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.

The Daily Mail found 63% of the public recognised Ed correctly but 80% recognised Wallace.

Conservatives try to become the party of the North East – Unemployed in Tyne and Wear 6/10/2014

Here’s something unintendedly humorous, flagged up by Unemployed in Tyne and Wear from an article in yesterday’s (October 5) Newcastle Evening Chronicle:

Is there a General Election on the horizon or something ? The Tories are getting all concerned about the North East.

Growing the economy in the North of England and closing the wealth divide with London and the south east was one of the major themes of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham… The focus may seem surprising given that the party has few MPs in the North East.

The Chancellor’s plan is to turn the North into an economic powerhouse rivalling London by investing up to £15 billion on local transport links, picking a scientific speciality for universities to become world-leaders in, possibly building a high speed line across the Pennines, linking the North East and North West, and giving cities more autonomy and cash – if they agree to transform local government by introducing directly-elected mayors.

Major announcements at the conference included plans to freeze working-age benefits – including benefits received by working people on low salaries – for two years. This means cutting benefits in real terms, because of the effects of inflation.

Conservative leader David Cameron, in his conference speech, announced plans to raise the income tax personal allowance to £12,500. This would take one million more workers out of income tax entirely and give a tax cut to 30 million more, Mr Cameron said. An estimated 51,000 North East workers would pay no income tax at all because of the change. Many others would pay less tax. Isn’t this because wages are so poor to start with ?

Mr Cameron also announced plans to raise the threshold at which people pay the 40p income tax rate from £41,900 today to £50,000. It means a tax cut for many people earning above-average salaries. Mr Cameron said the 40p tax was supposed to be for the rich, but it’s currently paid by some senior nurses, teachers and police officers.

But critics pointed out that the Conservatives had failed to explain how they would pay the £7 billion cost of cutting tax.

Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said: “Nobody will be fooled by pie in the sky promises of tax cuts in six years’ time when David Cameron cannot tell us where the money is coming from.

“Even the Tories admit this is an unfunded commitment of over £7 billion, so how will they pay for it? Will they raise VAT on families and pensioners again?”

TANKER you about....?

“Even the Tories admit this is an unfunded commitment of over £7 billion, so how will they pay for it? Will they raise VAT on families and pensioners again?”

Ed was always a breast of women’s issues.

Every 6 months (approx) I have a 'prescriptions review' with my GP. Indeed, I cannot get my repeat prescription until I've had the review so it is held out of necessity on both mine and my doctor's part.

However, this doesn't change the fact, that there can be other things that medically go wrong with me and for which I need to seek medical advice. But the doctor goes a bit potty if I try to discuss such other things with him on what should be a 'prescription review' appointment. He says, "I have a limited amount of time so you need to make another appointment for that."

Sometimes, topics discussed in the prescription review overlap problems experienced which need a separate appointment. eg. Is recent stomach pain being caused by the prescription pills? etc.,etc.

Some of the prescription review topics require blood tests. The doctor doesn't take blood samples. One has to make another appointment to go to the practice to see the triarge nurse or the phlebotomist. Then another appointment is needed to discuss the results.

And then there are other miscellaneous things which require a visit to the practice, such as a 'Flu Jab' or a 'Shingles Jab'.

Naturally, you can see immediately how I might attempt to try to cut down on the number of visits I have to go on. Can one thing be done at the same time as the other thing? One has to balance such attempts with the Receptionist, who has doctors and nurses on holiday and the other phone ringing away with someone else's requirements.

Oooops! I forgot to tell you that exactly the same thing scenario is applicable to my wife.

Each individual trip we do and is taken by car and takes about 45mins plus 'waiting room time'. Poor Mr and Mrs ExecLine. Poor Doctor. Poor Receptionist. Poor Nurse.

Yes. They do need a much better appointments system and much better thought out methods of dealing with routine patient requirements. However, nothing much has altered at my doctor's surgery (which is actually a very good one) from my point of view as a patient during the last 12 years or so whilst we've been visiting. And during that time, I'm certain sure, that lots of extra reporting and extra workloads have been foisted on doctors and practices. Just such a thing as a new computer system or new computer software presents a truly massive problem for them.

For lots of this 'patient-doctor' stuff, there has to be 'better way than the face to face way' - perhaps by using Skype, by telephone or by self monitoring but with change there is always resistance to it and fear from involvement with it. And so the NHS systems which are funded by the never ending purse of the State are doomed to merely continue wasting time and loads of money.

I think it is a difficult and possibly intractable problem. The doctor has a window for appointments. He must expect a manageable average time for each person. He can only keep to his schedule by trying to restrict each person to what they came in for. A partial solution would be for you to ask for a longer appointment at the time of booking the check up. We have had to do this for my mother in law and it works quite well. The receptionist then allows for this and books slightly fewer patients.

Exec,

What your post exemplifies is the lack of thought in some areas of medicine and its practice.

Especially, in general practice and other areas of assessment of problems.

But above all is there is forgetting of the goal of the NHS and those practicing it it.

Also, if instead of repeated follow up appointments the considered the problems before them and tried to make a definitive diagnosis, or at least one to act upon, investigating appropriately (even referral) at the first, second or third review their work load would diminish.

The problem the buck sometimes doesn't stop with the first doctor seeing the problem, but the locum or part timer who is rota when the next appointments are made. (Lack of ongoing responsibility, but still picking up the fees.)

This is not true of all practices, but is true of too many.

Ps. It also need doctors to utilise and relate to "allied" staff appropriately.

About 6 years ago I had a sort of MOT at the hospital. I don't go to the doctor much and I thought some tests might be in order. My doctor did some of them and referred me to a hospital for the rest. The system was called 'drop in'. I had a document that let me attend the hospital whenever I wished for the blood tests, xrays etc.

That sounds pretty good for the patient. It was a system that Labour brought in. A good idea you may think. Now here is the problem. Because it is drop in, the department is staffed in case someone does drop in similar to a cafe. When I arrived there were three staff sitting there reading the papers and making phone calls. I asked if this was normal. They said it was like that most of the day except at the very start of the day for a short while, lunch time and some times at the end of the day. People were arriving at convenient times to them and the department was staffed all the time. At lunch time there was a considerable queue as most people came then and had to wait a long time.

Anyone looking at this would try and even out the peaks and troughs. One way would to hand out appointments evenly spaced. I believe many hospitals have reverted to this now.

PS.
Doctors, are not bound to a 10min (or other) appointment and if they have a medical problem difficult to evaluate and taking time they can tell the other buggers to wait a bit longer.

If it is a "psychological problem" needing time, they can make a longer appointment at an appropriate time, or refer to others who are more competent in that area.

General practice needs a review.

so says our resident NHS and most other issues know-it-all

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

perhaps he has a solution to deter or even prevent "no shows" and time-wasters?

and a solution perhaps for the drunk and abusive or even violent louts who roll into A&E every friday and saturday night?

This unfortunate tale is in my local Northampton newspaper today. It's right up Goldfinger's street because it gives him ammunition in his war against IDS:

Employee stole £5,000 worth of garden machines from Northampton shop after family was owed benefits

by Paul Lynch
paul.lynch@northantsnews.co.uk
Published 07/10/2014 07:30

An employee has admitted stealing more than £5,000 of garden tools from the Northampton company he worked for – but said he did so to support his children and disabled partner.

Richard Williamson, 46, of Merthyr Road, Northampton, took two petrol generators, a stone-cutter, a chainsaw and strimmers from the Kingsthorpe firm Garden Machines between January and May this year.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of theft at Northampton Magistrates’ Court yesterday and is due to be sentenced at Northampton Crown Court on Tuesday, November 4.

Prosecuting Matthew Thomas said that Williamson’s bosses found out he was stealing from the company when a ‘stone-cutter- was taken out of the company warehouse without any paperwork being filled in.

Mr Thomas told the court: “The item was transported from the warehouse by Mr Williamson but it would appear that the van making the drop went to Mr Williamson’s home address on the way instead.

“For a couple of hours he was unaccounted for.

“On that day there was no paperwork relating to that item when there should have been.

“It raised suspicions relating to Mr Williamson.

“The item was then found on sale on an Ebay website.”

The website in question belonged to another man, but the prosecutor said that man was unaware he was receiving stolen goods.

But defending for Williamson, Daniel Green said the thefts came about because the defendant was suffering form financial difficulties.

Mr Green said Williamson had ‘several children’ and a ‘disabled’ partner whom he was currently caring for on a small wage.

Williamsons financial difficulties intensified three years ago when his partner was deemed not eligible for Employment Support Allowance benefits.

He and his partner won a tribunal to have the decision overturned last year - but Mr Green said they were still waiting for the Government to begin the rebated payments.

“This has left the defendant financially on his knees,” Mr Green said.

Mr Green asked for the sentencing to be adjourned to give time for probation services to assess Williamson.

The defendant was bailed and told not to enter Garden Machines Ltd or contact any of its employees before his appearance at crown court.

Manuel,

I would put you on duty as the door keeper!

You may feel at home in that function.

Perhaps, you could even serve the tea!

not ducking questions yet again i hope, or is it a tacit admission that you don't have anything useful or constructive to say yet again?

Are you having treatment for OCD.

Shame of minister who refuses to accept link between benefit ‘reforms’ and deaths.
7/10/2014

http://i0.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/140807harper.jpg?zoom=1.5&resize=529%2C315

Tarnished record: Mark Harper previously came to our attention when it was discovered that he dodged a £20,000 fine for employing an illegal migrant worker. Vox Political covered the story on August 7 this year.

The new Conservative minister for disabled people has insisted that his department is right to ignore reports of deaths linked to the loss or non-payment of disability benefits.

It seems that, in an interview with the Disability News Service at last week’s Conservative conference, he said he did not accept that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be collecting this information or trying to learn lessons from such deaths.

The article continues: “One disabled activist suggested last week that this failure could amount to criminal negligence, while Samuel Miller, a prominent disabled academic from Canada, said this week that DWP had ‘seriously breached its duty of care by ignoring benefit-related deaths’.

“But Harper said he did not ‘accept the premise’ that DWP should collect and analyse reports that suggest a disabled person’s death could have been linked to the non-payment or withdrawal of benefits.

“He said: ‘If somebody in those sort of cases, if someone has [a] mental health [condition] and then something happens, trying to disaggregate what was the cause I don’t think is as simple as you are trying to suggest.’

“When asked whether he accepted that any deaths had been caused, or even partly caused, by the loss or non-payment of benefits, he said: ‘Of the cases I have seen since I have been the minister where there have been allegations, when you look at the detail they are not as simple and straightforward as people are alleging.’

“But Harper did promise to ‘go back and look back at what processes we have in place to track cases’ and to look at the Freedom of Information Act response from DWP that led to the DNS story.

“There have been numerous reports of disabled people whose deaths have been linked to the employment and support allowance claim process, or the refusal of benefits, including the writer Paul Reekie, who killed himself in 2010, and the deaths of Nick Barker, Jacqueline Harris, Ms DE, and Brian McArdle.

“Many of the cases became widely-known through media reports of inquests, but in the case of Ms DE, the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland concluded that the work capability assessment process and the subsequent denial of ESA was at least a ‘major factor in her decision to take her own life’.”

Of course this all goes back to the Freedom of Information requests submitted by Samuel Miller and others that prompted Yr Obdt Srvt to make the now-infamous “vexatious” request of June 2013. When it was refused on appeal to an information tribunal, Disability News Service submitted its own request.

A repeat request by Vox Political has since been refused on the grounds that the DWP intends to publish some or all of the information at an unspecified time in the future. These ‘section 22′ refusals must be supported by certain conditions which the DWP did not meet, and a reconsideration request has been met with stony silence (other than the acknowledgement of receipt), so once against it seems an appeal to the Information Commissioner (and possibly another tribunal hearing) will be necessary.

It’s all stalling tactics. The Conservatives in the government know that, if the true extent of the deaths becomes clear, the game will be up for them.

After all, who in their right mind would want to vote back into office an organisation that had just caused the deaths of anything up to or beyond 50,000* of their fellow citizens? Nobody would be safe under such a government.

Turning back to Mr Harper, independent disability researcher Mo Stewart has written to him with a stern rebuke that he will, no doubt, ignore. Here it is:

“Please be advised that the public are beginning to challenge why, historically, your predecessors don’t manage to remain in post for very long and I note your website continues with the government rhetoric whilst totally disregarding the human consequences of the austerity measures.

“I often wonder what exactly MPs mean when claiming that we are living in ‘difficult times for families’ when failing to take responsibility for the deaths and devastation you have clearly created, using cash as the only justification for the fact that ‘malnutrition’ is now regularly found in Coroners’ reports. The poor, the sick and the disabled people of the UK didn’t create the banking crash Mr Harper, so why are you hurting them but refusing to publish the growing mortality rates of government policies?

“Please be advised that your defensive claims that that you do not “accept the premise” that the DWP should collate and analyse the many, many thousands of deaths now directly linked to the withdrawal of DWP benefits is tantamount to an abandonment of responsibility by the British government, it may well lead to charges of crimes against humanity once all the detailed and often disturbing evidence has been collated and analysed by other sources and the British government is already about to be investigated by the UN for the demonstrated human rights violations of disabled people. All this whilst the UK faces the return of Victorian diseases linked to extremes of poverty…. That’s quite a track record this government has built up.

“With respect, you are not professionally qualified to assess these reported cases and regardless of if you admit it or not, high calibre REAL experts are now advising that: ‘…there is growing evidence that the draconian welfare reforms are irreparably damaging the mental and physical health of benefit claimants.’

“If someone is already surviving on a token income and the government reduce or remove it, with savage sanctions or by using a totally compromised ‘assessment’, how precisely do you expect these people to live, to eat or to survive when they are already the poorest in the land?

“Coroners don’t lie Mr Harper and the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland didn’t make up the case history when they concluded that a vicitm’s death was due to the impact of being ‘stripped of benefits.’ http://disabilitynewsservice.com/2014/03/woman-killed-herself-after-being-stripped-of-disability-benefit-says-watchdog/

“This question isn’t going to go away because DWP Ministers fear the public reaction if the figures of welfare reform related deaths are ever published.

“Now the DWP are attacking our older disabled veterans by threatening to remove the DLA of our War Pensioners, whilst the PM continues to wax lyrically at Conference about the debt this nation owes to our armed forces. Unwise Mr Harper, very, very unwise.

“Release the mortality figures Mr Harper and don’t ever presume that we are about to stop asking for them.”

In addition to the above, it seems appropriate for Vox Political to reiterate:

Not only does the DWP have mortality statistics for benefit claimants, but it has them in a form that may be freely distributed to anybody asking for them, within the cost limits imposed by the Freedom of Information Act.

The only reason these numbers are not in the public domain is the fact that ministers like Mark Harper refuse to allow their release.

The only reason they have for refusing to release these figures – that makes any sense – is that they fear the consequences: Public shock and outrage.

That is not the response of a responsible government. It is the response of a gang of criminal killers who are terrified their misdeeds will be revealed.

*This is an estimate based on the known number of deaths related solely to a single benefit – Employment and Support Allowance – between January and November 2011.

It’s all stalling tactics. The Conservatives in the government know that, if the true extent of the deaths becomes clear, the game will be up for them.

After all, who in their right mind would want to vote back into office an organisation that had just caused the deaths of anything up to or beyond 50,000* of their fellow citizens? Nobody would be safe under such a government.

I think Goldfinger's got the Secretary.

Work till you drop.....



Retirement age to rise by as much as six months per year

The pensions minister, Steve Webb, says Britons must accept dramatically longer working lives to avoid a health care funding crisis



By Peter Dominiczak, Steven Swinford, Katie Morley and Dan Hyde

10:08PM BST 06 Oct 2014




Older people will be encouraged to work longer under a Government plan to increase the average retirement age by six months every year.


Ministers believe that the retirement age needs to increase dramatically to reflect Britain’s ageing population and to avoid a health care crisis.


The average age of retirement is 64.7 for men and 63.1 for women. The Department for Work and Pensions said in its business plan that it would like the average to rise by as much as six months every year.


The number of over-65s in England is expected to increase by 51 per cent over the next 20 years, and the numbers of those aged 85 and above will double by 2030. Ministers accept that the trend will hugely increase the costs to the NHS, elderly care and state pensions systems.


Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, admitted that the target was “ambitious” but said the retirement age had already been rising for women.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/11144991/Retirement-age-to-rise-by-as-much-as-six-months-per-year.html

Think thats stupid. Whilst at 6th form the Economics teacher repeatedly used to point out how we would retire a lot younger and earlier.

It all because the Tories have redistributed the wealth into far fewer hands and as a consequence, young kids cant get jobs as older people have to stay on at work longer to make ends meet.

Fred : If it is a "psychological problem" needing time,

So how much time does your doctor give you for your psychological problem's ?