Tag Archives: appointment

A Tricky Conversation

11 Replies

I’m in a position where I have so much to write about that I’m getting jammed.

That’s a good start. I had a letter on Monday night when I got home. I recognised it as an NHS letter and my heart sank. More nanny-state, bureaucratic nonsense, I thought. I’ve only just done the AAA Screening and have nothing else due. What do they want now?

It seems they want me for Lung Cancer Screening.

In a letter dated last Wednesday and delivered on Monday, they gave me a date for a screening appointment – Tuesday. That’s right, less than 24 hours notice. I wonder which management guru has just been paid a fortune to come up with this strategy.

Theoretically it probably stops people changing appointments, but in practical terms it’s a nightmare. Fortunately it was a phone appointment so I could let it go ahead, but it wasn’t very convenient.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

For instance, I work in a shop with two other people, is that a good environment for discussing medical matters, some of which are better kept confidential? And I work in a shop with a lot of valuable, shiny items, do I want to give out my home address if we have members of the public in the shop? The answer in both cases is, of course, no.

I would rather have done it on Wednesday when I’m not at work. Or before 8.00 or after 4.00, but this is the NHS we’re talking about. Apart from the nurses and ambulance drivers most of them don’t work out of office hours.  If I was organising this sort of thing I would certainly be looking at the practicality of contacting people in the evenings. At flu time our local surgery is happy to work on Saturdays – because they know this is a good time to gather large numbers together.

It all went as expected. I answered questions, some of which had nothing to do with the health of my lungs, and, because I used to smoke heavily, I was told, in the manner of a TV host delivering news of a prize, that I had won a second screening appointment and would be allowed to answer more questions at an inconvenient location in order to decide if I was to be given the star prize of a trip in a CT Scanner.

What annoys me is that they have all the information they need on my smoking habits and my family cancer history because of my previous biopsies. They don’t need to ring up and bother me with all this malarky.

Ah well, another day, another NHS story . . .

I feel more like I’m being pursued rather than cured.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

 

 

Day 200

12 Replies

I woke at 6.30 and washed, sat on the bed to put my socks on and immediately felt hot again. This turned out to be due to hot air that had built up overnight, as it was, fortunately, cooler downstairs. Outside it was quite pleasant and the bees wee working happily on the teasel.

Reporting to the surgery for my blood test at 7.50, I asked what time the switchboard opened, because I wanted to book a telephone appointment with the doctor. They didn’t seem too keen, but I played my ace with a symptom I knew they couldn’t ignore. I won’t pass this information on as it would make you wince, but it meant that within 50 minutes I was face to face with a doctor.

I hadn’t anticipated this, and had actually planned on being in work to get the parcels off, as we are slightly behind due to the partial close-down for the heat. I was further delayed by going to the pharmacy to pick up anti-biotics, but still made it to work before 10.00. The anti-biotics are for the chest infection, not the other thing. These days I tend to save a few symptoms until I have enough to make it worthwhile navigating the appointments system.

In the afternoon I managed to salvage the rest of my day off, with lunch fro two at KFC. They were cleaning out the hot drink machine so I had to have  a fizzy drink. As an apology they gave us a very nice, though unhealthy, chocolate and fudge chip cookie. As I said to Julia as we shared it a the end of the meal, it was ironic that it really needed a nice cup of tea to wash it down properly.

NHS Roulette

23 Replies

Do you remember me saying “At that point we will start the game of NHS Roulette to see what I actually get. ” in the last post?

Did you think at the time that I was being unduly  pessimistic, or unfair on the saints who run the NHS?

Well, after picking up my phone from the shop I went to the pharmacy, queued, got to the counter, asked for my prescription and was given a bag that didn’t look like the one I was expecting.

It seems that the stuff I ordered four weeks ago hasn’t come, but I did have a bag of things I hadn’t ordered. I would have ordered them today, as they were due. Unfortunately there was one item missing from that lot too – the important one. So all in all, NHS scores zero for efficiency, yet again. It’s a wonder they don’t actually kill more people with the number of things they get wrong. I used to take the view that they did dozens of things right for every on they got wrong but at the moment it’s running about 50;50, which isn’t great odds when you are gambling with your health.

It’s possibly sorted now, after a phone call, but you can never be too sure about these things. I await the next cock-up with bated breath.

After that, I booked a vaccination appointment. That was an experience. The web address didn’t work so I used the phone number. I was number 50 in the queue and they were answering two a minute, according to the running commentary. Sometimes my hopes rose when they answered four in a minute, sometimes they fell as the number decreased by one, or even zero. Eventually, I got through, and found out why they were so slow. They needed my NHS number, and, of course, it’s not something you either memorise or keep to hand, unless the people asking you for ti have thought to tell you in the text they sent. They, of course, didn’t think of that.

Then, after ascertaining which was my nearest test centre, they told me there were no appointments there and they were waiting for more to be released, which wouldn’t be released until tomorrow. That was interesting, because until then I thought that each day had the same times as all other days – silly me. They asked if I’d like to ring back tomorrow.

Let’s see. Would I like to ring back tomorrow and spend another 25 minutes hanging on – it’s an ordinary number, not a free one, and I am of an age where 25 minutes is a significant amount of time. I settled for an appointment that is further away. Strangely, they didn’t offer me on at City Hospital, which I can see as I type. They are doing them there because one of the neighbours is going there for hers tomorrow.

It will take 30-40 minutes for them to assess me before vaccination, then I have a 15 minute wait afterwards. half an hour before the vaccination? NO wonder it’s taking so long to give them all.

Pictures are random sky shots – one being a rainbow over the Ecocentre and the other being crepuscular rays over the lake at Rufford park. That is knowledge I have gained by reading Derrick’s blog.

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Moving on

28 Replies

Events are moving on. The hospital rang this morning and I am now booked in for a pre-operative assessment. I gather that I am not too far from being back in hospital as previously they had me in within weeks of the assessment.

It didn’t go particularly well, as they didn’t have a bed for me on the first date. They took me in on the second attempt. Unfortunately it didn’t work, and they had to have me back. At that point there was a repeat of the bed scenario. Four attempts, two admissions and one fix.

I’m going to adopt a patient attitude and see what happens.

That’s an attitude using patience, not the attitude of a man in pyjamas  and a hospital bed.

No pictures today as it’s been overcast.