Scene of 'utter devastation' - neglect and death of 84 cattle

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
I agree entirely that there has to be proper recording and registration of animals, but there also has to be a human element in the chain. Of course no-one condones 80 animals starving in the filth, but if I have an error of 3 passports out of my 1000, I am 99.7% accurate in my record keeping over 20 years, and still I get warned that my business may be shut down in 21 days.
I would hope all the other businesses in Britain are 99.7% accurate with their record keeping. Are the well known west country supply company that accurate in their stocktakling, if not are they unfit to run a business?
And horse meat still ended up in the supermarket
Coming back to this, and please don’t take it personally, but one error in every 300 business critical records is actually pretty poor. I certainly wouldn’t accept that from any company I was investing in. Human error probabilities without any checking should be at least an order of magnitude better than that.
 
Having just read of a similar case at Bangor Taifi I am at a total loss for words and need time to think through what appears to be going on in 'some' parts of the farming industry.
But this has nothing to do with farming directly, it isn’t some short cut farmers are taking for profit indeed, it’s the road to ruin. This is what happens when life falls to bits for humans who also have responsibility for animals, as I said earlier, similar stories exist for people with pets, it’s not just farmers .
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
But this has nothing to do with farming directly, it isn’t some short cut farmers are taking for profit indeed, it’s the road to ruin. This is what happens when life falls to bits for humans who also have responsibility for animals, as I said earlier, similar stories exist for people with pets, it’s not just farmers .

very true....the fallout of a breakdown in faculties can include kids, pets, themselves.....anything in their lives.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
The trouble with hospitals, there’s no continuity of care, different staff on each day, no one knows or cares what happens yesterday or tomorrow as they weren’t or won’t be there.

A few nurses were excellent, everything you think a nurse should be and more, what was more worrying was the shear number who were anywhere between just there to do a job, collect their wages and go home and those who were completely bloody useless.
I know one of the nurses on one ward dad was on very well, she’s had enough and is thinking about quitting because there are so many staff who are just useless which just puts more pressure on the good ones. The stories she tells me are quite frightening.

Despite not doing a very good job of looking after dad one thing the hospital did have plenty of resources and time to do was to put effort into trying to put dad into care as they said we couldn’t look after him properly. They were nothing short of bully’s when dealing with mother.

Most folk don’t want to believe this, they don’t like criticism of the nhs but I think it’s important to let people know, one day it might be their parents lying in hospital being neglected, remember this and make sure you keep an eye out for them, you might be the only chance they have.
you didn't answer the questing, should they see prison ? they are from what you have said not looking after those in their care and from what else you have said it could and may well has ended up in people dying just because they don't eat, not quite like the farmer in this case as food is provided but getting close
I don't expect you to answer BTW
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Cases like this could always occur in farming as well as other areas of society.
Somebody could get overwhelmed and go into a kind of mental shutdown or dysfunction.
If this isn't noticed by other members of the community then the results can be very bad, whether in the case of a farmer, an airline pilot or anybody else who has responsibility for animals or people or family.

Really its up to all of us to look out for this sort of thing and do whatever is appropriate at the time. Sometimes this involves getting out of our comfort zones or risking the possibility of looking like a twit.

You can't legislate for everything. You can't set up "authorities" who can be everywhere, knowing everything all of the time.

So sometimes friends and neighbours serve a very important role. This doesn't mean we have to take everybody's problems on forever but maybe we can facilitate a better outcome than just ignoring it.

They used to call it community.

Its still needed.
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Lots of farmers especially in livestock live on a constant knife edge financially. If an arable farmers loses his mind and doesnt spray his fields , cos he cant afford it, no one really cares
But when he cant afford feed, cos he hasnt paid last winters bill, he cant pay a bookkeeper either.
Tractor breaks down, he cant afford to fix that so cattle go unfed.
When scotgov decided to pay out the sfp 7 months late in 2015 it caused massive hardship, i just wonder if the rpa could confirm what the payment situation was with these unfortuneate folk?
Dealing with rpa could push anyone over the edge
 
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you didn't answer the questing, should they see prison ? they are from what you have said not looking after those in their care and from what else you have said it could and may well has ended up in people dying just because they don't eat, not quite like the farmer in this case as food is provided but getting close
I don't expect you to answer BTW
Not sure about prison but a good arse kicking is needed and not just for those at the lower level.
We were just glad to get dad out ok where we could do a better job of looking after him. He moved around a bit in hospital but I know one old guy in a bed opposite went down hill rapidly and his 3 daughters wanted him home to die in piece, one of them was going to make an official complaint and she was a nurse herself.

I also know someone well who had gran put in a home for a week for mum and dad to go on holiday, she went in fine and was fetched out a week later in a very sorry state. They caught the care home manager altering the notes when they asked for them, care home manager got the sack in that case. It was this person who alerted me to how vulnerable old folk get looked after, I didn’t want to believe it but everything she said rang very true with the care my father received.
 
Not many professions have the workplace at home, with extended family included.
Not many professions stroke about selling stuff at 1970's prices either...
Eh-oh, tin hat on, prepare for incoming flak, if you don't like it find another job, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam....
Sorry, but agriculture really is different.
And licences won't do fudge all.

Other professions manage.

No one is forcing anyone to keep stock....
 
The trouble with hospitals, there’s no continuity of care, different staff on each day, no one knows or cares what happens yesterday or tomorrow as they weren’t or won’t be there.

A few nurses were excellent, everything you think a nurse should be and more, what was more worrying was the shear number who were anywhere between just there to do a job, collect their wages and go home and those who were completely bloody useless.
I know one of the nurses on one ward dad was on very well, she’s had enough and is thinking about quitting because there are so many staff who are just useless which just puts more pressure on the good ones. The stories she tells me are quite frightening.

Despite not doing a very good job of looking after dad one thing the hospital did have plenty of resources and time to do was to put effort into trying to put dad into care as they said we couldn’t look after him properly. They were nothing short of bully’s when dealing with mother.

Most folk don’t want to believe this, they don’t like criticism of the nhs but I think it’s important to let people know, one day it might be their parents lying in hospital being neglected, remember this and make sure you keep an eye out for them, you might be the only chance they have.

I will tell you the biggest problem with the elderly in hospitals.

A lot of them don't want to be interfered with at all. You will find that medical staff have to be quite harsh with many of them because they can be very recalcitrant even when they are of sound mind. Others will complain and groan as if they are being tortured violently with even the simplest and most gentle treatments. 'On a scale of 1-10 what is your pain level?' Answer: '10'. Which is almost always a life. I've seen people with pain that is probably a 10- they are fairly easy to spot.

The second biggest problem is their relatives.

Hospitals are not care homes. In many instances, admitting someone to a ward is actually counter-productive. Firstly, you are more likely to catch a bug, second, elderly people in an unfamiliar environment often struggle to do much for themselves without hugely increased risks of falling etc, and third, the longer you lie or sit around being waited on hand and foot, the less able you will become- you lose muscle mass and tone at an astonishing rate by being laid in bed all day and it also places an additional burden on the circulation.

People who are disenfranchised with the NHS but fully qualified do not stay there long- they can earn more money in other sectors of care.
 

bitwrx

Member
Coming back to this, and please don’t take it personally, but one error in every 300 business critical records is actually pretty poor. I certainly wouldn’t accept that from any company I was investing in. Human error probabilities without any checking should be at least an order of magnitude better than that.
When doing human error probability assessments in the industry I work in, they bank on a human error (without any independent checking) to be around 1% (i.e. 1 mistake per hundred actions). There are various reasons why it might be this high (conservative approach in a potentially high-hazard industry, large number of different actions meaning fairly few genuinely routine tasks), but I don't think 1 in 300 for any non-checked records is unreasonable.

The real question is, if they're genuinely business-critical, should you leave them without any independent checking or other corroboration?
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
As ever, erudite and consise posts which add much to the discussion.

With attitudes like that you cant help but wonder if the profession actually wants to be taken seriously, or remain a living museum of a bygone cottage industry.... it cant be both.
You seem to be missing the point. Well, 2 points actually, as said many times already, illness creeps up quickly with little time to prepare. In a sensible industry, that makes money, maybe plans could be put in place for every eventuality ( some sort of relieve workforce in times of need, maybe ), but with 16th Century prices I'm afraid a good proportion of UK agriculture is a cottage industry, with one man bands working for a pittance, so shite is going to happen.
Double the price for farm produce, and incidents concerning animal welfare, and farm related accidents would all but disappear.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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