This was caused by "under-resourcing on the part of the contractor" and, the report acknowledges, the mail-bag being greater than expected when the contract was awarded Another disaster area was typing. In one district of the agency, staff who deal with claimants' appeals had not received any urgent typing for six days - despite a request for a 48-hour turnaround.Again, writes In Depth, "BET under-resourcing appears to be a key factor. The result, concludes the report, was a disaster.In Blackpool, it says, the company did not provide adequate security cover. The security guard installed "persistently failed to intervene to prevent anti-social behaviour by [agency] customers," writes In Depth, adding that overall safety and security "is an area of concern".Benefits Agency staff were also left without stationery and, last September, BET failed to meet 43 per cent of the targets set for opening post from claimants. There is a lack of goodwill and a lack of trust."The report from In Depth Consulting focuses on the three-year contract to BET, the giant office services group - currently the subject of a pounds 1.9bn takeover bid from Rentokil - to run the back offices of the Benefits Agency in Lancashire and Cumbria.BET's brief was to handle typing, open the mail, run the messenger service, ensure stationery supplies were up to demand and operate security for the agency's branches across the region, starting in January last year. In September 1990, Lee Rainford, 23, died from the overdose of a chemotherapy drug, which an inquest ruled was also due to lack of care.The 800-bed hospital was the first NHS trust hospital to be awarded a Charter Mark for patient care..

CHRIS BLACKHURST Westminster Correspondent A privatisation contract to run part of the Benefits Agency has resulted in a shambles, with performance targets not being met and officials expressing doubts that it is yielding any savings at all, according to a management consultants' report prepared for the agency.So bad have things become, says the report, a copy of which has been passed to the Independent, that "relationships between all parties are strained. Anybody that has come into contact with the baby will be interviewed."A hospital spokeswoman said: "Hospital management will be unable to make further comment as there is an inquest pending."Morale among staff at the hospital has been thought to be low after changes to contracts and staffing levels. As recently as last month, Wirral Hospital NHS Trust chiefs had to call for calm after anaesthetic equipment in the hospital's operating theatre was sabotaged by a disaffected member of staff.Last year, hospital nurse Paula Maxwell, 39, committed suicide after depression because of a job reorganisation.In 1993, another nurse, Dominic Rymer, was jailed for a year after he admitted tampering with a prescription for a nine year-old patient.In 1991, Hilda Greenwood, 82, died at Arrowe Park after a morphine overdose, and 50 year-old Barbara Hignett died from an adverse reaction to a drug Both inquests ruled the deaths were down to lack of care. Police are interviewing staff at a Liverpool hospital over the death of a three month-old baby girl, believed to be from a morphine overdose.

A number of staff at Arrowe Park Hospital in Birkenhead are being interviewed after the child, born three months prematurely on 14 January, died from the apparent overdose on 9 March. The death is the latest in a series of controversial incidents at the Merseyside hospital. A police spokesman said last night: "Until the coroner's results, we can't say any more. Alternatively, many numbers can be assigned to a single line, with a particular ringing pattern, controlled by the exchange nearest to the phone.It could be used by somebody working at home who wanted to distinguish between incoming business and personal calls (which would be listed under different numbers in a phonebook) or by families who might want to offer teenagers a separate phone number.Outgoing calls would still be charged to a single bill, but itemised billing would make it possible to identify who made which calls."While the technical limit is 16 lines per phone, it gets increasingly difficult to distinguish who is being called as you add more," said a BT spokesman yesterday. "It's easiest with two, and then it gets progressively more complex." The problem is that the exchange can vary the length of individual rings, but not their pitch.Multiple-number facilities have been available for some years in the US, where digital exchanges have been in use for longer.BT only converted its national network from older, analogue systems in the middle of last year..

Other cable companies are also planning to introduce the service.The system uses a facility available through digital telephone exchanges by which a particular phone number does not have to be connected to an actual line. The company says that its introduction nationwide is "a matter of when rather than if".The move is part of an effort to fight back against cable companies, which are using their own recently installed digital TV and telephone networks to offer a wide range of services.Cambridge Cable, which owns four franchises covering a total of 500,000 homes, has been offering the same "multiple ring" service - IdentiCall - since December at pounds 6 per quarter per extra number assigned to the line. They would then know precisely who the phone was ringing for. BT has had the system on trial since last July among a few hundred subscribers. A spokeswoman said: "It is moving downmarket for us, in a way, but we were glad to be doing something different, with families in mind."Children get very bored and we would be offering them souvenirs, a certificate and toys, as well as a McDonald's-style meal."Children will be able to visit the cockpit, under supervision, with a range of holiday souvenirs on sale to complete the outing.. The system, now on trial in Glasgow, would let several people in the same house each have an "assigned" ringing tone - for example the normal two short rings or two long rings. BT is testing a service which could assign up to 16 telephone numbers to a single incoming line, making the phone ring differently depending on which one is being called. But the bright red 161-seat aircraft, with McDonald's emblazoned across the fuselage and a trademark yellow "M" on the tail, is an earnest attempt by the fast food giant to make "flights fun for families" and to trailblaze the company's name across the heavens.The joint venture between McDonald's Switzerland, charter company Crossair and Hotelplan, the Swiss tour operators, will feature a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 aircraft customised to create an "ambience close to that of a McDonald's restaurant", but with red leather seats for comfort.However, a large fries will be out of the question at the Flying McDonald's.

The company is anxious to avoid a chip-pan fire at 30,000ft and counter service will be replaced by conventional meals on a plate.Crossair, a subsidiary of Switzerland's national airline, Swissair, usually specialises in upmarket charter flights for business clients, with flight attendants serving champagne rather than Chicken McNuggets. Big Macs and milkshakes will now be served." Not content with providing burger bars across the world's holiday destinations, McDonald's will shortly take to the sky in a big red aeroplane. The aircraft, dubbed McPlane in Britain and the Flying Ketchup in Switzerland, where the idea was conceived, makes its maiden voyage on 1 April. They include his pounds 43,000-a-year salary, his married quarters in Portsmouth and a pounds 100,000 pension lump sum.. "This is your captain speaking on the McPlane flight from Zurich to Palma. You have woven a web of deceit which has entangled your entire family and other unsuspecting people."The root cause has been your addiction to gambling but this does not alter the stark fact that you have been dishonest. The service relies on honesty and trust and you have abused that trust."Woodworth was also ordered to have his pay stopped until he had repaid pounds 2,655 and to suffer the financial penalties from his dismissal. But he had allowed his career to be blighted by his gambling addiction.President of the court martial, Captain Simon Goodall, told him: "There's no disguising the fact that you are the architect of your own downfall.