back to article Capita and pals get £500m for ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE call centre

The Department of Health (DH) has awarded a framework agreement to four suppliers for health-related managed contact centre services, worth up to £500m. Capita Customer Management, 118, Vangent and MM Teleperformance have been named as the chosen suppliers. According to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, …

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  1. Pen-y-gors

    Instant staff training?

    Shouldn't they have included G4S in the consortium to provide trained staff at short notice?

  2. vagabondo

    throughout the UK?

    Odd, I thought that health and social care were devolved services and the responsibility of th Scottish Parliament in their part of the UK.

    Or perhaps Cameron and Clegg have carried out a pre-emptive strike on the independence referendum and revoked the Act of Union?

    1. Avatar of They
      Flame

      Re: throughout the UK?

      It was devolved, that was the point of the PCT, it put local services under the direct organisational control of a local institution. And in some cases such as a city there was very local institutions as it was done by population size.

      However now you GP handling some, the council some, the hospital some, dependent on your area. (Too complicated to list here but it is a choice by the board of the provider arm of the PCT as to which you have to put up with. And to think your council might now be in charge og both refuse collection and district nursing) And the comissioning arm of the PCT is now all GP run.

      GP's are outsourcing most of the functions the PCT did because it costs too much for them to run or train up etc, or they band together and pay someone else to do it, things like FOI, DPA, Accounting. And those companies are anywhere and anyone, they are not local and don't have to be. (I dread to think who is now in charge of malpractice and medicines management, who watches the watchmen as they say)

      And then on top of that you have to face the fact most has devolved to whitehall and the "monitor" which oversees what the 151 PCT's used to do. Although the SHA which was useless still is around and still is useless, as one Exec Director told me, the SHA is where Chief Execs go when they don't have a job.

      When I was working in the NHS and helping run the pandemic, the flu helpline was rubbish and failed on every possible level of testing, from none english speakers taking 3.50 minutes before they heard a none english speaker. To three different ways to get a URN for your tamiflu, two of which the GP ignored and none of which was recorded on anyone of the 4 DB's that the NHS set up. So anything is an improvement.

      The thought of a private company now running the public health response would suggest the only NHS aspect still remaining in Govt hands, Public Health. Has now been devolved out to private sector.

      Nye Bevan forgive us.

      1. vagabondo

        Re: throughout the UK? @Avatar of They

        You seem to be commenting on "devolution" within the NHS. My comment was about "throughout the UK".

        Scotland is still part of the UK, but "NHS Scotland" does not come under the auspices of the Department of Health, but those of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. The structure is quite different to that in England -- for instance we do not have Primary Care Trusts any more. My complaint was the sloppy "reporting" (actually just a cut and paste from the Guardian article. I am not even sure that this waste of money even applies to Wales and Northern Ireland.

        1. vagabondo
          Unhappy

          Re: throughout the UK? @Avatar of They

          I have found the origin of this story:

          http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:226542-2012:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0

          and it seems from section VI.2 that the numpties in Westminster are indeed paying their Capita chums lots of all our money to screw up all of our healthcare. Time for a mail to my MSP.

  3. Ben 50
    Stop

    It's all about privatisation - and brown envelopes stuffed with cash.

    Well, we all know how Crapita and friends promise the world to governments, and how well they then actually deliver on time, on budget, and within their SLAs. Don't believe for a moment that *anybody* in government thinks this is going to work.

    It only makes sense if you aim to provide an increasingly miserable, flawed, and inefficient service under the banner of the "NHS" such that full privatisation is seen as the "only way out" - conveniently providing time for the multi-nationals to get used to running the system at the same time so they know best how to carve it up and cherry pick. That'll be Tory policy on the NHS then.

    But don't worry, we'll end up with a super efficient U.S. style heathcare system - with 15.3% of GDP being spent on healthcare while the uninsured die in anonymity and ignominy, as opposed to the terribly inefficient communist NHS which means the UK spends only 8.2% of its GDP on healthcare with dramatically better average outcomes for those who aren't fortunate enough to be wealthy or in well paid jobs. (http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/2009/en/index.html)

    1. Colin Brett
      Facepalm

      Re: It's all about privatisation - and brown envelopes stuffed with cash.

      "Don't believe for a moment that *anybody* in government thinks this is going to work."

      Sadly, somebody in government *does" believe this will work, otherwise they wouldn't have donated £500m to their favourite charities *ahem* I mean professional, hard working, always-on time-and-budget, IT consultancies and outsourcing outfits.

      Colin

  4. Aldous
    Trollface

    yes hello sir my name is bibhu.... i mean Bob Smith how can i help you today?

    *gurgle* i have flu i think i am dying

    yes thank you sir now do you feel any temperature?

    *arg* i think i just coughed up a lung

    yes sir please answer the question else i can't help you

    please i need help *gurgle*

    sorry sir i cannot help you, you are being rude *click*

  5. Crisp

    Zombie Apocolypse

    So what are their plans should a wave of zombies start infecting the UK?

    1. Tim Jenkins

      Re: Zombie Apocolypse

      I always go for a magnum pistol / sniper rifle combo, with a pipe bomb or Boomer bile for those 'busy' moments...

    2. The Original Cactus
      Alert

      Re: So what are their plans should a wave of zombies start infecting the UK?

      Offer them jobs them in the emergency contact centre.

  6. The BigYin

    Oh why, oh why, oh why

    Does our government keep giving deals to these abject failures?

    Seriously - we need private companies providing public services like we need Dracula managing the blood bank.

    Actually, Dracula would be an improvement; at least he's honest!

    1. I think so I am?
      Thumb Up

      Re: Oh why, oh why, oh why

      Maybe that's what IT outsourcing should be called - The Dracula of IT - "We come to suck up all your money.... I mean blood"

  7. ukgnome
    Alert

    Come the "Zombie Apocolypse" I for one won't be clogging up the line to this call centre.

    No sir, I will be at B&Q appropriating power tools, and possible veg seeds (if your gonna survive you will need to eat, and possibly put up shelves.

    1. The BigYin

      Don't waste your time at B&Q, whenever you go you'll find that whatever you are after is out of stock/broken. The B&Q near me is so poorly run that they have buckets strewn over the floor to catch the leaks when it rains. Hardly a good advert.

      Head to Wickes, Homebase (maybe not as hard-core) to a small DIY retailer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Which is why I refer to it as

        'the orange shop of disappointment'

    2. frank ly

      re. "possible veg seeds"

      In such circumstances, it would be ironic if the 'possible veg' turned out to be Triffids.

      1. ukgnome

        Eek

        Two very valid points - who would think the zompocolypse would be fraught with such issues

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Power Tools?

      And how do you propose powering those power tools? Once the zombie apocalypse attacks the power stations, all bets are off.

      The DIY stores do sell impressive axes though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Power Tools?

        Well duh - you buy a generator and loads of jerry cans.

  8. Triggerfish

    Never mind DIY stores

    Find out if you have a town museum, mine has a selection of broadswords and other close combat mayhem oppurtunities on display.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Never mind DIY stores

      Museums and police stations/army bases and TA centres for any weapons of any kind. Or a boat - and sail to Europe

  9. John Styles

    It's too late for me but you can still save yourselves

    It has struck me for a long time (particularly in the light of the handling of the Foot & Mouth epidemic) that if there is some sort of pandemic / similar crisis we can rely on this country to handle it very badly, probably signifiantly worse than elsewhere. This is what I refer to as 'lessons have been learnt' syndrome - things are f****d up due to the ignorant and incapable outsourcing to the ignorant and incapable who outsource to the ignorant and incapable. The 'oh it was our subcontractors that screwed up' is a feature not a bug. Then it goes wrong, people wring their hands, say 'lessons have been learnt', the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.

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