Welding for free. (Well, almost free).

I had a play at welding the other day, for the first time.

Thanks to the Freegle network I mentioned before, I managed to bag a free mig welder. Of course with Freegle you don't get brand new units: this one wasn't working due to some tinkering inside and the CO2 line had ben removed.

For someone like me with plenty of practical experience, it wasn't a problem: a prod around with a multimeter showed me where all the wires should be reconnected to and a reel of gassless mig welding wire gets round the problem of not being able to use a Carbon Dioxide bottle. Finally ebay produced a very cheap (and very essential) welding mask.

So now I'm able to do welding for an outlay of less than 20 quid. Bargain. I do love the internet.

Plus the welder and the mask are saved from ending up in landfill, so double bonus.

And I've bagged some free bits of metal to practice welding on too.

No state intervention, no Faux Charity, no Quangoes involved: just people using the power of the internet and their own initiative to reduce energy consumption and land fill use. "Big Society" at its best.

Of course if you want to weld even cheaper, youtube has videos of how to use bits of old microwaves to create an arc welder. There are plenty of second-hand microwaves on Freegle or you just put out an ad for one.

BBC Panorama Care Program

I was shocked last night while watching the Panorama programme about abusive carers.

However, from the start of the programme there were alarm bells ringing, provided from the narration.

First off, patients at the "Hospital" were only allowed to see visitors in a visitors area. This causes a problem straight away, as it creates a "behind closed doors" mentality where staff can act without fear of discovery. If I was a parent of a service user in any facility, I would be seriously concerned if I couldn't access their bedroom and living area without a good reason like it was a unit for violent residents.

Actually a place like this calling itself a hospital sets off alarm bells, because it enforces a mindset of staff and patients, rather than carers and service users. A place like this should be regarded as the service user's home and its up to the carers to facilitate their lives in their home. It doesn't matter if the home houses 1, 10 or 100 people, its where they live and it should be regarded as their home.

Its quite obvious that the segregation of staff levels was another issue within that home. Keeping nurses or supervisors tucked away in offices is not a regime that is conducive to openness. It allows the care workers to make up excuses for behaviour. The best regimes are when supervisors are working with carers and if needs be able to pitch in and demonstrate best practice.

Its quite clear from the programme that companies are able to totally disregard things like DOLS and POVA and the regulating body the CQC can miss it despite inspections. Which indicates the current inspection and documentation regime is inadequate.

What isn't needed is knee-jerk legislation piled on top of the current huge pile of paperwork. What is needed is a common-sense approach to caring that puts the service users first and establishes that carers are not enforcers of company policy, nor bullies or security guards: they are there to care.

Finally, the CQC needs to take whistleblowers more seriously, with rigorous investigations of homes that come under suspicion.

Stating The Bleedin' Obvious.

This BBC article brings to light a report that says top bosses pay is losing the link with the performance of the companies they manage.

Talk about stating the obvious.

Its been obvious for the past decade or more that "performance related pay" has evolved a long way for senior managers and directors of companies into a greedy grab-fest. 

The people to blame are those that agree to and write up the contract terms the people to blame are the shareholders that don't hold those people to account.

But this is the problem with the system. When we have huge institutionalised shareholders that don't take an interest in the day-to-day running of the company whose shares they own as long as they pay a dividend, the situation will continue.