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Still no sign of a replacement system for the one that is supposed to be switched off at the end of this month. There are mutterings that money might have to be found to extend the licence for a month. Our opinion is we're talking longer than that to get something up and running - our cynicism in our IT departments is well founded on bitter experience :P
As every resident in Hertfordshire is entitled to a Home Fire Safety Check and free smoke alarms, we get 1000's of requests. I say "we", but in fact I never see the regular requests as they get filtered to the third party company responsible for carrying them out, Medequip. However, we no longer have the funds to pay them so the contract ends 1st April. The current wizard scheme is to bring the operation in house. Supposedly, 3 or 4 people, including an admin person, are transferring from Medequip to HCC. The admin person will become part of support, and will continue to sort out all the referrals my guys don't do. There'll be 2 or 3 fitters that'll be managed by the same line manager who managers my guys and in the short term, they'll carry on doing what they did at Medequip except working for HCC and we'll carry on doing what we do.
Of course, it's not going to be that easy. Management weren't told about this until 27th February, so there's been less than a month to try and get something in place for 1st April. Even more hysterically, we don't have anywhere to store all of Medequip's equipment, so lord knows where that's going to go. And there's no guarantee the people will want to transfer - I have no idea where Medequip is based (I think it's North London) so I have no idea if schlepping up to WGC is even feasible. And this will coincide with when the database gets turned off (maybe) so it's entirely possible an incomplete team will turn up on April 1st and be totally unable to do anything.
Forward planning, people, forward frickin' planning. It shouldn't be rocket science :P
Apparently there is pressure to merge the two halves of the system together but that's going to have to wait until everyone gets a handle on how much work is actually involved for the ex-Medequip side of things. It could mean my job changing to encompass a wider role but that's a ways down the line, fortunately. What is clear is it's going to be a interesting few months until we get things sorted out and settled down. In the Chinese curse sense of the word :P
As every resident in Hertfordshire is entitled to a Home Fire Safety Check and free smoke alarms, we get 1000's of requests. I say "we", but in fact I never see the regular requests as they get filtered to the third party company responsible for carrying them out, Medequip. However, we no longer have the funds to pay them so the contract ends 1st April. The current wizard scheme is to bring the operation in house. Supposedly, 3 or 4 people, including an admin person, are transferring from Medequip to HCC. The admin person will become part of support, and will continue to sort out all the referrals my guys don't do. There'll be 2 or 3 fitters that'll be managed by the same line manager who managers my guys and in the short term, they'll carry on doing what they did at Medequip except working for HCC and we'll carry on doing what we do.
Of course, it's not going to be that easy. Management weren't told about this until 27th February, so there's been less than a month to try and get something in place for 1st April. Even more hysterically, we don't have anywhere to store all of Medequip's equipment, so lord knows where that's going to go. And there's no guarantee the people will want to transfer - I have no idea where Medequip is based (I think it's North London) so I have no idea if schlepping up to WGC is even feasible. And this will coincide with when the database gets turned off (maybe) so it's entirely possible an incomplete team will turn up on April 1st and be totally unable to do anything.
Forward planning, people, forward frickin' planning. It shouldn't be rocket science :P
Apparently there is pressure to merge the two halves of the system together but that's going to have to wait until everyone gets a handle on how much work is actually involved for the ex-Medequip side of things. It could mean my job changing to encompass a wider role but that's a ways down the line, fortunately. What is clear is it's going to be a interesting few months until we get things sorted out and settled down. In the Chinese curse sense of the word :P
indescribable
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