Alexandra Hospital, Redditch - public car park; maintenance contract

The request was partially successful.

Dear Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust,

1. Would you please provide the name and contact details of the contractor who is supposed to be responsible for the maintenance of the public car park at the Alexandra Hospital?

2. Please provide details of the current contract for the maintenance of this car park.
For example
When did it commence?
When is it due to end?
How much does it cost the Trust ie. (a) payments to the contractor? and (b) cost for administration?

3.Does the contract specify that the car park should be weed-free?

4. Will the car park be weed-free before Christmas 2014?

Thank you.
Yours faithfully,

P. Bladon

FOI, WAHT- Account Owner Kimara Sharpe,

Dear P Bladon

Request for Information: Freedom of Information Act

I acknowledge receipt of your request for information which I received on 9 October

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (General Rights of Access) that came into force on 1 January 2005, we have a duty to:
• Acknowledge receipt of your request within 2 working days
• Respond to your request within 20 working days

We will respond to your request as soon as possible but no later than 20 working days from our receipt of your request. If we have problems in locating the information or require clarification, I will contact you as soon as is practicable.

Yours sincerely

Kimara Sharpe

Kimara Sharpe
Company Secretary

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FOI, WAHT- Account Owner Kimara Sharpe,

Dear P Bladon

Thank you for your continued interest in the car park at the Alexandra Hospital. We share your concerns about the standard of weed control and indeed have just let our contractor go.

In the light of this development, I should like to invite you to meet with myself and Ray Cochrane, Head of Estates, to discuss the contract and other aspects of our grounds and garden strategy with a view to perhaps you being able to help us with some aspects.

If this is agreeable to you, would you please let me have you contact details so that I may contact you and set up such a meeting?

In view of the circumstances of the contract, we do not feel it appropriate to answer your questions as they stand.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Thank you

Kimara

Kimara Sharpe
Company Secretary
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
Worcestershire Royal Hospital
Executive Suite, Sky Level 3
Charles Hastings Way
Worcester
WR5 1DD

01905 733962
0791 8080400
Internal – 30716
[email address]
www.worcsacute.nhs.uk

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Dear Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust,

I’m angry and disappointed that the questions haven’t been answered yet. Colleagues agree.
While we are pleased to know that the Trust will no longer be making payments to the contractor for poor work or work not done – this has raised additional concerns and questions.

When did the Trust terminate the contract?
How much notice did the Trust give the contractor that it wanted to end the contract?
Did the Trust make any payment to the contractor to terminate the contract early?
Was this contract for maintenance of the public car park with the same company that has the contract for snow clearance and gritting in the winter? If the same contractor is involved, what arrangements have now been made to ensure that if adverse weather conditions occur, disruption will be kept to an absolute minimum?

Why isn’t the money collected from users of the public car park used to pay the salary of an individual who could be employed fulltime with the specific job to ensure that this car park is kept weed-free and tidy?
Any surplus funds could be used for repairing potholes and other maintenance issues for this public car park.

Now with reference to your letter dated 13 October, your offer of a meeting is being considered.
This FOI request is specifically to do with the public car park, however as you raised the matter of other areas in the hospital grounds, for example the gardens, I’m sure the majority of the public agree with me that these are also very poorly maintained. One person I know said “They are a [*] disgrace!”
(* I removed the word).

I and others await the answers to the original questions asked plus receiving satisfactory answers to the additional questions in this letter.
Thanks.

Yours faithfully,

P. Bladon

FOI, WAHT- Account Owner Kimara Sharpe,

Dear Mr/s Bladon

 

Freedom of Information

 

I refer to your email of 14 October in response to my email dated 13
October explaining our current situation with respect to the Alexandra
Hospital car park and offering a meeting with you. We are disappointed
that you have not taken up our offer of a meeting with you as we are sure
that a face to face meeting would be beneficial for both of us. In the
meantime, I am sure that you are aware that any resources we spend on the
car park means that we cannot spend them on direct care of patients.

 

I can confirm in accordance with S.1 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA) that we do hold some information that would be useful in terms
of your request.

 

I have listed your questions below together with our response.

 

1. Would you please provide the name and contact details of the contractor
who is supposed to be  responsible for the maintenance of  the public car
park at the Alexandra Hospital? This contract was due to expire at the end
of October, owing to various quality issues with them, the Head of Estates
terminated the contract on 8th October. Given these circumstances and the
commercially sensitive nature of their termination, there would be no
benefit in naming them as they will no longer be working for this Trust.

 

2. Please provide details of the current contract for the maintenance of
this car park.

For example

When did it commence?

When is it due to end?

How much does it cost the Trust i.e. (a) payments to the contractor? and
(b) cost for administration? We are using an exemption under section 43
(2) that disclosure of this would prejudice the commercial interests of
the trust as we are about to go back out to tender and releasing this
information would compromise the value of the tender.

 

3.Does the contract specify that the car park should be weed-free?

 

The Contract states a regime of weed control with defined application of
both selective and total weed controlling agents, owing to the nature of
weeds it would be impossible to fulfil a contractual obligation which
stated "weed free" without incurring excessive costs for regular weed
treatments.

 

4. Will the car park be weed-free before Christmas 2014?

 

The response to question 3 above refers, the Trust can however advise the
interim Grounds Maintenance provider is commencing works with weed and
moss control activities and Grass Cutting to see us through to 31st March
2015, the Trust can safely state that a marked improvement will be
noticeable before Christmas 2014.

 

I can also confirm that the Trust has had no complaints about the weeds in
the car park.

 

Re the new questions:

 

When did the Trust terminate the contract? 8th October 2014

How much notice did the Trust give the contractor that it wanted to end
the contract? None, the contract was due to expire and the decision was
taken not to renew and terminated on the spot.

Did the Trust make any payment to the contractor to terminate the contract
early? No

Was this contract for maintenance of the public car park with the same
company that has the contract for snow clearance and gritting in the
winter?   If the same contractor is involved, what arrangements have now
been made to ensure that if adverse weather conditions occur, disruption
will be kept to an absolute minimum? Yes, An interim Grounds Maintenance
provider has been appointed to “gap” the requirement while the Contract is
being retendered.

 

Why isn’t the money collected from users of the public car park used to
pay the salary of an individual who could be employed fulltime with the
specific job to ensure that this car park is kept weed-free and tidy?

Any surplus funds could be used for repairing potholes and other
maintenance issues for this public car park. The trust has considered this
in the past and has considered that this approach would not be viable.

 

This letter confirms the completion of this request. A log of this request
will be held on a database held by the Trust.   The information provided
is subject to copyright protection and the copyright is owned by
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Any commercial application or
use of this information may be subject to the provisions of the Re-use of
Public Sector Information Regulations 2005. This means that if you wish to
re-use the information provided for commercial purposes for any reason you
must ask us for permission to do so.

 

Should we agree that you can use the information it will be subject to the
issue of a licence which may or may not involve a fee.

 

I trust you are satisfied with our response to your request. Please
contact me directly should you require any clarification of our response.
Should you not be satisfied with this response and wish to ask us to
review our decisions please write, in the first instance to:

Chief Executive

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Charles Hastings Way

Worcester

WR5 1DD

 

If after this process you are still not satisfied with the response you
receive from the Trust you can complain to the Information Commissioner at
the following address:

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Tel: 01625 545 745 Fax: 01625 524 510 Email: [1][email address]

Web Site: http//www.ico.gov.uk

 

Please note that we publish selected FOI requests and responses on our
website [2]www.worcsacute.nhs.uk and this response might be published at a
later date.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

Kimara Sharpe

 

Kimara Sharpe

Company Secretary

 

 

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P. Bladon left an annotation ()

Very disappointing.