The Racking Rocks

A fascinating two-page spread in the Leicester Mercury caught my beady eye this week. The sparkling new A&E Department at the Royal Infirmary opened it’s doors to casualties for the first time on Thursday.  Everyone was smiling for a change.  Such a massive project must have taken planning, organisation and substantial hard cash to achieve and with true East Midlands reserve the first customers dubbed their experience as “alright”.  Across the city and roughly coinciding with their ribbon cutting ceremony, our own more modest project kicked off.  

Our Rocking Racking had comfortably held 25K files for 25 years until an unearthly creaking meant we had to call in The Health & Safety Man.  Before entering The Bunker he apologised for his chronic personal hygiene saying his clothes had borne the brunt of a previous job; I guessed drains were involved. He also timed his arrival perfectly to witness a whole section sag towards the centre of the room.  Without breaking out an allen key, he condemned the lot as ‘unfit for purpose’ then stalked off to have a bath.  Then nothing happened for three months.

Off the back foot of the new financial year the chin scratching and measuring up started in earnest.  Will we get the go-ahead or won’t we? I wondered. “We will!” said The Racking Man.  He’s the chipper chappy who came along with grand ideas above our budget.  He included sit-stand work stations in The Plan so we could yo-yo the desk height according to the user.  Very ergonomic, yes.  Very British?  No.  The Scandinavians love these things and we’d had them at the Leeds HQ of my old firm.  After the novelty wore off, they were stealthily disconnected by the owner saying “this is my desk, set at my height and you’re not moving it.“  Worse, the expensive desks were simply ignored.

In my pre-hospital days most of what I’ve learned about the medical world is from the television. I had no idea the great 80’s series ‘St Elsewhere’ was a black comedy and, strangely, I find Casualty and Holby City much funnier than Car Share or Benidorm.  So when the rocking racking was designed by someone who wasn’t going to work in it I knew there would be trouble.  I’d also been tasked with relabelling notes to accommodate a change from portrait to landscape storage.  So unsure of the technique’s efficiency, I stopped to check with Cristabel, our hyperactive supervisor.

“Am I doing this the right way up?”  Deep thought and a group discussion ensued.  

“Yes.”  Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending chaos.

“Fine but don’t ask me to re-label them if you’re wrong.”  Cristabel suddenly developed ‘urgent email syndrome’ and I carried on with the efficiency of Seven-of-Nine in Star Trek: Voyager.  I was vindicated later when The Blokes came to rip out the old racking confirmed the awful truth.

“Your numbers are on the wrong side for the new setup.”  There are not my numbers mate.

We had one team meeting before the project kicked off and I thought it better to get the difficult question out of the way first before Cristabel had finished her latte.

“Who’s the project manager.”  My last project had a £60M price tag so I ruled myself out as being overqualified.  I also needed to exclude the know-it-all 22 year old Psychology Graduate from the job.  She has grand ideas but no knowledge of budgets, timescales, resource or who’s going to pick up the dross when she’s gone travelling again.  Cristabel's answer stunned me.

“No-one.  It’ll be ‘orrendous.”  In a hospital full of administrators who have never worked in the real world I abandoned tactlessness and phrased my next question gingerly.

“Who will be making the decisions then?”  When oh when will I learn to keep my beak zipped?

“The Racking Man said we’d have to reduce our stock by 33% before next week or it won’t go back in anyway.”  It’s difficult to write the real Leicester accent as dialogue but it’s much worse than Gary Lineker.  Cristabel ploughed on regardless.  “Still … it’s only a couple of days of disruption then we’re back to normal.”  In the absence of a project plan, I’ve drawn up my own list of jobs for the available resources:

Know-It-All Psychologist - She’s out of the way typing up lists of files and not making decisions.

Cristobel - In charge of arm waving and shouting “Change Of Plan” every couple of hours.

Andrex Puppy - Constantly in meetings before making U-turns and causing overall disruption.

Fruit Bat - Booked annual leave for the duration but still wants to attend the aftermath curry party.

Cherrypickers - Early starters who disappear upstairs before the tough jobs are allocated.

Rubber-Necking Consultants - All permanently in shock when they realise Med Recs staff exist above ground.

Grafters - There’s five of us.  Do the maths.

Shite Stirrer +/- Nosey Parker - In our hospital, she’s the same person.

The sign on the door read No Entry. Medical Records staff only.  With five warm bodies sifting and relabelling patient records the banter and bad language mainly revolved around paper cuts and Alibone’s new puppy.  Even before the door creaked open we knew who was behind it.  Nosey wanted to stir it a bit.

As a pre-emptive strike she chirped “I’m not coming in.”

“Good.”  The deductive logical side of my brain went back to what it was doing.

Nosey was undaunted.  “But I need a file.”

“Tough.”

“It’s important.  Could you look for it please?”  It looked like a Fishmonger’s auction in there with 150 huge crates stacked three deep and she wanted one file.  Normally the embodiment of customer service, I flipped into evil bird mode.

“What box number is it in?”

“How would I know that?”  I lifted a lid so she could peer in for a quick gander.

“So how would I know where your file is hiding amongst twenty five thousand others?”  After Nosey disappeared Alibone, who has adopted the Clean Eating regime, rattled a bag under my beak.

“Walnut anyone?”

We continued to sift and despatch files while the decorators were grafting away with magnolia paint and after lunch I decided to check on progress of The Bunker by peering through the spy hole.  They had stopped for tea and wanted to share an incisive view of the week’s proceedings.

“Why did you agree to put the racking back where it came out?”

“I didn’t agree to anything.”

“You have the look of a manager.”  I’d prefer it if I had the look of a millionaire.

“Go on.”

“Well it’s such a shame … if you’d moved the racking ninety degrees you’d have had double the office space.” I went back to Alibone shaking my head.

“We’re screwed.  Gimme some more nuts.”  When I explained the painter’s logic to her, she had to be helped into a crate for a nap.

No doubt, when we’re back to normality in a constantly shifting room of high anxiety and number dyslexia we will be giving guided tours to visiting dignitaries.  The management will take the credit as usual while we shrink under our desks and cringe.  Oddly enough, the first tour has been announced by email for Tuesday 2nd giving us just enough time to rest and repair wounded bodies yet it’s too soon to soothe egos.  All things I’m sure the staff at Leicester Royal Infirmary seem to have taken in their stride.  Or have they?

Tip of the Beak:  Thoughtfully, the Leicester Mercury vox-popped the first customers to use the glistening new facilities on Day 1 and featured one lady who ranked her experience as “quite good.’’  However I doubt they will report what happened on Day 2.  Overall the acclaim was so glowing that a number of citizens pitched up whether they were sick or not.

“We’ve heard about the new A&E Department.  Can we have a look around?”

I’m guessing they have a Duty Manager “Er … no!”

“But we’ve paid for it … the Tax Payer … that’s us.”

“Still NO!”  

“Pity.  The Leicester Mercury says it’s rather impressive.”  The dejected citizens wandered away and down the road a bit to visit Richard III, who’s resting in a very grand bunker indeed.

Raven