This story is shocking: why are the Met and Housing services so bad, and why do we put up with it?

[GreenLunchBox]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11019143/Picture-medical-secretary-lay-dead-London-flat-two-half-years-revealed.html?ito=native_share_article-masthead

The article depicts her as a 'lonely spinster' but what if she was simply an introvert and really happy to live her life in isolation? It takes a LOT of work and live in a city and literally have no one in your life who notices you're missing...not a colleague, a postman, a neighbour. Maybe she purposefully cultivated alone'ness and was happy that way?

Because with gas checks you have to make multiple attempts over several more months to try to get the cust to book an appt before then applying to court for an access injuncrion which takes many more months to come through. It would be easy for those legal processes to take a year, especially with the court system delays currently. We're putting cases into court now and they're being scheduled for feb and march 2023!!

I cant speak for the police, but as a housing officer I've found dead customers and they do slip through the net. You have to remember, each housing officer probably has a patch of between 4000-9000 properties each if they'rea big landlord. And on the one time i arrange a forced entry due to a welfare check, the cust hauled us over the coals and complained to the MP. Apparently it's no business of ours why she wasnt answering her door or collecting her mail from her mail box.

Whilst I think its terribly sad what happened, and I dont know what happened with the police, from a housing perspective it's not that simple to just gain access, legally.

If I'm not in for three consecutive gas check appointments my housing association go to court to gain access that's with me engaging with them they nearly took me to court in 2018 because I rearranged number one they were late for number two and I had to leave for work so I was out when he came I had a flurry of letters and phone calls to say if I didn't comply with the third they would go to court this was over a two WEEK period

The housing association is totally in the wrong on this one

Definitely

But that was 2018, the court system is seriously bogged down right now!

Seriously, I have pretty serious ASB cases being listed for next year in some courts.

I find it surprising that her work place didn't report her missing when she didn't show up and make contact? I would certainly do that for a colleague who's made no contact with the team.

Very sad. Someone must have cared for this lady. According to the article she always had a smile for everyone.

I can't believe nobody would check on her.

Yes it was 2018 but they will still threaten it now they are in constant contact over gas checks missed one in the pandemic due to covid they said again if you keep missing them we will have to take legal action we had literally just tested positive the day of the appointment

Maybe it's just my housing association that's madly hot on this 🤔 it's possible but I always assumed this was the norm

Well, just because that's the way you're running your department doesn't mean it's ok. It's absolutely substandard service and we shouldn't put up with it.

The work situation is the most puzzling thing about this story.

A medical secretary is someone who is so missed if they are off for just a day.

The employer wasn't mentioned in the (badly written) story so we don't know if she had left/retired/was still meant to be working/ was still being paid

A medical practice (I don't think it says whether it's a GP service or some other service like a hospital) should be the most hot on employee welfare, you'd think

The more I think of it it's more likely to be a hospital than a GP practice. Secondary care is very impersonal. She didn't turn up and they just got locums?

No idea of it's true or not but in the comments on the article someone mentions her being agency or bank staff to explain why her colleagues didn't notice/do anything.

But given her neighbours did notice and report it repeatedly only to get fobbed off and ignored, who knows?

Very sad and frankly incredibly depressing.

Surely if the police or indeed any official attended in response to the concerns, they would have smelt the stench of decomposition described and broken down the door?! One can only assume that by the time police attended the smell had faded, but it still makes no sense that they did nothing, given the piles of post, the neighbours’ concerns and the fact nobody had seen her? And the fact the police supposedly spoke to her after she’d died is utterly baffling.

Disturbing suggestion in the Fail article that someone was potentially going in and out of the flat after she’d died by scaling the scaffolding. Doesn’t bear thinking about really.

there was a similar case some years ago. Tragic amp.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/09/joyce-vincent-death-mystery-documentary