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Saturday 29 October 2011

Planning - e minus



Ashbourne in Derbyshire has a new £20 million hospital with 87 spaces for the car-park. Unfortunately the hospital has 280 staff to accommodate too. Aren't numbers tricky little beggars?

6 comments:

Macheath said...

Sadly this is standard practice these days; a similar situation at a large Edinburgh hospital arose from the use of a carefully designed planning formula that basically allowed a parking space for each consultant and manager and assumed that all nursing staff and patients would take the bus.

Throw in a few remarks about 'sustainability' and 'carbon footprints' to make it look good and - hey presto! - you have a hospital where few nurses can be persuaded to face the night buses or a long walk down empty dark streets to work a night shift.

The resulting bill for agency nurses to fill the gaps, combined with a vast number of missed appointments due to late buses or a lack of parking, has, according to local rumour, formed a large proportion of the hospital budget ever since.

A K Haart said...

M - odd isn't it? Supermarkets manage to get it right.

Anonymous said...

Oh for fucks sake, why the surprise and astonishment, it's not their money that's being pissed up against the wall, is it?

A K Haart said...

Anon - what surprise and astonishment?

David Duff said...

I wonder if they offer brain transplants as part of their service?

A K Haart said...

DD - the problem is finding suitable donors.