Policing Violent Healthcare

It is with great pleasure that I can welcome back Inspector Michael Brown, highly revered police blogger of Mental Health Cop and award winning Tweeter @MentalHealthCop to guest blog on Trying My Patients. His work on mental health policing has won him acclaim across the country and is highly regarded as 'the go to guy' for all things mental health. Enjoy!


***WARNING: This post contains some graphic descriptions some may find distressing ***

"23 year old female, self harming"

The area where I worked as a sergeant had a hostel on it for women. The people who stayed there had various backgrounds, most of them troubled. It included domestic violence victims in need of temporary accommodation; those rehabilitating from substance use / abuse as well as being used as a 'step-down' facility for people with mental health problems. You can imagine the police service were there most days for a range of reasons.

I went there one New Year's Day with a probationary police constable I was working with - she'd won a "shift with the sarge" and it was my evening assessing how she was getting on now she was 'independent' of her tutor constable. It was a night shift, just after midnight that we were called to staff asking for help with a resident who was self-harming. The name of the woman was given to us over the air, because she was a "regular user of police services" owing to her propensity to get drunk and self-harm and she became foul and abusive when was she did. She was already 'banned' from one Accident & Emergency department in the city because of her relentless abuse of medical staff and she was flagged on the ambulance systems as someone who should always attract police support. 

We turned up quite quickly. I'd remarked to my inspector just before being despatched that the evening had been quite dull so far - as 01/01 night shifts often are - and flippantly stated we could do with a 'decent job' to keep us all awake. The inspector had stared at me the way I often now find myself staring at ignorant young sergeants!

We were ushered by a member of staff through the corridors of the hostel and into her room. We walked into what first looked like a blood bath: she'd cut her arms to shreds - she was incredibly drunk, bleeding heavily and muttering whilst banging her head off the wall. The cuts were not superficial. You could see the flesh cut centimetres down and the skin was widely split across the wound. Staff had attempted first-aid and to at least get dressings covering the injuries. She'd pushed them away and hit one of them, determined to hurt herself more. They sort of looked at us as if to say, "Over to you." We hadn't been told that ambulance were on their way, so just in case, I asked again.

She was scratching at her wounds, as if to pull them apart - I noticed a knife and a razor blade on the bed, red sheets soaked in blood. I did what all good sergeants do and patronisingly said, "Let's see how you handle this, then!" and let my probationary constable try talking to her. She did really well - the fact it had no effect whatsoever was nothing to do with any lack of empathy or effort to engage: it was almost certainly going to fail. I remember saying, "Let's just get the weapons away" and we each took hold of an arm whilst we passed the implements to staff.

We sat, holding her arms, getting covered in blood to the wrists waiting for ambulance. They turned up after about ten minutes. They tried what we'd already tried and failed and were also shouted at and abused for trying to get covering dressing on the wounds. It was explained again and again that she would need to go to hospital and it was me doing the telling after what seem like ages of trying to persude. This only seemed to make her more agitated. I found out later that the woman had a history of being sexually abused, had serious PTSD and personality disorder problems and she had real difficulty with men, especially male authority figures. Great! - nothing much I could immediately do about being a uniformed male police sergeant built for rugby with a special line in not messing about!

She was still bleeding, but the paramedics had said there wasn't a lot they could do. We tried to lift her to her feet, but she pulled away. Her arms were slippy because of the blood and she was frantic. She was going to have to be handcuffed otherwise we couldn't move her. Watching paramedics trying to just wrap something 'round her arms after we'd handcuffed her to the rear and she was starting to get violent wasn't happening ... she was just going to have to be shifted as is.

I remember looking at the paramedics and without speaking we were each thinking, "She's going in your vehicle, isn't she?!" Both of us looked horrified at the idea. "Come on, mate - she's drunk, injured, mentally ill and restrained by the police." No - they weren't having it. She was too violent to be conveyed in an ambulance and this wasn't for discussion apparently! Today, I'd have said, "One of you get in the police car then!" but as an ignorant young sergeant it didn't occur to me. So she went in a police vehicle without paramedics who resumed to something else - Costa Coffee, I'd imagine - wiping their hands of this healthcare situation and off we went to the nearest A&E.

Turns out, it's the one she was banned from. The receptionist looked at us and tried to start saying "No" but I said, "Come on, she's handcuffed and restrained by two police officers, she's bleeding and we can't move her miles to another A&E -somebody's got to see her, surely?!" It was like gatecrashing a party - you were in, but you knew you weren't really welcome. No coffee offered this time, as it often was in A&E. They cleared out a cubicle of its trolley and 'stuff' and placed a thin mattress on the floor. The woman had become more hysterical as she'd arrived in the bright lights of A&E and started head banging. Two other female officers from my shift had arrived and they took control of her whilst we got our breath back. She was finally able to be safely searched by two female officers, who'd had change to get "gloved up" and more razor blades were found.

After about an hour she was seen but she spent the whole of that hour trying to headbang and being restrained to stop her doing so. It was an hour of fighting police officers so who knows what kind of physiological strain she was subjecting herself to. I'd now be saying various other things to nursing staff, about NICE Guidelines and my fears and restraint related injury, but at the time I had no idea about these things. She spat towards the Doctor when he arrived and abused him severely so we were shortly afterwards ordered to leave the A&E department!! No healthcare at all. "Get her out!"

As the four of us, placed this poor soul back in a police vehicle - this time a caged police van for the safe transport of disturbed detainees, often mistaken for a 'dog van' - we had two choices. We try another A&E or go to police custody. I thought about asking the grumpy custody sergeant that night whether he'd like to detain a physical injured, mentally ill, untreated intoxicated detainee?

Another A&E it was: a four mile drive off our division to the area where I'd worked as PC. It felt like familiar territory as I'd almost lived in this A&E for four years. The woman was placed in a side room and actually became somewhat calmer, escorted by the two female officers who had come to help. My partner that evening and I started to think about getting ourselves cleaned up from blood and spit and I was asking this young officer whether she'd had her HepB jab from her GP - police officers don't get routine HepB, you have to ask your own doctor - she hadn't! "I strongly advise you ..." etc., etc.. Got to look after your cops.

The woman went on to get assessed under the Mental Health Act and was sectioned sometime late on the 02/01 after many hours being guarded by the cops and resented by the NHS.

But it was as we stood discussing HepB that the evening took a really interesting turn: A nurse tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Officer, could you just speak to this woman, she's been shot!" I saw a young woman holding up her hand and you could clearly see a gun shot wound. it was Sophie Ellis, Charlene's sister. At that stage I had no idea who knew what about the incident so had to treat it as me being the first police officer to know ... well, I had asked for an interesting evening and my inspector said, "I told you to keep your mouth shut!"




To read the Mental Health Cop blog check out his website! Well worth a read! It's the one-stop-shop for all things mental health.

No seriously, leave it with us!

"34 year old female, under section, delusional, ready now"

It doesn't take long for mental health to rear its ugly head again. It didn't take long into the shift either too, 07:03 to be precise before we were off to a sectioning. In a change from the norm we were transporting from the A & E at one hospital to a specialist psychiatric hospital. There were no immediate safeguarding issues as she was in a place of safety so, in theory, it should be a simple load and go. Who am I kidding?! It's mental health! 'Simple' is never a word that is used around the transferring, admitting and sectioning of mental health patients. There is always far too much red tape, hoops to be jumped through, dragging of heels and differences of opinion, to make the simplest of things simple. Besides, where is the fun in having a fully accessed, ready to transport patient, complete with escort and a willing receiving unit?! Boring! We arrived at the hospital to a full welcoming party; lots of smiles, waves and enquiries after our health and wellbeing... OK, that's a lie; a miserable looking matron pointed at bed 1 and said 'she's in there'. That's more like it! 

Our patient had been in hospital for 32 hours. There were points where she had been on the verge of discharge but due to relapses in her psychosis she had 'flipped' and become volatile and violent again. To calm her down they loaded her with diazepam in the hope she would be lucid for transport. It appeared to have worked! She was lying on the bed, asleep, husband by her side, and the AMHP who had been with her for 14 hours and on duty for 23! THIS was encouraging. We put the beds together to make the transition across an easy one. Her husband woke her, she looked at him, she looked at the nurse, she looked at us, she looked at the bed next to her, she looked at us again... then the shouting began. Not so lucid after all. After 20 minutes or so we had made no progress. No hospital staff had attempted to help us, the exhausted AMHP from the hospital we were taking her to was trying her best but failing. The patient's husband was shouting, the patient was shouting (in another language now) and then she got up and made a dash for the exit. We initially tried to stop her but the husband said she was going to the ambulance and the AMHP seemed keen to get her on board. We went with it and that is exactly what she did. 

We now had a patient, under section, in the ambulance complete with belongings, notes and the husband. Where is the AMHP?! In her car. This concludes her involvement! It appeared we had the parcel, the music had most definitely stopped! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! I went back into the hospital to remind them we were supposed to have an escort. I was told she wasn't their patient and there were no staff or security to send. Brilliant. I went back to the ambulance where our 'calm' patient was now trying to escape from the ambulance. She was not safe to transport in this way; we had no means to restrain her, nor the man power. We requested the police. This is the message we got back:

"Sorry, this is not in our remit; the hospital will need to provide an escort / security for the transfer"

I get it. Yes, that is what they are supposed to do but they haven't. This is not the hospital asking the police to be the escort, this is me, the ambulance, the police service's best mate if you will, asking for assistance. I went back into the hospital to say they had to provide security for us as it wasn't the police's remit. This was the response I got:

"We only have passive security here, if you need an escort the other hospital will have to provide it, not us"

I'd already been told by the AMHP before she foxtrot oscar'd that this was wrong and her hospital (15 miles away) had no one to send, nor was it in their remit. Back in the ambulance, my crew mate was assisting the husband to restrain the patient manually as she was lashing out, punching the windows and threatening suicide. This was starting to feel like a wholly inappropriate, possibly illegal situation. Do we actually have the power to restrain? I'm going with 'yes', as I was restraining her for my own safety, but it does beg another question: is the AMHP legally allowed to leave, abandoning a duty of care, especially to a vulnerable patient who's needs clearly reach beyond two girls in green?! Hmmmm! I made another request for police, as yet again they are the only people I can realistically turn to. This was the response I got:

"We will not be attending this CAD, it's a hospital issue"

Seriously, what are we supposed to do? The patient is now in our care, although the 'being in our care' was a contentious issue. The patient was under section and as such is in the care of the AMHP, but this care was apparently delegated to us (whether we wanted it or not) right before she scuttled off to her car. Unfortunately, had we not wanted to convey, her legal obligation to stay could not be argued with as she was now screeching away in first gear, grinning into the rear view mirror! Back to the matter in hand. The hospital wouldn't assist us, the police wouldn't assist us and our control had told us not to convey if we don't deem it safe. That is easy enough to say, but we can't walk away now; we can't leave her in the back of the ambulance, and letting her run off would make her a danger to herself and others. Why on earth were we in the back of an ambulance trying our best to calm down and restrain a patient in the first place?! This is not what we signed up to when we accepted the job! Remember me saying 'simple transfer'?! Why were the words 'violent' and 'aggressive' not mentioned when requesting an ambulance? Where was the risk assessment? Basically, there wasn't one, or if there was it was written on a tissue in the AMHPs pocket. I imagine it read something like this:

"Call ambulance, say hello, run away."

I'm hoping you now sense the sarcasm in the title! Sensing the delay and confusion over her 'imminent' transport she became violent; she scratched us, bit us and spat in our faces. The three of us, including her husband, were holding her, tears running down her husband's face. I requested police again, this time citing a crew emergency off the hospital premises. This was the response:

"Unit on way, ETA 2 minutes"

At last! Is that how it works?! We have to actually wait until we are bleeding for it to become a police issue? OK, I know that isn't the case but being stuck in a grey area, the police, hospital and ambulance all work within their own policy frameworks. Why, where mental health is concerned, is there not clear procedures in place for the transporting of mental health patients? In terms of restraint, who is best placed to do it? Us? The hospital? The police? I know there are vehement oppositions to restraint, and I only see it as a last resort, but in this case it was a necessity. Does a hospital A & E have the means to restrain for a journey to another hospital? Apparently not! Are the police the most appropriate body to restrain a patient during transport? Apparently not! That's the issue yet again, when it comes to mental health, no one really knows who is supposed to do what! By definition, mental health is a health issue; one that in my opinion should be treated and dealt with solely by the NHS. In reality, it is also a huge part of policing but surely an inter-hospital transfer is not part of policing? Maybe it is; maybe prevention of an assault is prevention of crime! I know for a fact the police will say that the mental health teams are more than equipped to deal with it, and theoretically they are (see this post by Mental Health Cop explaining his stance on what the police should be doing). The problem is they don't play ball, and when they don't play ball, something has to give. Personally, if an ambulance crew requests police to their location then that is what they should get! Thoughts?


I'd love comments / thoughts from police, ambulance staff, hospital staff, AMHPs and anyone who has an opinion on these issues! Get talking!!

Nan Down!

"81 year old female, fall, unable to get up"

Falls are a huge part of what we do. Very rarely is there a shift where we don't do one or more. In terms of time it is a massive drain on resources due to the sheer number of falls and time spent on scene assessing them, treating, and /or referring them. As a job I love them, and in terms of the bigger picture, there is no way to reduce the amount of calls. We are an ever ageing population and if anything, the number of elderly fallers will continue to rise. 

Today we were met at the reception by the Warden who showed us round to the apartment. As I entered my head was turned by the Aladdin's cave that was in front of me. The place was full of knik-knaks and I mean full! Every inch of wall space was taken up with shelves, cabinets or photos. There were collections of crystal owls, frogs, spoons, thimbles, teddy bears, miniature houses, Kinder egg toys, McDonald's toys, cigarette cards, coins, stamps, the list was endless! A lifetime's collection in her tiny apartment, and it was all dust free! We found our patient on the kitchen floor, propped up by a cupboard and sporting a beaming smile.

"Hello my dear, what's happened today?"

"Pardon?"

"Hello there, what's happened?" I said slightly louder

She shook her head and beckoned me down to her level. I knelt down beside her and tried again.

"What's happened today?!" I said by her ear.

"I'm just pulling your leg, no need to shout, I'm completely deaf" she said with an air of amusement in her voice.

I had a little chuckle while she laughed away! I grabbed a pen and paper and started writing questions for her: Any pain? Are you dizzy? Do you want to go to hospital? etc. She seemed a very happy lady and just wanted putting back in her armchair so she could get on with her puzzle! We obliged, helped her up off of the floor and helped her to her chair. She was all smiles and had the most infectious laugh. She laughed at everything! Whilst my crew mate was doing her OBs and I was doing paperwork, she continued with her wooden puzzle; I couldn't help but join in! She squealed with excitement as I found a piece, I even got a little clap. She insisted we had a cup of tea and some biscuits with her so that is what we did. For half an hour we sat there doing a jigsaw, drinking tea and eating shortbread whilst writing down questions and having her answer them. Between the three of us we made a sizeable dent in the puzzle but not one in the paperwork! 

As much as this job needed two people to pick her up off the floor, she also needed the company; maybe not physically, but emotionally. She told us no one ever takes an interest in her puzzles. I suppose having a conversation with someone who can't hear you can be frustrating but no more so than for her. A huge part of our job is dealing with the lonely. A lot of time they call simply for company and time is not something that we have a lot of. Today, however she got the conversation and entertainment she needed. I'm sure the big wigs in the Ivory Tower would have preferred we just picked her up, scribbled our paperwork and rushed off to the next job but there has to be a balance between the human element and the target driven machine that is the NHS. I love these jobs; I could do them all day every day. I moan a lot about the drunks, the abuse, the minefield of mental health, heavy lifting and time wasters amongst plenty more; one 'Nan down' and it's easy to remember why we do what we do. In terms of targets the job was probably a complete failure; the call had been held for a few hours, we travelled from a fair distance away and we were on scene for ages. For me it was a success; patient was happy, treated at home, I was happy, and I got tea and biscuits! That is how the success or failure of a job should be judged!

Unsocial Networking

"Does social networking make you unsocial?!"

This week I read a blog titled 'Are you a secret blogger?' by Big Fashionista. It got me thinking a lot about blogging in general and the social media that surrounds it. The question was about who, in your life as a blogger, really knows what it is exactly you are doing? Obviously, the people closest to you are your family and friends but in terms of your blog, the reality is, they aren't.

When I came into blogging it was all new to me. Social networking consisted of having a stagnant Facebook page with a timeline full of people I went to school with but, in reality, couldn't give a crap what they had to say and I'm sure the feeling was mutual. I took the plunge and started my blog with no expectations. After 16 posts in the first month I had reached a measly 212 blog hits, most of which were me. Nothing to write home about, but then again I wasn't really telling people, not because it was private, but I didn't know how. Then I started to understand how Twitter worked and to be honest, everything changed. 

For someone not au fait with computers, Twitter was a strange concept to get around. So... let me get this straight, I tweet, re-tweet and mention and in return I get mentioned? You hashtag things, things trend, you follow people and they follow you? Clicking my first 'follow' button I felt a bit like a stalker to be honest! Anyway, despite my scepticism my blog started to get read; people would talk to me about it, leave comments and engage in conversations and debates. I followed more people and more followed me. Inevitably relationships are formed; you find that you have 'friends' in this online world that know more about you and what you do than your 'real friends'. I have put both of them in inverted commas because I don't really know what context either should be. I suppose it depends on your definition of a friend. I would say I am closer with a number of people on Twitter than I am with people I have known for years and socialise with regularly. Social media and networking is a very powerful machine and for me it has changed my life for the good. That's not saying it is without it's flaws. Twitter and the blogging community can still be like the school playground; there are bullies, backstabbers and those who just don't like you and will not hold back telling you so. There are trolls who will always leave negative comments no matter what you write. There are those who think they know best and have a right to try and belittle what you write. It is no different to every aspect of life, except, like many of your online friends, they to have no face and can hide behind that. Luckily these people are in the minority and if anything it spurred me on!

My blog is now a huge part of me. It is my hobby, my place to vent frustrations and share my troubles at work. Writing is almost like a second job! It is no different to me playing two rounds of golf a week, spending hours in a pub or sitting motionless watching all the soaps on the box. It is something I am immensely proud of and take great pleasure in writing, so why is it that my friends away from Twitter and work take no interest? If I was doing something that was on TV I have no doubt they would want to know more. Instead, I am writing and talking about my writing to people who do care. People I have never met, yet people who ask how I am and genuinely seem to want to hear the answer. As these people are the ones I connect with, it is these people I spend my time talking to. Unfortunately, that isn't done by have a traditional conversation sitting in a pub or a coffee shop. There are no lunches, dinners or regular social gatherings. It is all online and in a world of smart phones it is done at the end of your fingertips. Many a message, email and tweet is shared, many a comment left and it is all very engaging but not so much for the family and friends watching you do it. I have often been accused of always being 'attached to that bloody phone'!

If you are to believe the Daily Mail article, using iPhones and iPads make us bad parents. In fact, overuse is verging on neglect and a culture of 'passive parenting' has engulfed our society. Like everything, it's about finding a balance. It's also well worth ignoring everything that the Daily Mail says! One thing I can relate to though was in an article about withdrawal symptoms from smart phone. I do find myself strangely addicted to my phone. The 'phantom vibrations' they talk of are something I have experienced and it really does show the reliance I have on my phone. Could I go 24 hours without checking my phone?! No, probably not, but when asked that, I thought, 'could they go 24 hours without doing their hobbies and talking to their friends?! It's all about what is deemed to be socially acceptable. If I spent all the time that I blog and talk on my phone running, going to the gym or playing Xbox no one would batter an eyelid. My housemate says he might as well have a conversation with the back of my laptop and in general, the excessive use of my phone or laptop annoys people. What I don't understand is from the moment I open my laptop at no point does he engage in conversation with me, yet I am the unsociable one? Is it still the mid-90's stigma of computer geeks and 'dotcoms' that people don't understand? If people talk to me I talk back! I find it hard not to reply to messages though, not to check my emails and maybe that is something I should learn to do better.

Where is the line drawn between your social life and your online social life? Does being sociable online make you unsociable offline? Does being unsociable online make you more sociable offline? I don't really know, but as a blogger, I don't think I'm alone in saying when I am not blogging or am away from my computer or phone I miss it. I either want to write, promote my blog or chat to people in the blogosphere. It is after all something I have watched grow from scratch to what it is now. Can social networking exist alongside a fully functioning, full time, working family and social life or will there always be detesters to the online world? 15 years ago I would have probably said they can't but it's 2012. Having online friends is much more socially acceptable and year on year the two worlds are edging ever closer to being one.

Thoughts on a postcard please......

The Collapse

Yesterday I read a blog by Inspector Gadget titled 'The Collapse of the ambulance service'. As I read it, I nodded along and to be fair I couldn't argue with a lot of what was said. It sang very true. However, as it was written by a policeman, it very much looked at the issues from the police view point. And why wouldn't it!? Like everything though, there are multiple sides to an argument and different perspectives to be had. If you asked ten different bloggers to blog about the same subject you'd have ten completely different blogs at the end, all with their own personal slant and identity. I could have easily written a post called 'The Collapse of the police service' but instead I will just say my thoughts on the issues highlighted from the ambulance point of view.

I can't disagree with anything that was said. I have experienced police waiting for ages and ages for an ambulance, often with patients that do need us. Working in a city, the distances travelled are smaller than that in 'Ruralshire', but it is all relative. We may not cover three counties, but the higher call volume has the same effect on resources. At busy times, rather than travelling 2 miles we are travelling 7, and at the times of day when we are needed the most there always appears to be less units available. The government's cuts ARE killing the ambulance service, not necessarily from cutting numbers of front line staff directly, but by limiting the opportunity to employ new staff and a huge void is being left by the dozens and dozens of staff leaving each month. As a consequence, the shortfall results in a reliance on private ambulance services and volunteer community responders to help fill the gap. At busy times it does feel like we are on the verge of collapse. Calls being held for hours, general broadcasts asking for crews to help with waiting jobs, messages asking for staff to work on, offers of overtime every day of the week; it's never ending. Yet the work we are doing still seems the same; time wasters, drunks, sniffs and colds and *cough cough* police jobs.

Yes, whilst the police are frustrated with being called to 'perceived risks' because a patient at an address once had a knife 3 years ago, or an occupant once looked at a crew funny, we also have our frustrations. I can see their point, a lot of the flagged addresses need reviewing, but at the end of the day we are not equipped to deal with the risks that may or may not be there. We have no training in dealing with situations which turn sour, unless you count a half day course in conflict resolution. We also have no means of personal protection; no CS spray, asp, Taser etc, and no legal means of restraint. We also don't have the back up in sheer resources the police seem to have. It's a running joke that when we request police for an assault the 'no units available' on the previous job turns into 4 cars and a meat wagon for the most innocuous of jobs. But who am I to say what resources should and shouldn't be allocated? I'm always grateful, but is there now an expectation that ambulance crews should put themselves more at risk to save police resources?! I know the Daily Mail think we should! A crew was recently maligned because a patient died whilst they were waiting for police. If I get a message saying 'patient is violent' I will not go in without police. If the police take an hour to arrive, so be it.

We do call the police routinely for a number of jobs like domestic violence and assaults, but shouldn't that be the case?! They sound like jobs that police should be doing. It is crime after all! How about all the ambulances the police call for chest pains in custody, cuts and bruises post arrest and a variety of other calls where someone with a 'first aid at work' certificate could deal with it? Do these require an ambulance from an already stretched service? Yes, because no one wants the blame when the shit hits the fan. That's why the police rely on us and why we rely on them. If we get attacked because the police didn't show up the finger will be pointed and if someone dies because we don't show, the same finger is pointed. There have been times where I have waited hours for a police response. 'No units to send' is the answer we get, and it is the same answer we give them when all our ambulance crews are queued up at the hospital because there are no beds to offload our patients on to. Starting to see the chain? Hospital full, ambulances tied up waiting to offload, police tied up on jobs waiting for ambulances, ambulances stuck on jobs waiting for the police who are waiting for an ambulance, basically everyone is stuck and no one will budge, because we won't do the other one's job and can't! 

Maybe this is why police and ambulance have that 'special relationship' I have discussed before. There is a mutual respect for the jobs we are doing; we are sharing the same frustrations and the same difficulties, day in, day out, with no end in sight. Inspector Gadget calls it 'The Collapse of the ambulance service', I say it's 'The Collapse of the emergency services'. Well, the 2 that count anyway. While police are fighting crime and bitching about the ambulance control room, and while we are saving lives and bitching about police control room, the fire brigade are pumping iron, practicing "getting onto the truck the quickest" & having well paid second jobs. When they do wake from their slumber, they go on mass (25 fireman) to rescue a seagull from a pond. Yes, that happened, read this! Nothing will ever change; under the current government purse strings will only be pulled tighter, and no matter what government is in charge the police and ambulance service will both continue to cover their own arses whilst being run ragged! To quote Mother Teresa:

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing."

A sentiment that rings true for all of us. On a serious note though, if you can get shares in ‘Bluelight services’, then do so now. If I earned decent money, I would!