Country life

Long time no post: I've moved to Derbyshire away from the City. Though at the moment I commute to London (2 hour trip eachway).I now get to see the countryside and the seasons from the train window.

This morning before I set off to the station, at 5:30 am, I spent 5 minutes watching a Peregrine Falcon being mobbed by 3 crows high in the air above my house. No contest really.

Mis-sold Swaps to cost UK banks billions

Over the past decade banks have been boosting their profits by selling Interest Rate Swap deal to SME businesses. The idea was that for a fee the business would be protected from interest rate increases on their bank loans. It is similar, but not the same as insurance. The flip side is that if the interest rate goes down the business has to pay the difference via the bank to the other party in the interest rate swap. 

Back in the 1990s there was a big fuss about IRS deal wrongly sold to Local Authorities. Much activity was focussed on unwinding the deals and paying compensation to the local authorities.  There is no way that the banks didn't know that IRS deals can be very bad news for SME organisations, but the banks gave in to greed again.

They fully deserve a big compensation bill.

Proposed closure of an A&E in south London

The NHS is proposing to close Lewisham A&E. Here's what the local doctors say in a petition to David Cameron:

We, doctors in Lewisham, have grave concerns about the proposal to downgrade emergency medical and surgical services at Lewisham Hospital made by the Trust Special Administrator (TSA) for South London Healthcare NHS Trust. Lewisham Hospital is not part of that trust. It is a solvent, successful organisation that delivers high-quality care to its patients. Yet the TSA has taken the extraordinary view that Lewisham’s Accident and Emergency Department should close to admissions, leading to closure of acute services including full maternity services, and that most of the hospital site be sold.  

Emergency services are vital for the population of Lewisham, which contains some of the most deprived wards in England.  Lewisham Hospital’s new £12 million A&E department opened as recently as April 2012 in response to the need for expanded services. The TSA’s report asserts that the need for emergency care would be reduced by 30% simply by providing more care in the community. However, there is simply no clinical evidence to back this up. In any case Lewisham Hospital has already been innovative in working with social services to provide more care at home and avoid admissions in patients with chronic illness. Our intensive care unit has excellent standardised mortality rates. Our new birthing centre has high maternal satisfaction and provides high-quality care to a community with a high proportion of ‘high risk’ births, which would be jeopardised if maternity services are lost or downgraded. Lewisham Hospital features in the top 40 hospitals in the CHKS rankings. It its acute services are lost, they could not be provided by others without risking patients' safety and quality of care. 

The TSA’s review fails the “four tests” that you and the Secretary of State for Health have recently laid down in Parliament. It does not have the backing of GPs. It does not have public support, as the demonstrations, public meetings and the petition have shown. It is not based on sound clinical evidence (detailed responses from groups of clinicians, including GPs, are at http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/). Even the report itself acknowledges that it will not improve patient choice. 

Your government's response to this report has an importance beyond Lewisham. The report is an attempted regional reconfiguration, tacked onto the statutory regime for an unsustainable provider, which is being used here for the first time ever. The report was drawn up to statutory timescales that are much too short for a considered reconfiguration, with the result that the clinical consultation is desultory and the clinical evidence is of poor quality. If this report is accepted as it stands, it will create a dangerous precedent for the rest of England. Furthermore, the TSA has produced a report which perversely recommends that a solvent and successful organisation be punished to save a separate, unsustainable provider. We doubt that this is a signal that you will want to send to the NHS and the public.     

We urge you and the Secretary of State for Health to reject the recommendation that Lewisham Hospital lose its A&E and acute services.

Here's another view.

Here's the outcome.of the decision.



Update 31st July 2013

So far the Courts agree with us, the plan has been overruled. It is a dumb and not legal decision to leap over the fence to beggar a performing NHS Trust to fund another failing NHS Trust in an adjacent area.

Benefit inequality

Picked up from the Internet:

The British Government provides the following financial assistance:-


BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
(bearing in mind they worked hard and paid their Income Tax and
National Insurance contributions to the British Government all their
working life)

Weekly allowance: £106.00?   

IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
(No Income Tax and National Insurance contribution whatsoever)

Weekly allowance: £250.00


BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
Weekly Spouse Allowance: £25.00?   


ILLEGAL  IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
Weekly Spouse Allowance: £225.00


BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
Additional Weekly Hardship Allowance:£0.00? 

   ILLEGAL  IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
Additional Weekly Hardship Allowance:£100.00


A  British old age pensioner is no less hard up than an illegal
immigrant/refugee yet receives nothing

BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT £6,000?   

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT: £29,900

 The average pensioner has paid taxes and contributed to the
growth of this country for the last 40 to 60 years.

Peterborough Hospital PFI

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) uses the equivalent of a full operational lease used by many governmental authorities in the UK. Financiers form a company borrow the money to (re)build a new hospital. The PFI company then leases back the building to the local Hospital Trust, but there's a kicker. As part of the deal the PFI company also gains exclusive rights to provide services such as facilities management within the hospital. It is a very very expensive method of financing the hospital (re)build.  In recent year Governments liked this method of financing because it does not show up on the capital borrowing total for public finances, it is in effect a future operating cost. These contracts go on for 30 - 50 years. 

It would be much cheaper for the public purse if the Government was honest and just borrowed the money up front and built the hospital using their own managers. In the news today is yet another report of a Hospital Trust struggling to pick up the bill for a PFI. Peterborough and Stamford hospital Trust have been criticised by the National Audit Office for poor financial control and mounting debt.

Much of the unplanned cost comes from the provision of services not included in the original contract. Minor changes such as moving a phone or installing an extra shelve must be be purchased via the PFI company. As there is no competition these costs are greatly inflated by the PFI company.

The consequences of the "overspend" caused by the PFI is that hospital staff including nurses are made redundant. Clinical services are cut back.   Peterborough Hospital PFI was agreed in 2007, it is a very nasty financial legacy left by the Labour Party Government at the time. I've seen estimates of £800 Million required to rescue the hospital finances.

Post-Sandy situation predicted

Many of the post Hurricane Sandy problems in New York and New Jersey could have been alleviated if the authorities had followed the guidelines in my Foundation of Honour Handbook and had set up social groups to help after the event of a major regional disaster.

Such problems as:

• Lack of fuel;
• No access to power;
• Contacting lost friends and family;
• Limited food and shelter;

 could have been prepared for in advance and local populations be prepared for self help at a low cost.  Copies of the books are available on Amazon in e-book form. If anyone cannot afford the couple of bucks price contact me at alaricadair@gmail.com and I'll send you a copy free.

There are other measures the authorities could have taken like forcing gas stations to hold 15 days supply of gas with protected standby generators to allow the pumping of fuel when mains electricity is available. The "just in time" stock holding of 2-3 days gas (petrol) might make a slight improvement in short term  company profits, but it is a lousy call when it comes to public infrastructure resilience.

Wickes Kitchens

Wickes is a builders merchant in the UK. They have been around since 1972. They are part of the Travis Perkins plc group. They advertise quite frequently on the national TV projecting the image of reliability and a "Job Done" approach.

Sadly that has not been our experience. We are severely disappointed.

We purchased a fitted kitchen from them on 26th May 2012 (Order Number 890924). We paid in full on the 26th May as part of their conditions of business.  The price included fitting.  Here we are on the 8th September 2012 not knowing when this kitchen will arrive or when it will be fitted. Yesterday we had a phone call to follow up an earlier letter telling us the kitchen parts would be delivered Saturday (today) between 8 am and 10 am.  The call said the driver would call us before arrival. The fitter had said installation would start on 10th Sept.  That's 15 weeks delay on the part of Wickes.

The kitchen has not been delivered, there's no contact from Wickes and yesterday afternoon the fitter called and said he'd hurt his back and might not be able to attend on the planned Monday start date. We tried to call their Help Desk and learned it is only available Monday to Friday 9-5:30.

We want to thank Wickes for wasting our Saturday and leaving us in the dark. What happens on Monday? Do I have to make arrangements to stay at home?

Is the Travis Perkins group so short of money that it needs us to act like a bank and have us lend it £9000 free of interest for 15 weeks?

Getting the van ready to drive around the City of London

Update @ Sat 8th Aug 13:10 The truck arrives. They'd had two previous deliveries (allowed 15 mins each by Wickes) bur each delivery "took a couple of hours, because they were flats". They couldn't call us because "they didn't have any phone numbers".  We'd given Wickes a couple of numbers when we placed the order, in any case is there no reason why the driver couldn't have called their HQ and had them call us to advise of the delay?

Update Mon 10th Sept @ 10:15am
No sign of any Wickes fitters at our place this morning to install the kitchen, nor any phone call as promised to explain when this work would be done. Apparently the fitter had warned Wickes that he might be off sick (injury) today. As usual Wickes do not seem to care about inconvenience to their customers.There's no point in calling the original salesman, he was moved to another Branch.

Update Mon 10th Sept @ 13:45
I called Wickes Help Desk again, not having heard anything for a couple of hours. The regional installations manager has, after my earlier call (10:46), arranged an alternative fitter to visit tomorrow at 1pm to assess the work and possibly start on the following day (Wednesday). The manager confirmed in the call that Wickes have no formal procedures in place to check why installations are delayed past their "normal period of 4 - 8 weeks" after the date of order, it is left to the customer to raise concerns. In effect Wickes had 64 hours during which they could have resolved this before start of play today; but they didn't.

In a further example of customer friendliness I note the comment from the Wickes Helpdesk representative (S_______e)  who briefly handled my call; "You should expect it to take between 24 - 48 hours for us to handle a query."  It seems that I've had the Red Carpet treatment so far. It will be fascinating to see what Wickes manage to deliver on their latest promises in the next couple of days.

Update Wed 12th Sept
The replacement sub-contractors have commenced work on time and are getting stuck in to the work. As Wickes uses sub-contractors as its fitters there was very little handover from the previously assigned fitter so we had to do a full review of the plan. It turns out that while "everything" was delivered there was a missing item which the sub-contractors will have to contact Wickes to sort out. 
Interestingly in the original order process  and subsequent discussions I deliberately asked Wickes if their fitters were Wickes employees and was told they were employed by Wickes. Strictly speaking the fitters are not employees, they are self-employed/ working for small companies carefully selected by Wickes. They have a contract to supply services to Wickes. One consequence is the fitters will try to take on as much work as possible, which in my view could lead to scheduling difficulties. I just dislike the misleading response from Wickes which implied the fitters were direct employees.

Update Wed 19th Sept
The replacement sub-contractors employed by Wickes completed their work on Monday (17th) afternoon. They were good and took care over their work. They tidied up and placed the rubbish from the install in a large yellow bag in our front garden for collection.Sadly the Wickes design didn't fully match the room so a couple of set of draws have been return to Wickes (Monday) for refund. No news from Wickes on the refund, so I'll have to chase them again. Grrr!!

The sub-contractors managed to devise a fitting from cut-offs from the installation, so the work looks tidy (pictures, also shows floor replacement), but we didn't get what we paid for in terms of installed kitchen furniture. 

One annoying thing is that we were left with a 2.5 metre length of solid oak worktop from the installation. The designer had ordered two x 3 metre lengths to make up the parts for the installation. You would have thought that Wickes could have sourced a 0.5 Metre length off-cut of their worktop. The list price of the 3 Metre lengths is £324 each. So we (Wickes) wasted the the better part of £150 after discount, though I guess it increased the Wickes profit.

The rubbish collection is sub-contracted by Wickes to Hippowaste, but these people haven't turned up within the promised "48 hours", more inconvenience for us and our neighbours  who kindly kept that part of the street free from parked cars. This is once again poor control of process by Wickes of their sub-contracted suppliers. We still have a Hippo squashing the plants in the front garden, with no clear idea of when it will be taken away.

The effective charge per man-day of the installation was £300/man day; I'm pretty sure the sub-contractors don't see all of that money, but it might be a useful comparison if you are considering using alternative fitters to install the Wickes Kitchen unit.

In summary:

• The Wickes kitchen units look robust and well constructed, but don't buy them unless they are at sale prices;
• Their appliance prices are high, you'll get cheaper if you look around;
• Don't use Wickes for the actual installation. They retain good installation sub-contractors (Note: not employees!), but their management of those resources is poor. They do not realise when things have gone wrong. The Wickes communication procedures with the client are poor.
• Don't believe their delivery timings, you are destined to sit waiting at home for at least a whole day. Their delivery staff are helpful and efficient when they arrive.
• Don't believe their timings for waste collection.
• Double check and triple check the design produced by Wickes before signing, we had some wasted space behind cupboards and a couple of units too  large for the gaps.
• Remember Wickes insist on a 100% deposit, i.e. payment in full when you sign the order; make sure you pay by credit card or you'd have no leverage if things go wrong. 

To give Wickes their due, when I made their HQ aware of the events through this Blog I received a phone call from one of their managers who called and gave a genuine apology. They've also resolved the surplus worktop issue. Hopefully they'll benefit from my criticism and avoid inflicting this on other customers. It doesn't take rocket science to sort their procedures.