Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 52 total)
  • Could someone explain how this happens?
  • matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    New hospital built and supposedly complete.
    NHS now paying £1.4m/mth for it to stand empty.
    Huge issues of ventilation and now drainage.
    It appears the fixing of issues could take months, or worse, and taxpayer continues to pay.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scotsman.com/health/edinburgh-s-new-150m-sick-kids-hospital-may-have-to-be-ripped-down-union-warns-1-4976491/amp

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Kettle’s on.

    somafunk
    Full Member

    Probably the same way the DG1 leisure complex in Dumfries had to be rebuilt, total estimated cost of £38million,  sheer incompetence and **** useless contractors

    DG1 complex

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    wrightyson
    Free Member

    As in 1.4 million quid a month? 😳 To whom? Surely it’s rates exempt?
    As for the construction side of it, I can whole heartedly see how that’s failed. I do like to blow my own trumpet and can run a job and make sure it all works at the end single handedly but some of these projects are a joke, it is genuinely jobs for the boys with people making huge profits out of them. I would love to take on parts of the build away from the pc and watch how we cracked on got it finished and handed over for a quarter of the cost and in time.
    4 people, 1 pm, 1 site manager, 2 assistant site managers, come to the real world and watch one bloke run the show!

    RamseyNeil
    Free Member

    These things seem to happen more and more these days . Perhaps modern construction projects are too complex to be executed properly even if they are viable in theory .

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-48554318

    rOcKeTdOg
    Full Member

    As in 1.4 million quid a month? 😳 To whom? Surely it’s rates exempt?

    Presumably to the PFi company they are renting it off?

    wrightyson
    Free Member

    Renting what? An unusable building. Apologies, sticking to true stw form I didn’t read the op.

    scruff
    Free Member

    Might have been designed along time ago and the infrastructure feeding it has changed during subsequent stages, or designed to HBN/HTM or Scottish equivalent with agreed derogations and someone messed up. Or its just been effed up and no one will be allowed in due to the high risk or someone has a contractual issue. NHS money gets pissed up the wall in England on building projects, I assume the rest of the UK is the same.

    oldtennisshoes
    Full Member

    If only STW had its own Scotland-based comedy brick counter to comment on this thread 🤔

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    It’s all my fault.

    croe
    Free Member

    It happens for the same reason it always happens. The people writing the contracts are utterly clueless and the companies signing them are sharks and cowboys only interested in extracting as much profit as possible by cutting as many corners as they can. When issues come to light the overpaid executive, who used to work for the public organisation or ministerial department letting the contract, but took the backhander to sit on the board of the contractor, finally earns his keep and gets the public to bail out the project once more by exploiting his connections.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    At least it’s not an airport in Berlin.

    dirkpitt74
    Full Member

    It’s stuff like this that makes me want to get out of Construction.

    sootyandjim
    Free Member

    At least it’s not an airport in Berlin.

    The ultimate counter to the German efficiency myth.

    notlocal
    Free Member

    The same reason we still have a leaky roof in our depot, over a newly built office and training suite. The old mezzanine storage, approx one third of the floor space in the building, was recently changed to provide much needed office and training rooms. According to previous occupants, and ourselves over the last 10 years, the roof leaks. Builders informed, but our manager is now the occupant of a newly completed water feature. The standard of the build has been raised with our Estate’s office who signed the build off, with the Fire officer informed about exposed insulation and voids around steelwork.
    All for the princely sum of £500,000. Another NHS Scotland “Best value” project.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I guess I’m sat here nonplussed as to

    a) how it ever was built to such a finished stage when there are such defects.
    b) why, why are we paying for this each month.
    c) why the companies and individuals involved are not being hauled in front of Holyrood committee to explain this all, with the press recording.

    handybar
    Free Member

    There’s been a general dumbing down in the UK for a long time now, based on a lack of accountability – i.e. people get away with it. Look at the bankers. The rest of us are too busy working and upto our eyes in debt and stress to do anything about it.
    My local train line has been cancelling trains left right and centre for the past two months. As a result many people are late for work and it threatens their jobs. The reason? They finally got some new trains but didn’t plan to train the new drivers on them in advance. But they won’t admit this – instead they make up lies, all to protect themselves. These problems had been pointed out in advance by the old school train drivers, but they were ignored by the new class of senior management, who in a previous life wouldn’t have been allowed out of the estate agents office.

    willard
    Full Member

    Maybe the same thing as a fire control centre in Cambridgeshire?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-39268804

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Another issue is the general dislike of buildings built to work. Can’t it be a box with rooms inside? No it must be a spaceship with multiple surfaces that add to complications and eat space.
    A new high school local to us will have a single superlab for science. So that’s 4or5 classes coming at the same time to be taught different lessons by different teachers in the same room. Because the only way to get the money was to show a modern and unique teaching environment.

    DrP
    Full Member

    One of the reasons I left working for my CCG (Clinical commissioning group) was because of the way the way projects were commissioned and managed. And try as I might I had no influence on them, and just felt guilty about being paid to sit there and watch it happen.

    At the time we were having a house extension built, and I FREQUENTLY would use that as an analogy..
    It was like saying “we want a loft conversion… 2 bedrooms and a bathroom”. Then the next minute someone in the “window department” goes out and spends £12k on beautiful windows. Yet we’ve no actual plan or drawings, and no idea what windows we need. Then the “Paint department” gets 4L of paint in one colour mixed up, and 500L in another colour. Of course, we’ve no idea where these paints will go, or if they are too much. But the public liked the colours because it went to public vote.
    Then some carpets turn up and have to be stored.

    Then we decide it’s cheaper to move and buy a bigger house. So everything gets thrown away….

    DrP

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    THis is easy and the construction industry has even developed a system to provide the excuses in one neat package

    Its “because BIM”

    “This isn’t a BIM project” there you go thats why should have used BIM

    “This is a BIM project” see this is the problem it wouldn’t have happened if it had been done in feet and inches on tracing paper with some colourwashing and no H&S going mad.

    OR

    Perchy got his centrelines wrong/got his SMM7 muddled with his NRM

    NZCol
    Full Member

    It’s a national embarrassment that they got to the point of planning the move and within days of executing it to then find out that perhaps it’s not quite as well built as it should be. Primary shame is on the staff, the patients and the hosp charity that has bent over backwards to make it an amazing hospital (i’ve been round it). Has to be sorted PDQ.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Perchy got his centrelines wrong/got his SMM7 muddled with his NRM

    I’m still on SMM6.

    #oldskool

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    How many shillings for a chain of wattle and daub at 7feet high perchy?

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    2 groats per perch innit.

    edit: which would make it 1 shilling 1 penny , a ha’penny and a farthing .  Give or take.

    qwerty
    Free Member

    Hack a Knees Clissold leisure centre makes for interesting reading:

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/mar/01/architecture

    somafunk
    Full Member

    As well as the DG1 cock-up mentioned above in relation to Dumfries & Galloway Council i forgot to mention the new Dumfries School Campus that has stayed shut due to more than 1000 faults, do we have the award for the most **** incompetent shower of **** running a council?, i know a few of the higher up managers and yeah—–i wouldn’t trust them to put the bins out once a week.

    Dumfries school campus 1000 faults

    Don’t forget the £300,000 spent on useless recycling bins in Dumfries & Galloway

    If we wish to recycle anything we have to drive to the local tip with a boot full of rubbish

    Pyro
    Full Member

    One of the reasons I left working for my CCG (Clinical commissioning group) was because of the way the way projects were commissioned and managed. And try as I might I had no influence on them, and just felt guilty about being paid to sit there and watch it happen.
    [ snip ]
    Then we decide it’s cheaper to move and buy a bigger house. So everything gets thrown away….

    (NB: Not having a pop at you, DrP, though it may sound like it. Just seemed an apposite response to your analogy, and proof that not all CCGs are the same 😉 )

    I work for a CCG. We have a single-handed GP practice, in a building the GP owns. Entirely of their own volition, without consultation with the CCG, they’ve decided to get an extension so they can add two extra clinical rooms. The practice is in an area with a very static population, both in terms of numbers and age/gender/deprivation demographics. There are two other small surgeries in the same area, so the population is more than adequately covered – there is literally no need at all for any increase in capacity, but the GP has decided they want it, they own the building, they’re doing it.

    Obviously, getting an extension done isn’t always the quickest of processes, but they’ve got plans drawn up, got planning permission, got the builders on site – this is a good 12-18 months in the making. While the foreman and their team are on site, the GP has queried with the builder’s own electrician about who does the network cabling. “Not me” says the builder’s electrician “I only do power. You need to talk to the CCG”. And there the fun begins.

    Several weeks of discussion later, they’re arguing the toss because we’re refusing to foot the £8k network cabling bill, upgrade the currently fairly meager lines to deal with the extra traffic, upgrade their switch to accommodate the extra cabling or fund new PCs and peripherals for two extra clinical rooms. We’re refusing because our capital funding has been cut a lot this year and we don’t think it’s an appropriate allocation of funds being that there’s exactly zero requirement for the extension in terms of patient capacity; They’re refusing because they hadn’t factored any of it into the build cost and can’t afford it. If they’d come to the CCG 18 months ago we could have specced it all up and put in ETTF funding applications on their behalf. No guarantees, but we wouldn’t be where we are right now, with a half finished building in one hand and a large argument in the other…

    kimbers
    Full Member

    I wouldnt say this is a problem just faced by construction

    I have a friend who was called in as an IT troubleshooter for Universal Credit about 10 years ago

    He was horrified by the stupidity at every stage, the timetables set by ministers were impossible, the ministers were told this & just ignored it, the big IT companies knew it was impossible, but they made sure the contracts assured their payoff anyway…
    (My mate went into it as a proper Tory loving, city of london banking fanboy, he came out disgusted with the tories & not nice words to say about IDS)

    Holyrood seems no better than Westminster at this

    The entire culture of ‘the lowest bid wins’ followed by a cascade of outsourcing using the same bidding process is obviously a failed model but we cant seem to get away from it

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    PFI is a ridiculous way of using the public purse, but this story comes from a union ‘official’ and hence may be a little distant from the truth.

    Ming the Merciless
    Free Member

    A certain government owned transport network suffers the same issues.  £3000000 spent replacing standby batteries that had been installed but never put on float charge or the room aircon switched on, so they baked and froze for a couple of years before trying to be put into service.  I could go on but my urine starts boiling.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    In this case, the building was signed off by an Independent Certifier before being handed over to NHS Lothian. I’m guessing there will be a “drains up” (pun intended) assessment of that process too.

    Also important to note that the £1.4m per month payment is an average for the building and all related services so its unlikely that the full amount is being paid while it is unoccupied.

    As for asking a union official for their opinion rather than, you know, an an actual engineer….

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    . I’m guessing there will be a “drains up” assessment

    Starting from the stop cock presumably?

    So, more of a “Cock up assessment”……

    wiganer
    Free Member

    I wouldnt say this is a problem just faced by construction

    I have a friend who was called in as an IT troubleshooter for Universal Credit about 10 years ago

    He was horrified by the stupidity at every stage, the timetables set by ministers were impossible, the ministers were told this & just ignored it, the big IT companies knew it was impossible, but they made sure the contracts assured their payoff anyway…

    This. I work in this industry and the number of companies I do projects for that have been told they’re heading for catastrophe but have ignored the warnings and plugged on anyway, then tried to back pedal and blame anyone else but their own mismanagement when it goes belly up is astounding. It’s a failure to listen to those that know best and want to believe they can own and manage large projects themselves because all the contractors are sharks. No problem, I’ll tell you you’re doing it wrong, you’ll ignore me, pay me anyway, it’s now your problem. The NHS are health providers, not builders. Why they believe otherwise I don’t know. I don’t believe they weren’t made aware of the issues they faced but no doubt instructed folk to do it anyway.

    stevemuzzy
    Free Member

    To me it is all a symptom of lowest price winning and the timescales of procurement.

    Companies gambling on what labour and materials will cost years down the line, squeezing every penny to win a job as their company depends on the work and beating similar organisations with similar costs.

    This, coupled with the poor quality of staff (especially in Edinburgh) due to not enough people realising construction is a viable career.

    Every major job in Edinburgh goes bad, trams, parliament, bridge… what happens at st james centre will be interesting (800m commercial development..)

    docrobster
    Free Member

    @Pyro
    That’s a good example of why all GP premises should be owned by nhs England or some other nhs organisation. Too much risk for gps to manage. It’s no surprise no young GPs want partnerships any more.
    Trouble is that it would cost a lot to buy all this property off GPs. No one wants to do it.

    Pyro
    Full Member

    That’s a good example of why all GP premises should be owned by nhs England or some other nhs organisation. Too much risk for gps to manage.

    I’m not sure I agree (aside from the ‘would cost a lot to buy up’ part). I’d say it’s more a question of having a good think and talking to all the people you really need to talk to (and probably some that you don’t but, y’know, courtesy) before going off half-cocked.

    docrobster
    Free Member

    The point is GPs are not facilities managers or whatever the phrase is. I agree in your case they clearly cocked up and it will cost them. Practice managers are too busy firefighting to be able to project manage stuff like this.
    The whole business of healthcare has changed so much in the last 20 years that it’s not sensible for people to be running it like a corner shop business any more, but some practices are just that.

    Pyro
    Full Member

    The point is GPs are not facilities managers or whatever the phrase is. I agree in your case they clearly cocked up and it will cost them. Practice managers are too busy firefighting to be able to project manage stuff like this.

    Totally agree there, but my point was that if they’d come and talked to us sooner we could have been of quite a lot more assistance. We have Primary Care support teams, IT teams, even Project Managers they could have called upon for help – because yes, they have a job to do which is managing a practice and dealing with people. As it is, for whatever reason, for want of a conversation they’ve borne all the hassle thus far and will probably have to continue to do so.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    for whatever reason

    I’m of the opinion that you can’t change others, you can only change yourself.

    The question should be, why didn’t they want to come and chat to us.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 52 total)

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