March - The beginning of Summer

[OurCreature]

Didn't think of that Eccs! Re the front seat, that is.

I'm still waiting for EVRI to arrive with their rations delivery - slot 11:30 - 13:30 so they are late - and might try the seat trick later if/when delivery has been made.

I am a bit fed up so I have got a bottle of Chianti to open before Chat tonight - assuming THAT happens!

[OurCreature]

Should have responded earlier to your post, Merry. I'm sorry that Mr M's hernia is playing up, and I hope the op turns out to be a fairly easy one when it happens.

[eccles]

Do you have a date for that Merry?

[OurCreature]

EVRI have moved the delivery slot to 19:00 - 21:00. What a shower.

However, the delivery was made at 19:08 so that delivery driver was good. I wonder if somebody simply botched tracking earlier on, because this time there was a pic of the driver and his name - there wasn't first time round.

[merry]

LOL at your windows joke, Eccs! really chuckled at that.

Oh poor OC! one thing after another isn't it gentle hugs!

No date yet for Mr M's op. I am actually hoping it will be towards the END of the summer, so he gets a bit of bowling in first... or I fear he may never get back to it

Chat was lovely last night tho we were pretty thin on the ground! If anyone is lonely tonight and fancies a bit of extra company there'll be an extra drop-in-and-out chat, to coincide with Tom's Dad's RadioShow (5-11pm UK time) which you can listen to online here - he plays a great range of music - anything from classical to classic pop . I'll pop in at some point but am busy from 9-10.

[merry]

Wet here this morning so no walk or gardening, which is what I had planned, but plenty to do in the house.

I'm still really enjoying my birdtable outside the washing-up spot' It's a pity this pic has come out blurry (2x zoom which is supposed to be ok on a Pixel, but isn't) because I love the cheery robin and the cheery pot behind him!

[OurCreature]

I received today a copy of the letter the consultant sent to my GP. He wants me to have another 24 hr ECG and also an ultrasound scan on my heart which he will arrange with the NHS. Meanwhile he wants my GP to try me on a diuretic.

Just 30 minutes ago I received a text from the surgery informing me that my GP wants me to arrange a routine appointment with her - probably in response to the consultant's letter. Fair enough.

Now it goes silly. My doctor is in on only Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I can arrange an appointment only exactly ONE week in advance on the day. So if I try to make an appointment for next Thursday, I can do it only on this Thursday. I have been told I can do it on the NHS app which goes live at 07:00 so I shall try that and if it doesn't work I'll try phoning when they open for calls at 08:30. I think this is known up and down the country as the 08:30 rush.

It seems to me that the main purpose of this new-to-my-surgery procedure is to discourage patients from making appointments to see their GP by making it difficult for them to do so. I think it stinks, but it may be their only option to cope with the number of patients on their register compared with the number of clinicians. I wonder if things will get so bad that we start referring to the NDS instead of the NHS; I leave you to guess what the D stands for.

Rant over. I know that there are really dedicated people working in the NHS, like STPD, and it grieves me that they are let down by these obstacle courses for patients.

This has made me so annoyed that I'm thinking of spoiling myself tomorrow with a trip to Romsey for lunch at Bella Vita. I'll see how I feel in the morning - I'm away from Them for a long time on Friday as I am going to Winchester for a haircut and it might not be fair to Them to be away for so long twice this week.

[Wildrover]

I think a major part of the problem is that so many GPs are part time now. In my practice only two GPs out of 15 are full time but they take on additional patients as if they were all full time. I think it's a consequence of two things - firstly the insanely generous pay and pension settlement given to GPs by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 2005 which effectively meant a 25% pay rise and a taxpayer funded pension that means GPs don't have to work full time after 50 to get a £1 million pension pot. Seecondly the fact that more than 60% of GPs are female now compared to 20% in the 1970s - at my own practice the two full time staff are men and there is one other man who is in his 60s and winding down; of the 12 female GPs 3 are on maternity leave and the other 9 are part time of whom 6 work less than 50% of the week. So roughly speaking they employ 15 GPs and get 7.5 GPs worth of work out of them. It's hardly a surprise no-one can get an appointment.

[merry]

I know that there are really dedicated people working in the NHS, like STPD, and it grieves me that they are let down by these obstacle courses for patients.

Thanks, OC I'm glad you realise it's not those on the front line at fault.

Our GP practice, for so long so amazing, is finally collapsing. Here's the letter we got last week:

At the moment the NHS is under extraordinary pressure. This is particularly true of General Practice. There are increased expectations from government and our patients about what we should be doing. Increasing hospital waiting lists have a big impact on us – patients who are waiting to see specialists or for treatment or operations need more input from us. There are huge financial pressures on General Practice. We want to let you know about the effect all of this is having on your medical centre.

Over the last few years, the medical centre has been under increased financial pressure. Like all your households we have had increases in all our costs – everything we buy costs more, our energy costs have spiralled, and our staffing costs have also increased. Over the last few years, the funding we get from government has increased by 2.1% each year. This increase does not get near to covering our current costs. You may have read about “new” money that has come into primary care networks. Some of this money pays for staff that are making a significant difference to patient care. However, the funding does not help the medical centre finances.

The impact of the financial pressures is already being felt. The income of the partners fell by 20% last year. In recent months four staff have left the practice – we cannot afford to replace them. As a result, our clinical and administrative teams are smaller. We cannot afford to pay for locums or over-time. Winchcombe Medical Centre is a team of fantastic people that we are all very proud to be part of. It is the team that makes the surgery such a great place to work and why our patients get good care. We are also very well supported by our patients and our patient group – which we value hugely. We think it is important that we are honest with you about what is happening. There are some things that you will notice will have to change and we need you to know why things are changing. Without change there is a real risk the practice might close.

All our staff are working extremely hard to provide the best level of care they can for you. We cannot work any harder. The current financial pressures and change in staffing levels mean that we will not be always offer the same level of service you are used to. We can only afford to offer the level of service we are funded for. You may have already noticed that waiting times for appointments are longer. There will be times that we may need to ask you to access healthcare elsewhere. For example, the pharmacy in Winchcombe is now able to assess and treat a number of minor conditions. The way you contact and access us may change. We are doing everything can to try and minimise the impact on the services we offer. We are looking at different ways of delivering services so that you can still access good quality care with us.

You can help us by trying to self-manage minor illness, by using other services when they are offered to you and by attending the health checks you are invited to.

If you feel strongly about the issue of general practice funding, you may wish to contact the politicians that control it – we are in an election year.

We will keep you up to date with changes at Winchcombe Medical Centre. We will do everything we can to continue to provide you with good quality care. We are very grateful for all the support you offer us.

The Partners

As an example of how well this (doesn't) work, Mr M has been complaining of an 'itchy scalp' for months now. He was once prescribed a preparation called Betacap, which has a topical steroid as the active ingredient. The bottle is empty, after seven years. I thought, surely you don't have to go to the GP to get this prescribed in a world which now has hardly any GPs and we are discouraged to contact them at all? So I tried at the pharmacy, as per above letter, and guess what, you do have to go back to the GP to get an eczema shampoo. The pharmacist, as they do, sucked in her teeth, tutted, and glared as if I was trying to buy liquid morphine

[merry]

But, onto nicer things! did anyone like my robin pic? Will anyone come to Chat tomorrow?

OC, did you treat yourself to lunch out after your medical frustrations?

[OurCreature]

OC, did you treat yourself to lunch out after your medical frustrations?

No - I decided that it wasn't fair to Them to leave Them for so long twice in three days. To make sure of arriving in Romsey at 11:50 for lunch I would have had to have caught the 10:06 from home. I would have aimed to catch the 13:30 from Romsey to arrive back home at just before 15:00. So I would have been away for 5 hours. I'll be away from home for even longer today as I am in Winchester to have my hair cut.

Once in a week is all right but twice in 3 days is pushing it a bit.

My travel documents arrived the other day and my BP has been comfortingly low-ish the past 2 or 3 days.

And - hooray - I managed to work the NHS appointments app to get a surgery appointment with my GP for next Friday at 14:00. That is handy because I have an appointment at their Totton surgery at 12:10 for my B12 jab. I won't bother going home - there is a cafe near the bus stop for the surgery in Totton and I noticed when I was last in there for a coffee and piece of cake that they do lunches; so I shall see what they are like. Something and chips probably but that would be a treat for me!

[Furby]

I think oc has guessed correctly that the obstacles are put in place to keep patients out and well done to OC for foiling their plots and getting an appointment anyway.

I don't know why they even try to fool people (probably as people are easily fooled) and all the media stories follow the line of great new helpful phone queue and app systems etc. The basic problem too many patients and not enough doctors isn't solved by more elaborate ways to get appointments only a small difference that some patients who need help will be put off and go without but most people who need help will be forced to keep trying and just be upset as well as unwell.

I found merrys letter annoying . Is that even legal. Using NHS resources to election campaign to patient database.
Sadly they will be very disappointed because the current government have put more money than ever before into NHS and drastically increased the migrant workforce and the opposition are just offering some more of both so it won't do much to help solve the problems which obviously aren't solved by more money or migrant workers. I don't know what the solution is wish i did. We already spend ridiculous percentage of income on the NHS any extra money they get has to be taken somewhere else and governments have run out of somewhere elses.

[merry]

The NHS is not doing well at present but at least there is one - imagine an NHHS - a national horses' health service!

I'm just too exhausted to make an amusing write up of it tonight but there WERE funny moments looking back at the day - just not IN the moment, which entailed a limping, hopping pony, an emergency vet visit, a lanced boil (which instantly relieved the pain thank god) and then the vet LEFT us to apply our own poultice, which needed 5 hands not four

one to hold up an unwieldy hoof out of the mud (as it now had an open wound) - a hoof that was not always entirely co-operating
one to slap on the sterile poultice while still holding the wildly waggling hoof
one to pick up the now not-so-sterile poultice from the grass and slap it on again
one to quickly wind the flex-tape around hoof to keep the poultice on
One to wield the sharp scissors to cut the tape, without cutting the pony
one to actually HOLD the pony!!

We applied a makeshift plastic bag we had with us over the whole shebang and taped that on and drove to a nearby (not that nearby actually) farm supplies shop for a Poultice Boot. Back we went again and on went the poultice boot.

She should be ok now bless her - it was so amazing when the look of pain went out of her eyes and she was immediately able to WALK again but we'll have to go back tomorrow and go through the whole bagging thing again!

Me and Pepper in her smart bandage

[eccles]

Oh my. I hope she gets better soon.

[Wildrover]

That sounds like a whole ton of hassle - still as you say, worth it if she's no longer in pain..

[Furby]

Ah the poor pony. Nasty vet running off and not being the fifth hand because he must be trained enough to know five hands are needed. I never heard of a pony poultice boot you learn something each day.

Postage stamps are going up in price yet again in april so I bought some more and they are still the queen head. In the royal mail thread we spoke about postmen delivering three days a week and what postmen could do other days but that can be explained by changing rotas over larger areas. HMRC are closing the phone helplines for 6 months a year which is less easily explained unless staff now get the summer off.

[OurCreature]

HMRC are closing the phone helplines for 6 months a year

Apparently they've done a U-turn on that today so far as the self-assessment phone lines are concerned; fiscal drag has increased the number of taxpayers who have to do self assessment by 20% but I doubt if the number of tax officers dealing with this extra caseload has increased by anything like as much, if at all. I'm so glad Mum passed away before the Inland Revenue part of HMRC hit this nadir; she'd have been heartbroken.

Meanwhile, I found out yesterday that I should have informed the DVLA about my heart block etc so I phoned them. The upshot is that the earliest I can drive my car is the end of July - 6 months after my blackout. And that depends on whether the ultrasound scan and the 24 hour ECG show that any irregular heartbeats etc aren't very common and that the consultant thinks I am all right to drive. The thing that made me think of it was the fact that in his letter to my GP the consultant clearly thought that I had already told DVLA about this. Well............I have now and DVLA are sending me some forms to complete and return. I shall discuss this and other things with my GP on Friday.

[merry]

Arrgh OC! that's a long time to be off driving

Ah the poor pony. Nasty vet running off and not being the fifth hand because he must be trained enough to know five hands are needed. I never heard of a pony poultice boot you learn something each day.

Here's the smart new black one! She's much better now, thanks all, but we're still changing the poultice daily. I look forward to it. No, really I do. I don't

Postage stamps are going up in price yet again in april so I bought some more and they are still the queen head

Oh gosh they'd better rush out some Charlie ones just in case!

It's all happening here, My Auntie Pat (my beloved Uncle Mick's wife) died yesterday (not unexpected, and she had faded very much into her dementia this year) but today (awful timing) their lovely daughter (my dear cousin) had to have a biopsy for a mass in her pelvis. The hope is that it's not malignant, but even if not, it means a hip replacement and she is only in her 50s :(

[OurCreature]

I'm sorry about your cousin's health issues, Merry - I met her at Sam and Jay's wedding IIRC and I liked her. I hope that the mass isn't malignant and that when it happens the hip replacement is successful.

It seems to be gloom and doom on the health front all over the place. Yesterday a work friend, also retired, had a serious abdominal operation and on top of that he has prostate cancer; I was hit for six when I learned about his health issues the day before. It makes mine seem like minor inconveniences.

[eccles]

My brother has been having health problems too. He was having shortness of breath and got a scan done on his lungs. They suggested he had early stages of COPD. But on the scan they also found an anomaly on his liver so he had a scan for that. That turned out to be nothing to worry about but that scan also included his pancreas where they found some small cysts, probably not malignant but they might go that way at a later point so at best it will be something to keep an eye on every six months. They are doing an endoscope next week to check it out further.
We will find out a week later whether they will simply keep an eye on it or get him in for surgery.