Mr McDonald

I was going to keep my powder dry on this until tomorrow but as the trust have posted publically then I'll share.

https://www.patientopinion.org.uk/opinions/133070

I've been invited to a meeting which takes place tomorrow morning at the Trust to discuss Parking.

As I say I'll hopefully be able to provide more information tomorrow but I doubt that capita's newest son will be happy with the outcome based on the agenda I've been sent.

We can't know if they monitor this thread in particular but I hadn't posted in case they were unaware of the meeting.

So a while back I mentioned I was invited to a stakeholder meeting but I didn't divulge the agenda. This was mostly out of respect to the trust for the invite and me not knowing how much PE knew about the situation at that point.

Since then there has been a further meeting but I've not been able to attend due to starting a new job which has kept me away from the forums for the majority of the last 5 weeks or so.

At no point has anyone at the trust claimed that the meeting or the contents was confidential and so after much internal wrangling I've decided to post what I know here. The over-riding reason is that, despite my locking horns with the trust on a number of issues they have for the most part been open, honest and inclusive in dealing with my concerns and those of others that they receive on the patient opinions site and directly. Whilst I could accuse them of having gaps in their understanding of the issues I do think that they are one of the better trusts in the country.

Additionally I was hoping that the Parking Prankster would read this and update his blog and in the process reverse some of the negative publicity that the Trust has received.

The meeting took place at the end of January and included numerous staff representatives from director level down, from all three sites and from many departments including estates, procurement, patient experience etc.

The first statement was that the Chief Executive had issued PE with a notice to terminate in accordance with the three month cancellation clause which exists in the contract.

As you'd expect PE were pushing back on that and the position at the time of the meeting was that conversation was ongoing, at this point I have had no update on the current situation but provided the clause stands up then termination will take effect sometime in April.

The decision had been made due to primarily the strength of public feeling, the adverse publicity and the time being spent by trust staff in dealing with complaints/appeals etc.

Thereafter there was much debate about the options available as alternative and these are all being considered.

As and when I see that they have been removed I'll update here.

Absolutely fantastic effort.

The_Slug wrote: »

Legally wrong. Please see:

In the case of Burmah Steam Ship Co Ltd v CIR [1930] 16TC67

This case is a Scottish case so as such a English/Welsh court would not be bound to follow it. Also, it is not a case which focuses on contract matters, it is a tax case, so would be quite easy to distinguish should a English court be inclined to use it as a precedent.

However, this doesn't change the fact that the landowner (not the PPC) could claim damages as a loss of opportunity (i.e. the opportunity to make money as a customer could not park). But he would have to show that the 'offender' was not spending money with them and that on the balances of probabilities the customers who could not park would have spent more money.

Does anyone have a list of which health boards/primary care trusts (or what ever else they're being called this week) actually employ PPC's on some/all of their sites? I would be willing to write a letter to each of them asking what safeguards (if any) they have in place to protect patient confidentiality in situations such as this. And what safeguards they have in relation to their duty of care to their patients (i.e a terminally ill patient being harassed by an agent of the trust).