

Glasshouses and stones ….

NHS PRIVATISATION WATCH

SLEEPWALKING INTO TOTALITARIANISM

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While MPs and the media wring their hands and weep over a stabbed tory, it was not lost on us that during the same week it was reported in The Guardian that “[a] University of York study found that there had been 57,550 deaths due to austerity in the four years following 2010.”

This is slightly less than the British Medical Journal reported in 2017. They linked an extra 120,00 extra deaths to austerity cuts. These are not the only studies and the figures differ slightly but they all show a lot of deaths of the poor and ill.

This MP, who everybody said was a good bloke and cared deeply for his constituents, voted time and time again for cuts to welfare and services. But there’s hardly a word in the mainstream press about any deaths due to this. Not a single crocodile tear was shed in Parliament. No one minute silence for any human being lost to their families early due to decisions in Parliament.

What this one death means, at the hands of a lone nutter, is more security measures and less opportunity to engage directly with your MP. Not that that achieves much anyway.

The eagle-eyed might have noticed that the Tories are also trying to curtail our rights to judicial review. Even David Davies – remember that old twat? – calls it “an assault on the legal system” and “an attempt to avoid accountability”. But why the need to hold our leaders to account?

Well, deaths from austerity might be one reason. Another is that the Tories have just voted not to stop pumping raw sewage into our rivers. Apparently, it’s too expensive for the poor companies in charge of our water supplies who have already paid out billions in dividends to wealthy shareholders.

This vote came after our new-found freedoms thanks to BREXIT and the end of European environmental protections. Now we are free to swim and fish in our own shite. Not that we could have known because the government are refusing to allow access and scrutiny of any legal advice relating to BREXIT.

How has BREXIT gone so far? We have Northern Ireland, labour shortages, empty shelves, increase in prices, businesses going bust and disputes about fishing. We also have the £350m per week for the NHS but the Tories forgot to tell us that we would be paying that with National Insurance increases, which hits the low-waged worse. So that’s alright then.

And who needs scrutiny over the government’s response to COVID, the worse pandemic in living memory? That all started with the lack of PPE in care homes and the overstretched NHS releasing COVID positive patients into care homes.

The contract to oversee test and trace was given to Dildo Harding. The app did not work. They did not employ enough tracers but did spend £22 billion on consultants. Some racking up more than £6k a day, while Dildo Harding didn’t do too bad in her pocket either. I wonder how many of these twats vote Tory? In the meantime we have the highest death rate per head in Europe.

All through the pandemic the Tories handed their mates and donors contracts for millions of public money. Mainly to do stuff that they couldn’t do while ignoring the underfunded NHS who had the skills and resources to complete the tasks the private sector fatcats couldn’t.

Like testing. We have all heard about the 43,000 wrong results given for PCR tests in the South West. But then we are told that this has nothing to do with the sudden surge in cases. Really?

Who suffers? Us. Again. If they bring back a lockdown, it will not affect those in their country piles, fancy townhouses and gated communities. It will be us, in our tower blocks, terraced houses and apartments with a lack of living space. All watched over by state sponsored muggers, better known as the old bill, trotting about giving out fines.

There’ll be no chance of public scrutiny and don’t think public protest will be welcomed. Instead, the Crime and Policing Bill is curtailing your rights to peaceful protest. Not that the old bill ever lets you have a peaceful protest. They wade in as soon as it’s dark.

Like the recent Kill the Bill protests in Bristol. Remember how cops claimed to the press that they were provoked and injured by the violent protesters? Then later they had to admit that there were no significant injuries among the coppers on duty that night? A fact which received considerably less press.

Although the press did manage lots of outrage against anyone caught up in the police attack. Some have received serious prison time, including two women, who were kettled and needed a piss. Nine months each. Needless to say they were not granted Legal Aid and, like most working class people now, they had to defend themselves in court against a criminal charge.

It’s all a right mess and we are the victims. At the beginning of COVID, a leaked after dinner speech by a chinless Tory spoke of “useless eaters” in the care homes. They mean you and your family.

Is it enough yet?

NHS AIN’T AIR POLLUTION

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The Reverend caused a minor scandal at a recent council meeting by appearing to ATTACK THE NHS when he responded to a petition from a couple of junior doctors DEMANDING ACTION on air pollution in the city.

He told the pair, “the NHS generates FIVE PER CENT OF ALL ROAD JOURNEYS IN THIS COUNTRY. This is from the NHS’s own numbers. They contribute 735 deaths through air pollution, they cost us 8,844 life years, contributing 85 deaths and 772 major injuries, and they create £650million-worth of demand on NHS services.”

The Reverend, presumably, is referring to such PLANET DESTROYING SPONGERS as health visitors, community nurses and occupational therapists. All NHS workers who regularly visit people in their homes to support, often complex, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS. What’s the Reverend proposing here? That, in future, NHS patients crawl to their nearest health centre for treatment to reduce pollution?

If the Reverend’s concerned about the amount of car journeys made by public sector organisations, he could start NEARER TO HOME. How many car journeys are his adult care workers, social workers and OTs making? Is it significantly LESS THAN THIS ALLEGED FIVE PER CENT OF TRAFFIC courtesy of the NHS on our local roads? Maybe the Reverend could start targeting some of his own sick, dying and vulnerable and tell them to get on their bikes to lower the city’s pollution levels?

Alternatively, he could start with all those FREE PARKING SPACES he dishes out to fit and healthy COUNCILLORS and SENIOR BOSSES at the Council House. They all seem intensely relaxed about poisoning the rest of us because they can’t be arsed to walk, ride a bike or take a bus.

UNISON INACTION

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AWP, the local NHS mental health trust, is SLASHING over 70 band 4 admin posts with a knock-on effect on the band 3 admin staff underneath them. AWP are predictably doing this to try and make up a funding deficit.

Targeting admin rather than clinical staff is a sneaky ploy from the bosses. They know that admin staff are less likely to be unionised and less likely to FIGHT BACK than the frontline staff. Make no mistake, though, admin workers are essential to the provision of services. These cuts will have a huge impact on the delivery of essential care in an already FAILING NHS trust.

Unison promised to FIGHT these cuts but, despite enthusiasm from the workers, their plans were underwhelming. They failed to adequately consult their membership on their plans and many of the affected staff were left feeling cynical, jaded and voiceless by the union that CLAIMS to represent them.

Unison promised a ‘DAY OF ACTION’ in early December against the job cuts. However, ‘action’ may be the wrong word here. What unison actually proposed was a TOKEN half-hour protest outside workplaces, with the not-insignificant caveat that members take this time out of their lunch breaks so that there would be no disruption to services and no stoppage of work. It is the staff – not the bosses – that are losing out.

This wasn’t an ‘action’ so much as a photo opportunity. One AWP employee described the ‘action’ as “like punching yourself in the face so you can show off the bruise”.

VIRGIN ‘CARE’

After the suffering and sacrifice of World War 2 the British working class were determined not to return to the poverty, humility and ill health which were their lot before the war. Flexing their political muscle, the people achieved the nationalization of many industries, the establishment of a welfare state and a National Health Service providing free health care for all. Although not perfect, these were great advances for the British public. However, since the 1970’s the wealthy elite in this country have successfully fought a relentless war to overturn this social progress.

The Health and Social Care Act (2014) is the latest offensive in that war, designed to destroy one of the greatest achievements of that era – the NHS. Waiting to suck the lifeblood out of its destruction is today’s generation of profiteering spivs such as the smug, ego-maniac billionaire Richard Branson. As this issue of THE BRISTOLIAN highlights, Virgin Care (sic) are favourites to take over a large chunk of children’s health services in Bristol in the near future.

Virgin ‘care’ about siphoning off your money into offshore tax havens and into Richard Branson’s bank account, but they care little about our children’s health. By their nature, corporations such as Virgin exist for one purpose only – to make the maximum amount of profit possible. They achieve this by minimising every cost and maximizing every charge, regardless of the impact this has on human lives.

If we relinquish the running of our society to these uncaring organizations, then an uncaring society is the predictable outcome.

KIDS’ HEALTH SOLD TO WEALTHY HIPPY SHOCKER

With the election safely out of the way, Tory efforts to privatise the NHS move smoothly up a gear.

Plans are now afoot by the North Bristol NHS Trust, who run Southmead Hospital,
to PRIVATISE the city’s Community Children’s Health Partnership (CCHP).

This is the part of the trust that runs Community Paediatricians, Children’s Therapists, Health Visitors, School Health Nurses and Children’s Mental Health Teams in the city and it’s a service crucial to the health and safety of our kids.

Not least because it is at the frontline of PREVENTION of ill health and abuse among children. Not that the Tories or their suited and booted wealthy little helpers running local hospital trusts give a toss about any of that.

The trust’s excuse for this privatisation is that they wish to focus on ‘acute services’. Although some very small bottom line savings and the awarding of public money favours to well-connected corporates also seem to underpin the plans.

Our information suggests that these services for kids in Bristol will be TENDERED OUT for about £28m over the next year and the favourites to get the contract are … Wait for it … VIRGIN Care!

Yes, that’s right, city health bosses want to make creepy billionaire weird beard RICHARD BRANSON responsible for your kids’ health!

Virgin describes 2014’s HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE ACT – which has opened the NHS to more private providers – as an “opportunity” and they are desperate to get their hands on this Bristol contract.

As the upstart private health business, despite having scooped 230 CONTRACTS worth £500m from the NHS already, is not yet showing signs of profit. However this could change if Virgin can achieve what’s called ‘market penetration’ and grab a large enough slice of a health market to benefit from economies of scale.

Virgin already has lucrative health contracts in Devon. So if they can expand into Bristol they’ll achieve the kind of regional ‘market penetration’ that spells cash and profit joy for Richard Branson and his family.

Adding to the sense of bargain basement RIP-OFF at the expense of our kids comes news that Virgin Care is not likely to be paying much tax on any profits made from NHS money any time soon either.

Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant at Tax Research UK, recently revealed that Virgin Care’s ultimate holding company, that’s dished out loans to the fledgling health company, is based in the Virgin Islands – a tax haven!

To be on the safe side and to ensure you avoid this toxic company, we strongly suggest readers make sure their kids don’t get ill in Bristol any more.

FRUIT & VEG SCHEME GONE BANANAS!

The BRISTOLIAN

“Smiter of the High and Mighty”