We have spoken with the neighbour and Platform Homes wanted £4000 off her for changing the doors, painting the place and cutting the grass. The home only has 4 rooms incl kitchen. Bathroom is tiled. The doors were not cheap doors and looked better than the original doors! Platform Homes charge by the square metre to cut the grass. Young lad cut all the grass for £15! The lady employed some local trades people at a fraction of the prices that Platform wanted to charge and apparently they have done an excellent job using good quality paint unlike the cheap nasty stuff that Platform would use! Also I got it wrong as during their tenancy they did repaint the place themselves about 5 years ago using decent quality paint. What's a bet that Platform will try and screw her for some money by stating something is not up to their standards?

Very true however when you have been waiting 5 or more hours to be discharged after spending an unnecessary week in hospital, you are tired and all you want to do is get it over with and probably would not have picked up that the prescription was not right for you. You trust the doctor who has given you the prescription that it is correct. Just to add, OH was admitted to hospital on 4 different occasions over the last year each time on an urgent basis. On the last occasion in October 2022 OH almost died as it took the ambulance 5 hours to arrive. Luckily the district nurse was with OH at the time. Each time OH was admitted, the professionals seemed to be guessing at what was wrong and even did an unnecessary op to remove the gall bladder and this did not resolve the issue. It was only on the fourth occasion in October that rheumatoid vasculitis was finally diagnosed as the culprit as they picked that there was a blood clot in the right leg! Not good. Now on blood thinners and loads of other medication and on recent stay in hospital, one doctor stating that OH needs to stop taking blood thinners and take less steroids and another doctor stating that OH needs to carry on with blood thinners and increase steroids. You can't win!

OH has been tested and is definitely allergic to penicillin as a few years ago nearly died because of the allergy and had to be resuscitated. If the medication had be collected that same evening when I collected OH, there is a strong possibility that OH would not be with us at present.

OH was phoned last Tuesday by a rheumatology specialist who said OH needed to come into hospital for a scan and they had a bed and medical staff waiting for OH and it would take a few hours. On arrival at hospital and going to the relevant department, no one knew anything about it. The specialist was not available and could not be found initially. Eventually they tracked him down and OH was told to go to A&E where OH booked in and then waited in A&E for a couple of hours as no one knew what was going on and by this time the specialist had gone home anyway. Eventually on early Wednesday morning OH was booked into a bed in A&E. OH had not eaten or drank anything since breakfast on Tuesday morning and in A&E no drink available plus OH never had any money as did not expect to be staying at hospital for long. A blood test was done on Wednesday morning and red cell count was low so they gave OH a blood transfusion and was told that OH would be discharged later the same day. The rheumatology specialist disagreed and OH ended up staying another night, but was transferred to a hospital ward late Wednesday night. No sign of the medical team etc. On Thursday staff told OH that OH would be discharged later the same day, but again a disagreement between departments meant OH stayed another night. On Friday told that an appointment has been made for the Monday and if OH is discharged on the Friday and goes home OH will lose the appointment so OH spent the weekend in hospital. In all this time OH had only seen the specialist who had phoned and told OH to come into hospital once and that interview was for about 10 minutes. However where they had inserted a cannula for the blood transfusion, OH's wrist started swelling and there was pus coming out of it so they removed the cannula on the Saturday which had been in since the Wednesday when they did the transfusion. OH had a thin red line from the infected area right up to her elbow joint. They said sorry and wiped it clean, but pus continued to come out of it over the weekend. OH was not given any antibiotics. On Monday a different specialist from the gastro department came and told OH that they would be conducting an endoscopy at midday. When the time came for the endoscopy, OH was told that it had been cancelled as there was no need for it and OH could go home. No reason given for the cancellation. The discharge option was countermanded by another doctor or specialist and OH ended up staying another night. On Tuesday morning OH told again that OH would be discharged later that day after doctor visit. Eventually at about 1pm a doctor came around and confirmed that OH would be discharged as no reason for OH to stay in hospital. Doctor said it would take a couple of hours for discharge papers to be processed through the system. Eventually discharge papers came through at about 6.30pm. No reason why it should take so long in this day and age. OH was then prescribed an antibiotic medication and told to go to the hospital pharmacy to collect it. As it was already late and dark, we decided that we would travel back to the hospital the next day to collect the medication. On arrival at home and looking at the medication, it was for an antibiotic that contained penicillin and OH is allergic to penicillin and it may have killed OH as OH's immunity system is compromised. OH's medical records indicate that OH is allergic to penicillin plus while in the hospital issued with an arm band which clearly indicates that no penicillin should be administered. This is a really big mistake for a doctor to make. Just after 8am this morning OH had a phone call from the sister on the ward who had noticed that the doctor had prescribed an antibiotic with penicillin and OH was advised to contact her GP for a suitable antibiotic. Basically OH should never have gone into hospital and should never have been made to stay in hospital for a week. OH should not have had an infection develop where the cannula was inserted and should never have been prescribed a drug that would have killed OH. We are very concerned about this and feel we need to approach an organisation called PALS who are supposed to look after the interests of the patients and resolve issues. OH does not have any issues with the nurses or sisters who looked after her, but is very upset about how the whole episode evolved at management level especially as it was unnecessary in the first place! Has any one experience of dealing with PALs and is it the correct route to follow to escalate a complaint to the hospital trust?

Update. Sadly even though she is a pensioner, she has had to spend a lot of money repainting the place even though the housing association never painted the home in all the years that they lived in the property! I think she will be very glad when she has moved. I did try and speak to her, but it just seemed to go over her head and she is under the impression that the housing association are in the right. Makes me angry when a HA knowingly takes advantage of people. I think the HA is Platform Homes and the property she is moving into is also administered by them as they are now based in Solihull in Birmingham.

I did amend the letter for her, but apparently the lady has gone ahead with employing someone to do the painting etc. as according to her neighbour she was worried that she would not be able to move into her new place. I think the Housing Association may have employed "scare tactics"? I have not seen her for few days so assume she is staying with her sister. When my father passed on, the local housing association tried to bill the estate for repainting etc, but sent the bill well after the estate had been settled. They then tried to get us to pay, but we told them to take a hike. never heard from them again. Seems these Housing Associations want every last penny and do whatever it takes to try and bleed people dry!

Thanks a very helpful letter that I will pass onto her. It will also stand us in good stead if we ever decide to move. I would prefer not to get involved with housing associations etc as I have enough on my plate at the moment with all our own personal issues.

Thank you, but that number is for re homeless have nowhere to stay tonight are worried about losing your home in the next two months are at risk of harm or abuse The elderly lady does not fall into any of the categories above.

Thanks but no contact numbers for advice regarding housing issues. Why is it that organisations think everyone is on the Internet?

I cannot find the appropriate forum to post this so if the mods want to move it to the correct forum it would be appreciated. The elderly neighbour across the road lost her husband last year and wanted to move to a different area to be near her sister. She is currently in a Housing Association home and has been for many years however the housing association has changed hands at least 4 times during their tenancy. She has managed to find a council home near her sister and gave in her notice to the current housing association. However they are now telling her that either she has the home painted or they will have the home painted and bill her. To us the paintwork looks okay and normally wear and tear however where they put up pictures there are marks. They have been in their home for the past 10 - 15 years and it has never been painted by the association. They are also telling her to replace the front door. The door was changed for a better quality door many years ago and with permission from the original landlord. If the current housing association have to change the door they will bill her. I doubt if she can afford to pay for painters and another door. All this stress is really upsetting for the elderly lady who does not have Internet or even a mobile phone. She came crying to my wife who was out walking the dog. Surely the original contract is still in place even though there has been a change of housing associations over the years and what can she do to get help as we cannot help? Shelter only seem to have Online chats or email and cannot find any number she can phone for help. She lives in the Malvern district. Thanks for any advice I can pass onto her.

Although we both get PIP they also removed the "Severe disability element" for some strange reason. According to their rep that I spoke with yesterday this should not have been removed and they will be investigating. It has now been nearly 3 months since they stopped it. They were very quick to stop the benefits, but extremely slow to reinstate them!

I have already asked them about reconsideration and I got nowhere as it seems they do not understand the rules fully either as all they tell me is that it will be back paid. However even so it is now 7 weeks since my wife was discharged from hospital and still no sign of the benefit being reinstated although we are entitled to it and it has been confirmed that it will be reinstated eventually, but no idea when. The rules are very confusing and not exactly clear and are opposite to what we were told previously. If they had diagnosed my wife correctly the first time instead of discharging her too soon, there probably would be no issue

Thanks not sure I understand it fully, but maybe you can offer so more insight. Wife and myself are regarded as disabled and both get the carers allowance for one another. She was in hospital in Aug from 5th until 22nd and then again from 30th Sept to 1st Nov. She should never have been discharged in Aug which is why she was readmitted urgently on 30th when she almost died.

My wife was admitted to hospital in early August and discharged 17 days later. We both get carer's allowance which changes the amount of pension credit I receive. DWP was notified and my pension credit was reduced. It took them 3 weeks to reinstate it. Unfortunately 6 weeks later end of September my wife was admitted back into hospital as the first time she was misdiagnosed and probably discharged too soon. DWP notified and within 3 weeks they reduced my pension again. My wife was in hospital for 32 days and discharged on 2nd Nov. We are still waiting for the benefit to be reinstated and every week when we have phoned in we have been told it is in a queue. Yesterday the person that we spoke to said that because she had been in hospital in August this was link to her stay in hospital in Oct as it was within 3 months of her previous admission. I have tried searching to verify this information, but no such luck so not sure if they are telling porkies or not? We were under the impression that if the break was longer than 28 days then the clock would start ticking again on the second admission and would not be linked to the previous admission which was more than 28 days? Can anyone please advise as the reduction of over £110 a week is having a big knock on effect on us.

Regarding the communication about warranty I specifically asked about warranty work being done by a Jeep dealer close to our residence and was told it would not be an issue if claim is approved. I really thought it was a warranty backed by Jeep. Regarding me being third owner they stated that prior to the current owner before me there was only one owner. A play on words. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but misleading. Besides the reg issue and number of owners, there is a serious issue with the glass on the car and all windows will probably need to be replaced plus the mirrors. That is in the processed of being actioned at present.