Review

Lost in Space

iodpa HR, Review
Lost in Space
To boldly go where no sane HR director commander has gone before …

Acting Captain’s log, Stardate 2015.   I have assumed command at the request of … someone – perhaps even me. Our situation is deteriorating; many of the crew are unable to function and our life support systems are beginning to falter.”

Supplemental log. stardate 2015 Sector: Earth orbit. It looks like Earth but I am unsure. The crew are beginning to look at me with sideways glances. I fear I am losing their trust. My command is threatened. I must work out which planet we are near, or it may be too late to return through the wormhole.

On the bridge of the stalled starship Avonprise stood several of the bewildered senior officers and crew.

Second Lieutenant Jones adjusted a wedgie that was giving him gyp and said, to no-one in particular, “Is it just me, or is everyone on this ship monumentally f****d up about review missions?”

“What do you mean?” Bulpitt replied, a quizzical frown momentarily shadowing the studied bland innocence of his normal appearance.

“Well, I’m thinking that ever since Commander Zeeman was called back to Starfleet on that ‘misunderstanding’,  Commander Kern has put us all in these red jumpers. You know what happens when crew members wear red!” Jones said.

Dr Johnson arched an eyebrow at this. “What makes you say that, Jonesy?”

Before Jones could formulate a reply Galley Overseer Wood interjected into what would otherwise have been a long pause, “Well, we’re all replacing former crew members,” Wood pointed at Johnson and continued,“What happened to the one you replaced? Transferred out?”

“No,” said Johnson, “He was the death by vaporization one.”

“And mine got sucked out of the shuttle,” interjected Jones, who seemed to have momentarily regained focus. He continued, “And Nikolai  Garganov got eaten by a giant Octopus that was unable to keep its tentacles to itself. Maybe. Apparently. You have to admit there’s something going on there. Ever since that Borg Mountstevens tried to assimilate Kern, things have been weird around here. He said he escaped unharmed but I’m not too sure…”

Once started. Jones’ verbal diarrhoea was usually hard to stop, but he suddenly broke off as the communicator barked into life

“Travel time to the nearest uncontested completed review?” screamed the demanding voice of Kern.

Taking a deep sigh, Jones pressed the button and replied, “At maximum warp, in 2 years, 7 months, 3 days, 18 hours, we would reach a point where we can see infinity.” He quickly clicked the communicator off.

“Why does Commander Kern now think he is now a Starfleet captain?” questioned Wood, pouting.

“We have been captain-less for so long the power has driven him space-bat shit crazy,” opined Jones.

“Speaking of which,” Bulpitt said, motioning with his finger in the general direction of a spot behind Wood.

Jones and Johnson looked to where he pointed to see Kern materialise in a glowing circle of transporter light right in the middle of the bridge.

“Shields up! Rrrrred alert!” shouted Kern, as he shimmered into full materialisation. “I’m now controlling everything. You! Doc Johnson – every decision you ever made about anything doesn’t matter any more as I’m saying I can redo it. Final is no longer final and everything with an outcome is now not concluded.” He paused for dramatic effect as his words sank in, then continued, “And I am doing this just because I can,” he raved.

“But Commander Kern,” ventured Bulpitt nervously avoiding eye-contact with Kern whilst busily looking at his shoes, “Starfleet Prime Directives say that the Doctor is the only authority which is permitted to make the decisions on review missions.  All we can look at is the degree of disablement and that’s a medical question.  Even when he’s ballsed it all up …  ”,  Bulpitt shot an accusing glance at Johnson, “And he has.  Its got diddly-squat to do with any Commander.”

A hard, glazed look came into Kern’s eyes, and his face took on a flushed appearance. “I will continue, aboard this ship, to speak for the Borg. My orders are that you will continue, without further delay, to Sector 001, where my hive will force your unconditional surrender.” Looking imperiously about him, Kern continued, in a monotonous echoing tone, “We care not for your StarFleet directives. The Borg do what we want. I may be a lowly commander but I’ve been assimilated into the Borg collective and I now run this ship – and I will soon rule the whole universe, prime directives or not.”

“Oh well,” meekly ventured Wood, “looks like the whole galactic quadrant is up shit creek.”

Bulpitt turned to Wood and whispered in her ear, careful not be be overheard by Kern but thankful that the psychotic Borg drone was engaged in entering a long monologue about how he and his Borg buddies were doing exactly the opposite of what Starfleet directives and regulations demands of them.

“Death by falling rock. Death by toxic atmosphere. Death by pulse gun vaporization. It’s all good compared to being stuck on the same ship as this loon,” Bulpitt said.

“Death by shuttle door malfunction,” Wood whispered in reply.

“Death by ice shark,” Bulpitt replied.

“Death by what?” Wood said, blinking. “What the hell is an ice shark?”

“You got me,” Bulpitt said. “I had no idea there was such a thing.”

“Is it a shark made of ice?” Wood asked. “Or a shark that lives in ice?”

“It wasn’t specified at the time,” Bulpitt said.

“I’m thinking you should have called bullshit on the ice shark story,” Jones said, earwigging.

“Even if the details are sketchy, it fits your larger point,” Bulpitt said. “People here have review missions on the brain.”

“It’s because someone always meets one’s end on them,” Wood said.

At this point the utter confusion, petty bickering, position-protecting and empire building was thankfully brought to a sudden end as the starship Avonprise was blown to smithereens by a missile launched from deep hyperspace by the all-powerful Guardians of Law and Decency.

 

Just don’t go there …oh! Too late, you did.

iodpa Regulation 33, Regulation 37, Review, selected medical practitioner, smp
Just don’t go there …oh! Too late, you did.

Just Don’t Go There

“A fishing rod is a stick with a hook on one end and a fool at the other.”

Samuel Johnson (1709-17840

When a police pension authority decides to hold a review of an injury pension it is not entitled to pack some sandwiches and a flask of tea and go on a fishing expedition. It can’t itself, or via the SMP, try to second-guess or overturn earlier decisions, whether made when an injury award was first granted or at an earlier review.

Regulation 37 is perfectly clear on this, yet foolish forces mysteriously seem unable to grasp the fact. The quote below is from the Court of Appeal judgement in the case of The Metropolitan Police Authority vs. Belinda Laws, where the court was considering the fishy argument of the Met that the SMP could revisit, and thus come to a different view of the factors which led to earlier decisions. The court rejected this argument, stating, in effect, that earlier decisions were very much final, as were the facts on which the decisions were made:

“18. So much is surely confirmed by the terms of Regulation 37(1), under which the police authority (via the SMP/Board) are to “consider whether the degree of the pensioner’s disablement has altered”. The premise is that the earlier decision as to the degree of disablement is taken as a given; and the duty – the only duty – is to decide whether, since then, there has been a change: “substantially altered”, in the words of the Regulation. The focus is not merely on the outturn figure, but on the substance of the degree of disablement.

19 In my judgment, then, the learned judge below was right to construe the Regulations as she did. Burton J’s reasoning in paragraph 21 of Turner, which encapsulates the same approach, is also correct. The result is to provide a high level of certainty in the assessment of police injury pensions. It is not open to the SMP/Board to reduce a pension on a Regulation 37(1) review by virtue of a conclusion that the clinical basis of an earlier assessment was wrong. Equally, of course, they may not increase a pension by reference to such a conclusion; and it is right to note that Mr Butler, appearing for the Board, voiced his client’s concern that so confined an approach to earlier clinical findings might in some cases work to the disadvantage of police pensioners. Strictly that is so. But the clear legislative purpose is to achieve a degree of certainty from one review to the next such that the pension awarded does not fall to be reduced or increased by a change of mind as to an earlier clinical finding where the finding was a driver of the pension then awarded.

Why then do doctors Johnson and Bulpitt think they are permitted to look for information in someone’s medical history which might reveal something about apportionment or causation?  The former is the SMP put in post by Avon & Somerset Police Pension Authority and the latter the substantive Force Medical Officer from Avon & Somerset Police.

Take a look at the email below, in which Dr Bulpitt actually mentions in the same sentence, ‘apportionment’ and ‘attribution of cause’! He is arguing that the SMP should have full access to any individual’s medical records back to the year dot. He wants to see if something is ‘concealed’ which might let the SMP come to a different view which would allow him to call into question earlier final decisions.

The foolishness of these two medical worthies inquisitiveness is disturbing. They may know the difference between a wart and a boil (not that I would trust either one of them to remove or lance any such disfigurements on my body) but they seem to known diddly-squat about the seminal appeal court decision in the case of Laws.

The simple fact is that SMPs conducting a review of an injury pension are not allowed in any way to revisit apportionment or causation. (Apportionment is the tricksy ploy of saying a disablement is partly or wholly due to a non-duty injury or pre-existing condition, and causation is the SMP looking for something other than injury on duty having caused the disablement.)

bulpitt

Ha!

Has there been substantial alteration in degree of disablement since the latest of either the last review or original award? That is the only question the SMP is allowed to consider. Medical history prior to the injury award being given (or prior to the last review) could not speak to that, only to the question of the correctness of the original award or the award on review. That is the very thing which the case of Belinda Laws rules unacceptable. Further, Laws was followed and confirmed in the case of Simpson vs. Police Medical Appeal Board in the High Court in 2012. The principle is beyond doubt. The SMP can not access whatever medical records he wishes. That is the very thing that Avon and Somerset is getting wrong at the moment. (Unfortunately, it is not the only thing.)

In a later email, Dr Johnson says he will be ‘robust’ on those former officers who refuse to disclose full medical records.

johnson

Regulation 33, of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006 states that if any person concerned wilfully or negligently fails to submit himself to such medical examination or to attend such interviews as the medical authority may consider necessary in order to enable him to make his decision, then the police pension authority has the discretion to make their determination on such evidence and medical advice as they in their discretion think necessary.

A pensioner is being neither wilful nor negligent should he or she point out the law to an erring SMP, nor does the regulation mention access to medical records. In fact, drawing the attention of the SMP to the fact that not only has his hook got no bait on it, but his dog is eating his sandwiches is doing him a great service, as it should prevent him from acting unlawfully.

There is nothing in the law which would suggest to former military gynaecologist Johnson that he could say the Regulations allow him to have a full picture. His statement is either a bare-faced lie, or a display of pure ignorance.

Surely even a pilchard like Johnson has the ability to read the Regulations and see that?