I was just about to write a comment about Kim’s' post of 1231BST yesterday, when I thought it might be best to check my email first. I needed to know it my comments of yesterday, which I felt it was only fair that I should email a copy to Mr Peter Bradley; the Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service, had provoked any comment. I told this story to you and your readers in the hope of some personal insight and advice. The sort of advice one might get, from an adult person who has taken the trouble to fulfil their duty as a citizen by registering to vote. This person might also travel about London sitting atop an omnibus. This is a description of a typical juror as afforded by The Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning some years ago. Your readers might also be the sort of person who would dearly like to sit on an employment appeal-board, in the hope of lending some "Common sense" to the proceedings. The sort of person, who my colleague might have had to tell her story to, had Mr Selby gone through with his threat to dismiss. I had never heard of anyone being disciplined for being sensible before. I mean in the sense of applying common sense. Low and behold, there was an email sent by the Chief Executives Secretary, which included a read receipt saying that my email sent on Friday the 28 Oct 2005 at 09:29:39, was read at 09:11:39. That was quick! The receipt didn’t say who had read my email or how they had managed to perform a quantum leap in order to do so at 09:11:39. There was also another little surprise! Someone In Waterloo Ivory Towers has thought it a good idea to attempt to gag me in this matter. What? I as the recipient of the email, which contained a standard read receipt was being regarded by the London Ambulance Service as confidential information. This means that I have breeched confidentiality by bringing said email to you and your reader’s attention, or at least that’s my interpretation. Here is a copy, see what you think and let me know: Your message To: Peter Bradley Subject: Community Relations Sent: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 09:29:39 +0100 was read on Fri, 28 Oct 2005 09:11:39 +0100 ====================== IMPORTANT NOTICE ================ The content of this e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may be legally privileged and are intended only to be seen and used by the named addressee(s). If you are not a named addressee, any use, disclosure, alteration, copying or forwarding of this e-mail and any attachments is unauthorised. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the IM&T Service Desk immediately by e-mail (IM&TServiceDesk@lond-amb.nhs.uk) or telephone on +44 (0) 2079215181, and permanently delete this e-mail and any attachments. Thank you for your co-operation. Unless expressly stated to the contrary, the sender of this e-mail is not authorised by the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust to make any representations in relation to, nor to negotiate or enter into, any agreement on behalf of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust. Any views expressed in this e-mail and any attachments are those of the individual sender, and may not necessarily be those of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust. Please check for viruses before accessing this e-mail and any attachments. Except as required by law, we shall not be responsible for any damage, loss or liability of any kind suffered in connection with this e-mail and any attachments, or which may result from reliance on the contents of this e-mail and any attachments. Make my day! Sue me. I have sent a number of emails to the Chief Executive in the past and had a few replies, none of which contained a qualifying gag. My previous email, sent last week, was to warn him of a possible booby trap situation, laid for him at Newham Ambulance Station. Mr Bradley is due to visit Newham early in November as part of his annual “Placate the Troop’s tour”. I think he must have upset some influential people at Newham in his stewardship of the Service. Some people are obviously out to get him. Because of the sophistication of this particular booby trap, I suspect there might well have been a conspiracy to do him serious damage. Some idiot or co-conspirator, had allowed or and encouraged the building contractor to install a non-standard doorway into the stations new, ready-room/kitchen complex. The new doorway to the kitchen is only about six feet four in height and last week when making a casual visit to see some of my old colleagues, I managed to blow the booby-trap surprise. I walked through the doorway and the top of my head collided with the top of the door-frame. Lucky Peter and unlucky me! The blow nearly knocked me senseless, but at least I had inadvertently sprung the trap. I took the issue up with two of the station officers, but they were keeping stoom! They knew nothing about it and had noticed nothing on the post construction, health and safety check. Both under six feet and who ever looks up! And that is the point, perfect booby-trap! When operational staff members of Newham Complex take against you had better look out! Unfortunately they have a historical bad habit, that when under unfair pressure from senior management to improve their response times, sickness levels etc, etc. some members have a tendency to become a bit hysterical and miss-direct in their anger onto the wrong person. It only takes one person to start the ball rolling; often a lay trade union representative (The last one to do this was Gordon Ballard, TGWU and he personally had a solid on-the-road reputation for sorting out unruly drunks with the offer and occasional application of some painful retribution) and witch hunt season is opened. Senior managers are supposed to prevent this type of aberrant behaviour, but all too often the internal political climate of the day dictates otherwise and they become active participants, in the entertainments... The boys and girls (for that is usually who indulges in this type of behaviour, sometimes called “Girls at play) start a mini avalanche of usually old accusations. Sometimes so old one is left wondering why they didn’t have the balls to bring the issue up when the alleged incident happened. The female complainants at least have an excuse; they definitely don’t have any balls. Mr Bradley is the same height as my-self, about six feet six inches tall. We are both what is termed 99th + percentile, adult males, with regard to stature. This means that if one was able to gather one thousand, adult male members of the general population in one room or stadium, there should only be a few people and non more than ten men at most who could look us both in the eye. Everyone else would be too small! (this would not be so in the LAS or any other ambulance service, because tall men like to do action man type jobs. i.e. The Brigade of Guards. We are the lucky or in my particular case unlucky, recipients of a genetic trait for increased height. With regard to my past employment with the LAS, very unlucky indeed! I was dismissed from the Service a couple of years ago due to incapacity. That is, I had become, too tall to safely drive or attend in LAS Emergency Ambulances. Today, ambulances which of course started out life as big white vans are designed around people of average height, and we lanky buggers have to squeeze in as best we can. It causes ones driving geometry to be seriously compromised, which can lead to long term musculo-skeletal injury from vibration due to one knees being endlessly in contact with the vehicle components and pooling of blood in the extremities. It can also cause spots on the bum and seriously aggravate haemorrhoids, and this can lead to emergency surgery due to the risk of systemic infection. Such cramped driving conditions can and does lead to the development of a condition called, cyclonical cyst and sinus the cause of over 50,000 soldiers being discharged from active duty during the Second World War. This dangerous cabin geometry could well lead to serious injury should one be unfortunate and be involved in a relatively minor road traffic accident. Ones femurs could easily be crushed or even smashed through ones pelvis. One might think that in an organisation which attracts a disproportionate number of tall action men and women, would take these facts into consideration prior to awarding a £50 million contract, to Mercedize Benz to supply Emergency Ambulances. One would expect that such a problem would be presented to the supplier as something to be solved, prior to the contact being awarded, especially if a certain tall staff representative had been pointing this out during the previous thirteen years, both this and other ergonomic disasters associated with the previous contract, with Leyland Daf. Just common sense you would think! No, no, no. Not to the LAS vehicle and equipment group. As consequence of this management and trade union error, (of course little eric couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. He’s only five feet six inches tall and below average height.) I was eventually injured in a rather embarrassing location and after my station manager, (he of the missing £1,000) and the Occupational Health Department of Kings College Hospital had made a horses arse of my post operative medical assessment, the whole thing happened again. My light fingered manager had eventually, (nearly six weeks after I returned to work on the offending ambulances) sent off a managers referral stating that I had returned to duty, after having had to have emergency surgery for haemorrhoids. The doctor believing this to be the case replied in the negative, when asked if my ergonomic problem could have led to the condition. No. she had never seen any evidence to support this suggestion. It was a pity that the doctor was not aware of the Services treatment protocols, in regard to Primary and secondary survey. If that had been the case, then after she had completed her primary questioning of me as the patient she might well have said drop your trousers and let’s have a look. I wouldn’t have minded! I’ll show my perfectly clean arse-hole to any doctor. Of course she didn’t and went on to tell me that I could go back to active duty, (which if you’ll remember I had been doing for the previous six weeks). The doctor did recognise that there was a serious ergonomic problem and wrote to the station manager, advising that something had to be done about the situation before I did become injured. Over the next eighteen months my life was made very uncomfortable, painful, and mentally debilitating. My light fingered manager, was always reminding me, when I asked what was being done about the problem, that the doctor had only advised that action be taken to rectify that problem. When I took the issue up with the Services Health and Safety Advisors, they attempted to intimidate me into silence, telling me in front of my crewmate that if I persisted in my complaint, the Service would eventually get rid off me. I didn’t believe him. You can’t behave like that, I told him, and this is the twenty first century! Not as far as the LAS is concerned. The advisors were quite correct, they got rid of me! Not just like that of course, it took quite a bit of time and a lot of negative effort on the Services part. This was the second point of last week’s letter to Mr Bradley. You may as well read it yourself. I’m sill waiting for a sensible reply: Dear Sir, May I first of all congratulate you on the positive changes which you have brought about during your tenure as Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service. Yesterday afternoon I made a casual visit to Newham ambulance station in order to speak to the secretary of the TGWU branch, the branch which I remain as the official chairman. The Branch Secretary, Mr Brian Douglas invited me into the ready room, where after a period of service related conversation I asked Brian if I could have a cup of tea. As he needed to conduct some administrative business upstairs, Brian suggested that I go through to the kitchen and make use of the facilities. As I walked from the ready room into the kitchen I felt a blow to the top of my head and for the next few minutes experienced quite a bit of pain. The blow was stunning and I saw stars. Once I had sufficiently recovered from the blow, I examine the situation of the kitchen doorway. It then became clear what had occurred. I as you may remember, am of similar height to your-self and the top of my head had collided with the door frame as I had attempted to pass through. When I compared the height of the doorway in the ready room, I was surprised to find that there was a significant discrepancy. The main doorway of the ready room is the regulation height but the doorway leading to the kitchen is at least two inches smaller. The reason I am writing to you today, is due to my concern that a similar accident could affect yourself on your next visit to Newham and the consequences could be a lot more serious. How would it look if the chief executive of the Service was rendered unconscious, necessitating immediate transportation to Newham General Hospital and all due to a breach of planning regulation brought about by bad design and improper supervision and evaluation of the building contact? Later I pointed out the discrepancy and its consequence to one of the station officers, Mr Mark Summerville. He was very surprised and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t noticed this flaw and its related health and safety risk before. I explained to him why this is so. Mark is not a 95th+ percentile adult male, with regard to his stature. He is of average height; therefore the problem was until that moment, invisible to him! I then took the opportunity to remind Mark that I had had to live with this phenomenon throughout my service within the LAS. I would point out ergonomic problems which tall employees had with both service vehicles and equipment, to both junior and senior officers and they would display a total lack of understanding of the problem. Over time I had brought these problems to the attention of such persons as Mr John Willby, Mr D Page, Mrs Wendy Foers, and of course yourself. In fact the first person I had ever spoken to about this issue was many years ago and to a officer driving instructor, who offered a minor criticism as he was about to sign me off as safe to drive and operate as an emergency ambulance person. He suggested that I was just a bit heavy footed when operating the accelerator of the training ambulance and I pointed out to him that the problem was not my heavy foot but the fact that because of my height I was forced to drive in an awkward position. The driving environment was badly designed and not really suitable for someone of my height. The officers attitude was rather negative, “Have you got an attitude problem?” he asked. Well no I did not have an attitude problem, I was only pointing out once again, that as per the health and safety regulations it was my duty to inform a training officer that there was a problem. He decided to leave well alone. What a pity! If Mr Flaherty had behaved towards me as he did towards any of the other and much younger and inexperienced trainees I would have had his balls. As I say, Pity. Mr Flaherty would not have had the opportunity and corrupt power to dismiss me on the grounds of incapacity, just because I had complained about this issue after it had caused me serious injury and a number of sessions under the surgeon’s knife. Neither would I have been the subject of a failure of the duty of care by the Occupational Health Department of Kings College Hospital, nor would my medical file have had to be corruptly altered in an attempt to cover up the fact. Who knows, maybe I would not have ended up having an nervous breakdown post dismissal and the consequent treatment sessions at the Newham Day Centre for mental health. I have provided this warning to you as one very tall man to another very tall man. I hope I have been of assistance and hope that no harm comes to you when you next visit Newham. The pity is that three years ago when I begged your assistance, as a tall man in trouble, you denied me. You sat back at the top of the services ivory tower and hid your head in the sand. Shame on you! I would have sent this or a similar letter to you last year. Unfortunately, when I mentioned the fact that I was about to raise complaint about my treatment by both the LAS and Kings College Hospital, my doctors thought I had become manic. I was placed on a new medication regime and I soon became very ill again and it took another nine months to get better again. Manic, my arse! Angry? There is rage in my soul and I will excise it. In closing I would like to put one question to you. Where is my fucking pension? We await a proper response! Anyway, I am sorry, yet again I digress from original the point of my post They can always sue and I’ll just keep taking the antidepressant and Lithium tablets until these problems are all sorted out. Then I will really be able to start getting better! Ghosts in the machine.