Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

GF,

I think in the case of acute illness in a child, an appointment should be available the same day, or if judged "serious" within 2-3 hours during the day. (These can be evaluated by suitably trained staff with direct access if needed to "doctors".

If it is "routine" reviewing then that period can be extended.

Similar for adults, but judgement of urgency can be evaluated by medical trained staff.

There is no reason for delays.

But doctors have to have the courage, if a patient frequently bucks the system for personal convenience without respect of the practice organisation, to point it out to them.

Also, there is a role for doctors to educate patients and parents to recognise what is probably "trivial" illness and self treatable from the more serious.

Also, patients have to be educated to recognise that sometimes patience is a better treatment than a "pill" and the former is all that is needed.

=============

There is another problem leading to more consultations and that is the "bloody note" for everything society we are now attempting to live in.

=====

This is brief, and some of the details can cause the problems.

=========

Maggie Thatcher change Medicine for many practitioners from a vocation to a business.

Doctors not being "stupid" got fed up and started concentrating more on making a buck than the ethos of the profession.

(Loads of money.)

===

The stupid contract reform by Labour did not help the situation, also to a lesser degree "hours of work" which should have allowed for exemptions.

God knows what happens in the Scottish Isles. Must ask my niece's partner.

I can usually get a same day appointment at my surgery but this is Wales, land of free prescriptions and sheep! :o)

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2014/02/public-not-noticing-impact-of-council-cuts/

Public ‘not noticing impact of council cuts’

By Richard Johnstone | 4 July 2014

Nearly two-thirds of people say that they have seen no real change in council services despite reductions in local authority funding as part of the coalition government’s deficit reduction plan, a poll has found.

According to the survey by insurers Zurich Municipal and Ipsos MORI, 63% of people said they had not noticed any difference to their council services, despite almost all local authorities introducing major changes, including reduction in some services, in response to budget pressures.

Bloody hell, are you blind Haystack?


Look at the state of the roads for example.

Kim,

Do feel at home there?

8-)

Hazy one.

Perhaps 47% are not dependent on the services being cut!

Kim cheers.

Seems to me its North of the Watford gap where we are suffering.

Fred I understand where you are coming from but would a young mother not be taking too much of a risk chancing on her young child?. Using her judgement for instance could be a massive risk.

Hays ...............open your eyes Council Services are appaling compared to 4 years back.

Had to get a blue badge for my mother.......4 years ago 2 days wait........now 2 months if your lucky.

Actually Fred, The field next to me has a herd of cows in it at the moment, not as accessible as sheep! :o)

Look out Crawshaws will be after the meat for their pies.

Lol!

Labour 6 point lead..........

UK - Opinium/Observer poll:

LAB 35%
CON 29%
UKIP 18%
LDEM 7%
GRN 5%

Osborne’s tax avoidance failure reveals the facts about Coalition policies 6 July 2014.

What bad luck for George Osborne to get two sums wrong in the same week!

The first sum was a simple times-table question; a school pupil asked him to multiply seven by eight and he couldn’t do it.

The second sum was more serious because it was a sum of money. Rather a lot of money. £1.9 billion, in fact.

The Boy had claimed that around £3 billion in extra tax had been recovered from “high net worth individuals” – tax avoiders – after investigations by HM Revenue and Customs.

Unfortunately, errors in the way HMRC’s performance targets were set meant that these improvements were… well, “overstated” is how the Huffington Post described them.

This meant that, when HMRC said it exceeded its target for tax compliance in 2010-11 by £1.9 billion, in fact it had only just hit its target. The following year, its claim to have exceeded targets by £2 billion was out by the same amount; in fact it had made gains of just £100 million.

There is around £21 trillion in unclaimed, avoided tax sitting in ‘haven’ bank accounts around the world – many of them British territories - and Osborne has managed to collect just £100 million.

Meanwhile unemployed and low-paid working citizens – who have no income apart from state benefits, due to the systematic destruction of the UK’s industrial base by neoliberal politicians who were intent on increasing insecurity among the lower classes – are being starved to death.

Osborne has only himself to blame. When the Coalition government came into office, the Tories insisted that they didn’t need anything like as many public-sector workers as were then on the books – and started laying people off wholesale.

Now the DWP has a claimant assessment backlog of 700,000 for ESA alone (compared with less than 30,000 in May 2010) and the government’s flagship Universal Credit project is hopelessly bogged down, to quote just two examples of the remaining public servants being unable to do their jobs.

Meanwhile, outsourcing of government jobs to private companies has created a disaster: The National Health Service in England is slowly falling over the cliff, with privateers taking so much in profit that the service will go £2 billion into debt next year while waiting times at Accident and Emergency departments continue to increase out-of-control (no matter what lies David Cameron dribbles in Prime Minister’s Questions); a £116 million IT programme arranged with French firm Steria to run staffing, procurement and payroll services for civil servants was scrapped at a cost of £56 million – and then Steria was re-hired to outsource British jobs to India, Poland and Morocco, again at UK taxpayers’ expense.

Does anyone remember the fiasco when G4S was hired to run security at the London Olympics, failed to meet requirements, and the Army had to be called in at the last minute?

Atos and the DWP, anybody?

Andy Hamilton commented on this phenomenon during this week’s News Quiz on BBC Radio 4: “For decades, we have watched governments hand over the utilities and services to companies like G4S and Serco and we have watched as they basically ruined them.

“And then once they’ve ruined them, they get given some more to ruin until they’re running all sorts of services; they’re now huge!

“I still hanker after the good old days when G4S was just Group 4, and its core business was letting prisoners escape from vans.”

Some of us still hanker after the good old days when George Osborne was just a department store employee, and his core business was folding towels.

GF,

I am not blocking access for the ""worried" "ill".

(Help them evaluate the worry appropriately.)

But a lot of illnesses are "trivial", when you know that they are "so".

Rather than placating the mother with a "prescription" for "antibiotics" etc. the parent may be helped to recognise and treat accordingly and notice deterioration or resolution of condition.

This can be aided by periodic routine medical clinics at time of immunisation etc, in the child's early life

Part of the problems are due to the loss of the extended family units, with "experienced" sensible elders.

The problem with kids recognising the "trivia" and the "serious", in doubt both should be seen and FOLLOWED UP as necessary.

The majority of good practices are able to put the above into their working practices.

==========

One of the problems in medicine is recognising Psychosomatic outlets for "problems" by doctors, and addressing them appropriately, rather than allowing them to become ingrained.

Easily said, but difficult to do.

PS.

Post 43247 is a fair assessment of Osborne's record.

Something has to done about stopping migrants from crossing the med...they are going to turn Europe (including Britain) into a bigger dump then it is already !.....these people must not be allowed on Italian or Greek soil.....they must be returned home....this is becoming drastic because rough tactics might be needed....this is the trouble with people from Africa and such : they muck up their country and then they arrive here and you better believe the same chaos will happen here unless somebody does something about it....it's all very well feeling sorry and caring for these people, but Italy and Greece cannot cope with this invasion of undesirables on their coasts...

Update - Labour lead at 2
by YouGov in Political Trackers and Politics
Sun July 6, 2014 6 a.m. BST

Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 4th July - Con 34%, Lab 36%, LD 8%, UKIP 13%;

RF.

"they muck up their country and then they arrive here and you better believe the same chaos will happen here unless somebody does something about it.."

Are the people who took the bribes and corrupted the country the same ones who are leaving their countries in boats, or the ones who are transferring "money" to London for laundering.

My bet is that the majority are just poor buggers who wish to survive and possibly improve the expectancies of their children!

Perhaps, some may class many of the present leaders and bribers, as undesirables.

Lord Tebbit hints at political cover-up in 1980s over child abuse

Ex-Thatcher minister says people's instinct was to protect 'the system' as it emerged a further 114 documents have been lost



Daniel Boffey and agencies


theguardian.com, Sunday 6 July 2014 10.42 BST




http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/06/child-abuse-coverup-1980s-lord-tebbit

Fred1New....Europe cannot accommodate these people....they might be person or persons in need of help but I know how they think.....Africa is one huge mess and if this lot arrive here, it is not for our benefit...they breed like rabbits for one thing...you have to get into the mentality and their way of thinking of these people....it is not by listening to the "dogooders"and most politicians broadcasts on the tv and radio that is going to help finding a solution to this problem.....(they are too scared to be branded as bad boy racists and losing their plush little jobs)...it is a very serious problem and tough decisions have to be taken otherwise : distinctive populations will be tainted by this mass arrival...