I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
Yes, the call back system is appalling. You literally cannot plan to be doing anything else because they will likely call at the most inconvenient time. And if you miss the call? Back of the queue.
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
Tbf that’s a good point you pulled me up on there - and thanks for clearly toning down from your usual language to make it.
I guess I was over focussed on what Truss called the awful state school and education she started from, before making good for herself. I do accept even common people like Truss can go the UKs great university’s (either of them) if they try very hard at a subject and want a proper job afterwards.
Her dad was a maths professor! She's middle class not "common". But like most middle class people and 93% of the population she went to a state school.
This is like when Bryan Gould (to whom I have been kindly disposed since I read about him dancing a jig of joy on receipt of the news of John Smith's demise) claimed his dad was an 'agricultural labourer' but it turned out he owned half of New Zealand.
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
Which is not what was proposed by the Health Secretary this morning.
The proposal is if you want an appointment, they will have an expectation that you will receive a phone call within 2 weeks.
That's what I am unimpressed with
No matter what the Health Secretary says, GP performance will depend on the attitude of each surgery. The one nearest me is just awful and they do all that they can to avoid seeing people and force them to go to A & E. The one 2 miles away is fantastic and if you are ill, you will be seen that day. They have found that by actually seeing people and providing medication/advice/referals etc it means that demand for appointments goes down as people are either better or are in the NHS system. They regularly have days where they have many unused GP/Nurse appointments.
If she can "force" poor performing GP surgeries to improve then she will have achieved a miracle.
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
A 1% popular vote lead would likely not be enough for the Democrats to hold the House. They had an over 1% lead in 2012 but the GOP held on.
They should hold the Senate though
ANd the gerrymandering has got a lot worse since 2012. My guess is that they will need a 3-4% lead in the generic vote to hold the House. Before the overturning of Wade that looked impossible but the SC has motivated women in particular to have a higher propensity to vote than is normal in the midterms.
Although the 538 forecast says "Republicans are favored to win a majority of seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.3 points"
I really don't think that can be right. The example @HYUFD gave of 2012 where the Republicans held the House despite losing the popular vote by 1% is more in line with my understanding. Some of it is gerrymandering but some of it is just the old fashioned ineffeciency of the Democratic vote with pointless, massive wins in the cities but losing out in the more finely balanced suburbs. We see similar things here with Labour.
I'm just reporting what 538 seem to be saying here:
It surprises me too, and they don't offer any explanation.
An article from June also says "Our model calculates that Democrats would be favored to keep the House if they win the House popular vote — or lose it by less than 0.7 percentage points"
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
Just picked up my wife's asthma inhalers from the local Boots. As I arrived an old lady exited and gave a big sigh. Foolishly I asked if she was ok. She said she'd been late for her doctors appointment and had been told she'd have to wait 2 weeks for another. "Oh no" I said. "Bloody well get up earlier then" I thought.
Of course, we don't know the full story. Bus may have broken down, for example. Or heavy traffic due to an accident. Or a street blocked off for pipe works.
I was once nearly an hour late for an MRI scan in Burton because of an accident on the A38. If it had been cancelled, it wouldn't have been my fault but it wouldn't have been ideal either.
As it happens, I was lucky. Everyone else was late too, including the staff.
Liz Truss was born penniless, on a farm. Fighting against rickets, the orphan was kindly taken in by a well-meaning family, but the thugs at Roundhay almost threw her back.
She was never one to be beaten down, though. One day, as a teenager, she saw a clip of Lady Thatcher at the Tory conference. She had referenced Norman Tebbit's bike speech. One night, unbeknownst to her adoptive family, who were looking after her in a pit village, she took her bike from the shed, and rode it all the way to London. Within two years, she was head of Lehmans' risk and global securities division, and the rest is history.
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
Irony? LizT makes great play of having been educated at Dotheboys Hall.
One comment I read after one of her more rubbish speeches - if her Comprehensive managed to get her into Oxford it must have been a lot better than she is making out.
Or her father pulled strings, of course.
But from what I know, which may be completely wrong, it's probably the former.
That in itself raises questions about her integrity, but equally Harold Wilson played the same card most days and he was quite successful.
Just picked up my wife's asthma inhalers from the local Boots. As I arrived an old lady exited and gave a big sigh. Foolishly I asked if she was ok. She said she'd been late for her doctors appointment and had been told she'd have to wait 2 weeks for another. "Oh no" I said. "Bloody well get up earlier then" I thought.
Of course, we don't know the full story. Bus may have broken down, for example. Or heavy traffic due to an accident. Or a street blocked off for pipe works.
I was once nearly an hour late for an MRI scan in Burton because of an accident of the A38. If it had been cancelled, it wouldn't have been my fault but it wouldn't have been ideal either.
As it happens, I was lucky. Everyone else was late too, including the staff.
Or she had suddenly developed amnesia and had forgotten about the appointment.
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
If they do nothing other than that, it alone would justify Truss becoming Prime Minister. 👍
The consequences of her plans is that if you think tax and interest rates are high now you've not seen another yet....
We joke that the next election is always the one to lose but whoever wins the next election is going to have an economic situation that makes the mid 1970's look easy...
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
Yes, me too. But it does need the various steps to proceed quickly. I asked for a call from a GP for a non-urgent issue in the morning, got one in the afternoon, and had a blood test organised for next day. No problem with that level of service at all. I also don't think that we can reasonably insist that you must always see the same GP AND that the GP must be available in a short time.
The problem is that many people don't find that their GP practices are anything like that fast - some seem to be almost overwhelmed.
Quite right! As an OAP I talk to other OAPs and among the casual subject for discussion are medical services. In the small town in which I live, provided one can use the telephone and is prepared to be patient things are fine. I usually get a call back later the same day, and the receptionist knows roughly what time. But in the next small town there appears to be chaos at the practice; can't have a call back that day, no they don't know when, can't have an appointment. Seems to be something to do with a number of support staff, and the competence of the practice manager
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to continually read this made up shit about you....
The irony is the more I see these stories the more sympathy I have for Harry and Megan and the less I like the rest of the Royal Family (even though it's unlikely the Royal Family are involved in these stories)
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
Irony? LizT makes great play of having been educated at Dotheboys Hall.
One comment I read after one of her more rubbish speeches - if her Comprehensive managed to get her into Oxford it must have been a lot better than she is making out.
At a friend's kid's party a couple of weeks back I was chatting to her mother-in-law (know her fairly well from past gatherings, former teacher). What I hadn't realised before was that she was a teacher at Truss's school and, in fact, taught Truss - I knew it was the right kind of area, but hadn't made the possible connection. She was pretty pissed off about the things Truss has been saying and painted a very different picture of the school. She also had some interesting recollections of Truss (I won't repeat in detail here - she said she and some former colleagues had been approached by a couple of newspapers for interviews, but they had all refused as they thought it inappropriate for a teacher to comment like that). Nothing sensational at all, all stuff that fits the current - or at least my - picture of Truss. In essence, the oddness that is apparent now is nothing new.
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
Irony? LizT makes great play of having been educated at Dotheboys Hall.
One comment I read after one of her more rubbish speeches - if her Comprehensive managed to get her into Oxford it must have been a lot better than she is making out.
Or her father pulled strings, of course.
But from what I know, which may be completely wrong, it's probably the former.
That in itself raises questions about her integrity, but equally Harold Wilson played the same card most days and he was quite successful.
I went to a secondary school that dropped from seven classes in year 7 to six classes by year 10, because so many kids had been permanently excluded for violence. There would be fights in the corridor to determine who would get to sit next to me in class tests, and poke me with a compass so that I showed my answers.
I still made it to Cambridge, mostly because my Dad had gone to Cambridge, and his Dad was a graduate, and so there was an expectation at home that I would do well at school and go to university. When you told my Dad that you scored 98% on a test he'd want to know how you managed to drop 2%.
I know nothing about the school Liz Truss went to, but it's not implausible to me that she ended up at Oxford on her merits, and despite her school, and without any inappropriate influence.
Union has become ‘decidedly less popular’ in Scotland, report finds
The British Social Attitudes poll attempts to discover the prevailing feelings in the UK on a number of topics, Scottish independence among them.
… the survey shows the shifting attitudes in Scotland through the years, with support for independence rising from 27% in 1999 to 33% in 2014 – in the weeks ahead of the referendum on Scottish independence – and eventually rising to 52% last year.
The time series also showed a drop in support for devolution as the governing structure in Scotland, from 59% in 1999 to 50% in 2014 and a further drop to just 38% last year.
Support for not having a Scottish Parliament has remained roughly at the same rate, falling from just 10% in 1999 to 8% last year, although the figure peaked at 17% in 2004, the survey suggested.
The authors of the report, who included polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice, pointed to the 2014 referendum and Brexit as factors for the increase in support in the past decade.
They said: “Since 2014 there has been a marked increase in the level of support for independence, and especially so since the EU referendum of 2016, after which leaving the UK became more popular than devolution for the first time.”
“The Union has certainly become decidedly less popular north of the border.”
Interesting perhaps that support for devolution has fallen. Does this mean that Nicola Sturgeon's genius is to deflect blame for any perceived failures of the Scottish Government she leads onto the constitutional question? Is there a paradox that the better the Scottish Government performs, the less need will be seen for independence?
The beauty of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey and the British Social Attitudes Survey is that they are a very long series of standardised questions, comparable over time. They are academic exercises and are not published with the aim of, for example, selling newspapers. They are serious works, not throwaway snapshots.
What they tell us is that there are long-term societal trends underway. Devolution was incredibly popular in Scotland during the 80s and 90s, in the period culminating in the double ‘Yes’ votes in the September 1997 referendum. But what we have witnessed since is the long, slow decline in that devolution fervour, in favour of full sovereignty. To the stage we have reached now, where independence support has totally eclipsed devolution as the preferred constitutional endpoint.
The status quo ante - abolishing the Scottish Parliament and returning to direct rule from Westminster - is as unpopular as ever, bubbling along below 10%. Which explains why none of the main political parties advocate it.
The decline in support for devolution is primarily a problem for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats: it is very much their baby. Neither seems to know what to do about the Scottish Question they used to so trumpet. Labour’s standard answer is to mumble something incoherent about ‘Gordon Brown’ every six months or so. If pressed, you might still find a Lib Dem willing to mention the word ‘federalism’, sotto voce. They don’t believe it themselves, so unsurprisingly fail to convince electors.
Yes, I get the independence thing. What puzzles me is that normal politics has remained suspended for more than a decade; it is as if all that mattered down south was Brexit, say, and there was a short while when that was true.
The most vocal pb Scot critic of the SNP is @malcolmg and while he rails against the Scottish Government, his main complaint is that it is not seriously seeking independence.
This is what I mean by Nicola Sturgeon's genius. Even if Scots voters are unhappy with economic or industrial decline, or health, with some areas of Glasgow in particular having low life expectancies, Sturgeon has convinced voters that none of this is due to the Scottish Government's incompetence but is all Westminster's fault so that what is needed is independence. There is not even analysis of which extra powers needed would be gained by independence because, of course, if there were, then they could be acquired through devolution. Again, of course, this mirrors the campaign for (and against) Brexit but that has now faded.
You're right about the failures; they constantly blamed on Westminster. But the successes (no laughing at the back) are also seen as contributing to the case for independence. Illogical but not ineffective. It's not really like Brexit in that regard, more like the EU's traditional 'more Europe' being the solution to any problem.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
In small, or even medium size communities, that is often not an option. One practice serves the community; practice in the next community will not take patients in this.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Puts all their whining about press intrusion in perspective, doesn't it? I mean, who among us could possibly object to a national newspaper picking apart our body language at our granny's funeral?
I've no reason to like Harry - the little I know of him is from a former colleague of my wife who was at Eton with him and that's not good (although possibly the stories say more about others at Eton than about him). But I have to say I really respect him quitting his royal role and putting his family first. In his position, I hope I'd have had the balls to do the same.
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
The GPs did nothing for you here and there is huge pressure on A & E. Defund the GPs and get them doing proper doctoring in hospitals.
Union has become ‘decidedly less popular’ in Scotland, report finds
The British Social Attitudes poll attempts to discover the prevailing feelings in the UK on a number of topics, Scottish independence among them.
… the survey shows the shifting attitudes in Scotland through the years, with support for independence rising from 27% in 1999 to 33% in 2014 – in the weeks ahead of the referendum on Scottish independence – and eventually rising to 52% last year.
The time series also showed a drop in support for devolution as the governing structure in Scotland, from 59% in 1999 to 50% in 2014 and a further drop to just 38% last year.
Support for not having a Scottish Parliament has remained roughly at the same rate, falling from just 10% in 1999 to 8% last year, although the figure peaked at 17% in 2004, the survey suggested.
The authors of the report, who included polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice, pointed to the 2014 referendum and Brexit as factors for the increase in support in the past decade.
They said: “Since 2014 there has been a marked increase in the level of support for independence, and especially so since the EU referendum of 2016, after which leaving the UK became more popular than devolution for the first time.”
“The Union has certainly become decidedly less popular north of the border.”
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
In our area you would have received a call from the practice nurse or their pharmacist and either a prescription or a doctor appointment
As has been observed GP's practices are private businesses and it does seem there is little or no consistency and that is something Coffey needs to address in England
I would just say our A & E and operation waiting times are as bad if not worse than England though
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
Mine is OK (Sort of) but there's one practice that covers about 4 villages (With 4 different sites or so).
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
It's often not possible to change GP as many operate on the basis of we cover this exact area and nowhere else... Fixing that problem would introduce some competition....
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
This would be the budget which preceded the collapse of the housing market, an increase in the current account deficit, high inflation, high interest rates and the recession of the early 1990's. That budget? Boom followed by bust.
Thank God Truss is challenging Treasury orthodoxy then.....
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
If they do nothing other than that, it alone would justify Truss becoming Prime Minister. 👍
The consequences of her plans is that if you think tax and interest rates are high now you've not seen another yet....
We joke that the next election is always the one to lose but whoever wins the next election is going to have an economic situation that makes the mid 1970's look easy...
If taxes are to go up, then let them go up on everyone via Income Tax or similar, rather than only working people via National Insurance.
Though I don't think they need to, if I'm wrong, reversing the NI hike is still the right thing to do.
Liz Truss was born penniless, on a farm. Fighting against rickets, the orphan was kindly taken in by a well-meaning family, but the thugs at Roundhay almost threw her back.
She was never one to be beaten down, though. One day, as a teenager, she saw a clip of Lady Thatcher at the Tory conference. She had referenced Norman Tebbit's bike speech. One night, unbeknownst to her adoptive family, who were looking after her in a pit village, she took her bike from the shed, and rode it all the way to London. Within two years, she was head of Lehmans' risk and global securities division, and the rest is history.
This reads like half of my linkedin feed, just move it to the first person and get a picture of her standing next to a flash motor.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
A lot of GP practices won't accept you if you don't live within a prescribed area. So the choice is often theoretical rather than real.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
A lot of GP practices won't accept you if you don't live within a prescribed area. So the choice is often theoretical rather than real.
That's true, but a lot will and a lot have overlapping areas.
Its worth trying at least, but most people don't even realise they can try and change GPs and assume they're stuck with the ones they have.
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
If they do nothing other than that, it alone would justify Truss becoming Prime Minister. 👍
The consequences of her plans is that if you think tax and interest rates are high now you've not seen another yet....
We joke that the next election is always the one to lose but whoever wins the next election is going to have an economic situation that makes the mid 1970's look easy...
If taxes are to go up, then let them go up on everyone via Income Tax or similar, rather than only working people via National Insurance.
Though I don't think they need to, if I'm wrong, reversing the NI hike is still the right thing to do.
£130bn of spending that isn't attached to any Government Revenue. That's going to be £7bn in interest that needs to be found before we think about repaying it.
And the reason why the tax increase wasn't on Income tax is because the Bozo stated in the manifesto that Income Tax would not be increased...
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
I currently live in a city, so I have more options than most, but the closest GP is only 10 minutes walk away, while the next closest is 23 minutes.
Even if I'm quite unwell I can normally manage to drag myself ten minutes walk, but if I choose a surgery further away I'd have to drive, or be driven, or get a bus or taxi. Just like with schools, most people want to be able to use the closest GP and have it be good. They don't want to participate in a market.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
A lot of GP practices won't accept you if you don't live within a prescribed area. So the choice is often theoretical rather than real.
Yes, which is why when the government proposed to essentially nationalise GP services by making all GPs employees rather than for profit partnerships I supported the idea. In London it's easy to switch to a better GP but loads of the country doesn't have that choice so nationalising it and standardising services makes sense.
Phone call triage works for acute issues, such as an ear infection, say. It's completely crap for people with chronic conditions to be passed through the same system, so that they have to go through triage for their chronic condition time after time after time and bring yet another person up to speed with their condition.
It means that someone with a chronic condition receives the same trite and superficial advice and they don't get the professional help to understand their condition and manage it.
Perhaps those with chronic conditions should be handled by a separate system from the standard GP one in general? It feels like they tend to have a different set of requirements: more likely to want longer appointment slots, more benefit from always seeing the same doctor, more benefit from working with a doctor who spends most of their time on dealing with that kind of condition rather than with the usual round of one-and-done miscellany...
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
If they do nothing other than that, it alone would justify Truss becoming Prime Minister. 👍
The consequences of her plans is that if you think tax and interest rates are high now you've not seen another yet....
We joke that the next election is always the one to lose but whoever wins the next election is going to have an economic situation that makes the mid 1970's look easy...
If taxes are to go up, then let them go up on everyone via Income Tax or similar, rather than only working people via National Insurance.
Though I don't think they need to, if I'm wrong, reversing the NI hike is still the right thing to do.
£130bn of spending that isn't attached to any Government Revenue. That's going to be £7bn in interest that needs to be found before we think about repaying it.
And the reason why the tax increase wasn't on Income tax is because the Bozo stated in the manifesto that Income Tax would not be increased...
He stated National Insurance wouldn't rise too in the manifesto.
The reason why NI was increased is because the Treasury realised under Gordon Brown they could raise NI "by 1p" and really increase taxes by 2p but without the media or public realising what is going on.
My biggest beef with phone calls from GP is if you miss it it is literally impossible sometimes to immediately call the GP back.
It will be an automated call system run by the surgery CRM. If there’s no reply it will immediately call the next number on the list, and so on until someone answers. Same as how call centres work.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
A lot of GP practices won't accept you if you don't live within a prescribed area. So the choice is often theoretical rather than real.
That's true, but a lot will and a lot have overlapping areas.
Its worth trying at least, but most people don't even realise they can try and change GPs and assume they're stuck with the ones they have.
I suspect that in a rural area like Ms Cyclefree's 'choice' of GP is more theoretical than real.
Quite the landmark - more RCs than Protestyants in NI now. And when you add Brexit ...
'Duncan Morrow, a politics professor at Ulster University, said: “The state was set up to put a protective ring around Protestants. You can’t take away from the symbolic significance of this change.”
In a referendum, Northern Ireland’s fate may rest with centrist voters who defy easy political categorisation, with many feeling Northern Irish as opposed to Irish or British, Morrow said. Young people were keenest on Irish unity, he added. “It’s a ticking clock.”
Patricia McBride, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Future, a group that promotes a border poll, said religious background and national identity will not necessarily determine how people will vote. Taxation, public services and other bread and butter issues could be decisive, she added.'
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
The GPs did nothing for you here and there is huge pressure on A & E. Defund the GPs and get them doing proper doctoring in hospitals.
That might be part of the problem. Most GPs are part-time but it turns out some at least are part-time in more than one job, perhaps including hospital wards or outpatient clinics, or even another GP practice.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
A lot of GP practices won't accept you if you don't live within a prescribed area. So the choice is often theoretical rather than real.
Yes, which is why when the government proposed to essentially nationalise GP services by making all GPs employees rather than for profit partnerships I supported the idea. In London it's easy to switch to a better GP but loads of the country doesn't have that choice so nationalising it and standardising services makes sense.
Lol this is almost a parody.
Max: It's great you can switch GPs as that is the private sector in action. Drive up standards by competition. Cyclefree: Yeah but you can't switch always. Max: That's why I say, they should be nationalised so the services can be standardised by national diktat.
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
In our area you would have received a call from the practice nurse or their pharmacist and either a prescription or a doctor appointment
As has been observed GP's practices are private businesses and it does seem there is little or no consistency and that is something Coffey needs to address in England
I would just say our A & E and operation waiting times are as bad if not worse than England though
But that's my point. Saying that there should be an expectation of seeing a GP within 2 weeks does not deal with what a lot of people need a GP for. I am happy to wait a month to get a regular asthma check up say. But I need access to a GP the same day when I have, to take a real life example, a painful leg infection, a fever which is rapidly increasing and I am vomiting. Solution: an antibiotic course but because the GP practice could not see me, the local hospital's A&E department got the burden. It is the inability to get access to a doctor locally and quickly without placing a burden on hospitals in which needs addressing.
Perhaps the Coffey proposals will do something about this. In other respects - screening for instance - the service is very good and proactive.
If Mr Kwarteng does nothing other than reverse NI increase and stop legislated rise in corporation tax, tomorrow's will be the biggest tax cutting fiscal event since Nigel Lawson's famous 1988 budget.
If they do nothing other than that, it alone would justify Truss becoming Prime Minister. 👍
The consequences of her plans is that if you think tax and interest rates are high now you've not seen another yet....
We joke that the next election is always the one to lose but whoever wins the next election is going to have an economic situation that makes the mid 1970's look easy...
If taxes are to go up, then let them go up on everyone via Income Tax or similar, rather than only working people via National Insurance.
Though I don't think they need to, if I'm wrong, reversing the NI hike is still the right thing to do.
£130bn of spending that isn't attached to any Government Revenue. That's going to be £7bn in interest that needs to be found before we think about repaying it.
And the reason why the tax increase wasn't on Income tax is because the Bozo stated in the manifesto that Income Tax would not be increased...
He stated National Insurance wouldn't rise too in the manifesto.
The reason why NI was increased is because the Treasury realised under Gordon Brown they could raise NI "by 1p" and really increase taxes by 2p but without the media or public realising what is going on.
No it's because
1) Social care is health related so NI made (slightly more sense) 2) Employer NI is treated as fair game because the general public don't see it...
Now the question is is Truss going to bin the Social Care changes or is she going to try to implement them.
Because that by itself is going to have an impact on wages in that sector (they will need to rise to make up for the shortfall in workers unless she scraps IR35), And if she scraps IR35 Employer NI tax take is going to collapse...
Union has become ‘decidedly less popular’ in Scotland, report finds
The British Social Attitudes poll attempts to discover the prevailing feelings in the UK on a number of topics, Scottish independence among them.
… the survey shows the shifting attitudes in Scotland through the years, with support for independence rising from 27% in 1999 to 33% in 2014 – in the weeks ahead of the referendum on Scottish independence – and eventually rising to 52% last year.
The time series also showed a drop in support for devolution as the governing structure in Scotland, from 59% in 1999 to 50% in 2014 and a further drop to just 38% last year.
Support for not having a Scottish Parliament has remained roughly at the same rate, falling from just 10% in 1999 to 8% last year, although the figure peaked at 17% in 2004, the survey suggested.
The authors of the report, who included polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice, pointed to the 2014 referendum and Brexit as factors for the increase in support in the past decade.
They said: “Since 2014 there has been a marked increase in the level of support for independence, and especially so since the EU referendum of 2016, after which leaving the UK became more popular than devolution for the first time.”
“The Union has certainly become decidedly less popular north of the border.”
Interesting perhaps that support for devolution has fallen. Does this mean that Nicola Sturgeon's genius is to deflect blame for any perceived failures of the Scottish Government she leads onto the constitutional question? Is there a paradox that the better the Scottish Government performs, the less need will be seen for independence?
The beauty of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey and the British Social Attitudes Survey is that they are a very long series of standardised questions, comparable over time. They are academic exercises and are not published with the aim of, for example, selling newspapers. They are serious works, not throwaway snapshots.
What they tell us is that there are long-term societal trends underway. Devolution was incredibly popular in Scotland during the 80s and 90s, in the period culminating in the double ‘Yes’ votes in the September 1997 referendum. But what we have witnessed since is the long, slow decline in that devolution fervour, in favour of full sovereignty. To the stage we have reached now, where independence support has totally eclipsed devolution as the preferred constitutional endpoint.
The status quo ante - abolishing the Scottish Parliament and returning to direct rule from Westminster - is as unpopular as ever, bubbling along below 10%. Which explains why none of the main political parties advocate it.
The decline in support for devolution is primarily a problem for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats: it is very much their baby. Neither seems to know what to do about the Scottish Question they used to so trumpet. Labour’s standard answer is to mumble something incoherent about ‘Gordon Brown’ every six months or so. If pressed, you might still find a Lib Dem willing to mention the word ‘federalism’, sotto voce. They don’t believe it themselves, so unsurprisingly fail to convince electors.
Yes, I get the independence thing. What puzzles me is that normal politics has remained suspended for more than a decade; it is as if all that mattered down south was Brexit, say, and there was a short while when that was true.
The most vocal pb Scot critic of the SNP is @malcolmg and while he rails against the Scottish Government, his main complaint is that it is not seriously seeking independence.
This is what I mean by Nicola Sturgeon's genius. Even if Scots voters are unhappy with economic or industrial decline, or health, with some areas of Glasgow in particular having low life expectancies, Sturgeon has convinced voters that none of this is due to the Scottish Government's incompetence but is all Westminster's fault so that what is needed is independence. There is not even analysis of which extra powers needed would be gained by independence because, of course, if there were, then they could be acquired through devolution. Again, of course, this mirrors the campaign for (and against) Brexit but that has now faded.
You're right about the failures; they constantly blamed on Westminster. But the successes (no laughing at the back) are also seen as contributing to the case for independence. Illogical but not ineffective. It's not really like Brexit in that regard, more like the EU's traditional 'more Europe' being the solution to any problem.
Brexity Unionists: it’s patronising in the extreme to suggest that people voted for Brexit because they’re naive and were suckered into it by a relentless media campaign and the amplification of anti EU voices by the state broadcaster.
Also Brexity Unionists: large numbers of Scots are naive suckers falling for Scottish government propaganda and the awe inspiring power of a single newspaper.
However I salute your honesty about acknowledging the long term trend, unlike head buriers like HYUFD.
My biggest beef with phone calls from GP is if you miss it it is literally impossible sometimes to immediately call the GP back.
It will be an automated call system run by the surgery CRM. If there’s no reply it will immediately call the next number on the list, and so on until someone answers. Same as how call centres work.
You clearly think your average British GP's IT system is way way more advanced than it actually is...
I'm sure the one our GP uses is still derived from a DOS based text entry system...
Phone call triage works for acute issues, such as an ear infection, say. It's completely crap for people with chronic conditions to be passed through the same system, so that they have to go through triage for their chronic condition time after time after time and bring yet another person up to speed with their condition.
It means that someone with a chronic condition receives the same trite and superficial advice and they don't get the professional help to understand their condition and manage it.
Perhaps those with chronic conditions should be handled by a separate system from the standard GP one in general? It feels like they tend to have a different set of requirements: more likely to want longer appointment slots, more benefit from always seeing the same doctor, more benefit from working with a doctor who spends most of their time on dealing with that kind of condition rather than with the usual round of one-and-done miscellany...
Yes, well I've suggested before that GP services simply don't work for chronic conditions, and we'd be better off expanding specialist care, so that those with chronic conditions could get continuing care from specialists, instead of GPs. Then, what was left of GP services would only be triage, signposting and minor treatments.
The traditional objection is that a family doctor provides a benefit when someone has several conditions in parallel, but the triage model that seems to operate most widely doesn't cope with that complexity at all well.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
Get’s easier once the soul is utterly destroyed I believe, and of course for those that don’t have a soul in the first place..
I had a passing acquaintance with a Sun stringer in New York; he was quite good company but amoral didn’t really cover it.
Once you’ve sold your soul to the devil (or Daily Mail editor) I guess there’s no going back. You’re a ghoul from then onwards: streaming bile from your keyboard is who you are.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
One of Coffey's proposals is league tables so patients can see when it would be advantageous to switch GPs. At root, there are not enough doctors.
Also seems a city approach not applicable to more rural areas. My town of 17000 people has one GP surgery. Who would I switch to?
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
A lot of GP practices won't accept you if you don't live within a prescribed area. So the choice is often theoretical rather than real.
Essentlially GP practices are free to register who they wish by the look of it, but not compelled. Here's a note a Practice Manager guidance site:
Other than that, they can only turn down an application if:
The commissioner has agreed that they can close their list to new patients The patient lives outside the practice boundary If they have other reasonable grounds The final point is a little bit woolly but reasons practices have used to refuse patients include:
The applicant is a close relative of a current patient with whom the practice has a difficult relationship The applicant has previously raised a third-party complaint about a GP in the practice or a service the practice has provided to a friend or family member The applicant has previously been a patient of the practice and left some time ago after becoming dissatisfied with how the practice dealt with a complaint – and now wishes to re-join as they are even less satisfied with the alternative The applicant has a locally known history of violence The applicant has previously been removed from the practice list
(Apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs here. I was once removed from a practice list and it is not pleasant if you have a chronic condition. I found it difficult to adapt to a very different appointment system after moving house.)
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
In our area you would have received a call from the practice nurse or their pharmacist and either a prescription or a doctor appointment
As has been observed GP's practices are private businesses and it does seem there is little or no consistency and that is something Coffey needs to address in England
I would just say our A & E and operation waiting times are as bad if not worse than England though
But that's my point. Saying that there should be an expectation of seeing a GP within 2 weeks does not deal with what a lot of people need a GP for. I am happy to wait a month to get a regular asthma check up say. But I need access to a GP the same day when I have, to take a real life example, a painful leg infection, a fever which is rapidly increasing and I am vomiting. Solution: an antibiotic course but because the GP practice could not see me, the local hospital's A&E department got the burden. It is the inability to get access to a doctor locally and quickly without placing a burden on hospitals in which needs addressing.
Perhaps the Coffey proposals will do something about this. In other respects - screening for instance - the service is very good and proactive.
You are right Cyclefree. But just as you describe with great acuity the problems with our legal sector and say it is pretty much a hopeless situation, analysis of the NHS/social care would reveal something similar but about 100 times worse, probably. There are no simple solutions to the absolute mess we are in with it.
Perhaps…. Perhaps…. Blatant lie…. We will remove doctors’ monopoly prerogative to write prescriptions.
Rough summary.
I saw her on BBC1 and she was fine. What was the blatant lie? If she said that currently only doctors can prescribe then yes that is wrong, but did she say that?
Moreover, she may not be lying. She may just be a bit dim. Remember, she was sent down from her Chemistry course at Oxford for not being up to it and while that *is* well known as a rigorous top level course my understanding is that that's quite rare.
...SNIP...
My guess is there was more to it than that. First, Coffey has a PhD in Chemistry so it is not as if she does not know which end of the test tube goes in the bunsen burner. Second, I knew someone who was sent down from Oxford after being cleaned out at cards by the rich kids whose company he craved.
I've seen her PhD thesis (close contempory of mine) and it looked fine. I doubt she is that stupid.
Quite the landmark - more RCs than Protestyants in NI now. And when you add Brexit ...
'Duncan Morrow, a politics professor at Ulster University, said: “The state was set up to put a protective ring around Protestants. You can’t take away from the symbolic significance of this change.”
In a referendum, Northern Ireland’s fate may rest with centrist voters who defy easy political categorisation, with many feeling Northern Irish as opposed to Irish or British, Morrow said. Young people were keenest on Irish unity, he added. “It’s a ticking clock.”
Patricia McBride, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Future, a group that promotes a border poll, said religious background and national identity will not necessarily determine how people will vote. Taxation, public services and other bread and butter issues could be decisive, she added.'
A lot of Loyalists subscribe to the replacement theory which is so popular with far right twats and racists everywhere. They’d better start procreating..
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
Get’s easier once the soul is utterly destroyed I believe, and of course for those that don’t have a soul in the first place..
I had a passing acquaintance with a Sun stringer in New York; he was quite good company but amoral didn’t really cover it.
Once you’ve sold your soul to the devil (or Daily Mail editor) I guess there’s no going back. You’re a ghoul from then onwards: streaming bile from your keyboard is who you are.
Years ago, we had a GP who had a brilliant system. You could make appointments to see him. But for a set period every day you could just turn up and wait to see him. So if there were loads of people in the waiting room, you could wait or come back another day. But if you waited you knew that you would get to see him.
Then he retired.
Why practices don't have something similar, I don't know.
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
The GPs did nothing for you here and there is huge pressure on A & E. Defund the GPs and get them doing proper doctoring in hospitals.
That's a hell of a thing for which to have to create a business case.
Another day of feeling like crap. Have been ill all month, this latest 2nd round of head cold isn't clearing. Not helped by getting fitful sleep due to coughing, my fatigue levels keep finding exciting new highs
Much how my wife and I felt in August when we had covid
You need to be kind to yourself and rest as much as possible
Just joined the covid club on Tuesday. Not too bad, one really nasty night of shivers. Your point about rest is well made, but tricky with three children, two of whom have also been poorly (we were a bit concerned about number three who is only 4 months old, for a bit, but he's better now).
Glad to have avoided this pre-vaccination. Post vaccination, I'd have to say I've felt worse for longer with other viral infections, but it's still nasty enough.
I was rather proud of being in the non COVID club, but joined the COVID club 2weeks ago after 3 days of partying in Spain at a weddings. I wasn't too ill at all but have a lingering cough.
Annoyingly I was able to get my next jab just as I got covid. Now have to wait a month.
I have seriously wondered if this is Covid. I test negative, I have the same known symptoms of things I have had before, so officially its not Covid.
But - AIUI the overlap between modern Covid and winter snot is significant. And I am struggling to recall a time when I have been this bleugh for this long. My voice going hoarse to the point of barely being able to talk has only ever happened to me once before.
Its tricky. If I had a pound for every person who claims to have had covid in December 2019 I would be very happy. Lots of colds were about in Winter 2019, almost no-one had covid until March 2020. If you have covid and are testing negative there are several possible explanations.
1) Kit failure (possible - kit components could be out of date, or expired, or have been incorrectly stored). 2) Incorrect technique - possible 3) Low level of covid markers expressed in nose (seen widely in people at the start of omicron infections - they test negative for a few days then positive)
If you are worried seek out a PCR - more accurate. However you also sound knackered (work and being ill) so I think get as much rest as possible.
Phone call triage works for acute issues, such as an ear infection, say. It's completely crap for people with chronic conditions to be passed through the same system, so that they have to go through triage for their chronic condition time after time after time and bring yet another person up to speed with their condition.
It means that someone with a chronic condition receives the same trite and superficial advice and they don't get the professional help to understand their condition and manage it.
Perhaps those with chronic conditions should be handled by a separate system from the standard GP one in general? It feels like they tend to have a different set of requirements: more likely to want longer appointment slots, more benefit from always seeing the same doctor, more benefit from working with a doctor who spends most of their time on dealing with that kind of condition rather than with the usual round of one-and-done miscellany...
Yes, well I've suggested before that GP services simply don't work for chronic conditions, and we'd be better off expanding specialist care, so that those with chronic conditions could get continuing care from specialists, instead of GPs. Then, what was left of GP services would only be triage, signposting and minor treatments.
The traditional objection is that a family doctor provides a benefit when someone has several conditions in parallel, but the triage model that seems to operate most widely doesn't cope with that complexity at all well.
Multiple conditions are best handled by a competent GP. But it is complex and nuanced work and is consequently time and resource intensive.
We have more and more people with chronic conditions and less and less GPs.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
One of Coffey's proposals is league tables so patients can see when it would be advantageous to switch GPs. At root, there are not enough doctors.
Also seems a city approach not applicable to more rural areas. My town of 17000 people has one GP surgery. Who would I switch to?
Just because something that helps in most areas doesn't apply to some, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
Some towns only have one school, but most towns have many schools. Parents absolutely can and many do put a lot of thought into what school their kids should go to, but very few put the same thought into what GP they should have.
Treat GPs more like schools. Demand better if its not good enough.
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
Which is not what was proposed by the Health Secretary this morning.
The proposal is if you want an appointment, they will have an expectation that you will receive a phone call within 2 weeks.
That's what I am unimpressed with
No matter what the Health Secretary says, GP performance will depend on the attitude of each surgery. The one nearest me is just awful and they do all that they can to avoid seeing people and force them to go to A & E. The one 2 miles away is fantastic and if you are ill, you will be seen that day. They have found that by actually seeing people and providing medication/advice/referals etc it means that demand for appointments goes down as people are either better or are in the NHS system. They regularly have days where they have many unused GP/Nurse appointments.
If she can "force" poor performing GP surgeries to improve then she will have achieved a miracle.
A recent social thing, a GP didn’t get the sympathy she thought she deserved.
Apparently the evil private GP services have ruined expectations of GP access among the Nasty Posh People. Same day appointments, home visits, grapes peeled by servants….
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
Yes, the call back system is appalling. You literally cannot plan to be doing anything else because they will likely call at the most inconvenient time. And if you miss the call? Back of the queue.
Its not always that bad. My surgery will also email back to you. I think often the biggest issues are around being seen quickly. Patients would, I suspect, rather like an option to turn up and wait to be seen.
And because they can't do that at the surgery, they go to A&E instead.
Just picked up my wife's asthma inhalers from the local Boots. As I arrived an old lady exited and gave a big sigh. Foolishly I asked if she was ok. She said she'd been late for her doctors appointment and had been told she'd have to wait 2 weeks for another. "Oh no" I said. "Bloody well get up earlier then" I thought.
Of course, we don't know the full story. Bus may have broken down, for example. Or heavy traffic due to an accident. Or a street blocked off for pipe works.
I was once nearly an hour late for an MRI scan in Burton because of an accident on the A38. If it had been cancelled, it wouldn't have been my fault but it wouldn't have been ideal either.
As it happens, I was lucky. Everyone else was late too, including the staff.
My wife had two blown tyres recently when on the way to a midwife appointment. Happily I was able to ring and re-arrange. I think mobile phones help in the situations as described.
I wish politicians would stop interfering in the minutiae of the health care system. Years ago, when Blair was PM, there was some pledge that everyone should be able to get a GP appointment within 24 hours (how far we have fallen).
The effect of this on me was that I became unable to make an appointment in advance, at a time convenient to me, with my preferred GP, and instead I had to join a scrum on the phone line to my surgery, first thing in the morning, for a same day appointment with a random GP at a random time, that I then had to get leave from my employer to attend.
In many ways it's worse now, because instead I don't get an appointment at a specific time, I get a promise of a phone call at a random time, which means I've sometimes had to drop off work meetings to take a call from a locum GP.
The GP experience does seem to very massively between quite good and unremittingly sh*t. And in my anecdotal experience, there's not a small proportion of the latter.
It's because GP provision is essentially a privatised service but people don't realise, they think they are stuck with their surgery even if they're shit. The best thing to do if your GP surgery is crap is to register with a different one, that deprives the shit partnership of revenue and ensures the good surgery gets it. If people treated going to the GP as they did with everything else and picked the best option rather than what they think they're stuck with the shit GP partnerships would all go out of business.
I take it you live in a city where there is an option to do this. Not all of us do!
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
In our area you would have received a call from the practice nurse or their pharmacist and either a prescription or a doctor appointment
As has been observed GP's practices are private businesses and it does seem there is little or no consistency and that is something Coffey needs to address in England
I would just say our A & E and operation waiting times are as bad if not worse than England though
But that's my point. Saying that there should be an expectation of seeing a GP within 2 weeks does not deal with what a lot of people need a GP for. I am happy to wait a month to get a regular asthma check up say. But I need access to a GP the same day when I have, to take a real life example, a painful leg infection, a fever which is rapidly increasing and I am vomiting. Solution: an antibiotic course but because the GP practice could not see me, the local hospital's A&E department got the burden. It is the inability to get access to a doctor locally and quickly without placing a burden on hospitals in which needs addressing.
Perhaps the Coffey proposals will do something about this. In other respects - screening for instance - the service is very good and proactive.
You are right Cyclefree. But just as you describe with great acuity the problems with our legal sector and say it is pretty much a hopeless situation, analysis of the NHS/social care would reveal something similar but about 100 times worse, probably. There are no simple solutions to the absolute mess we are in with it.
One problem is that the majority of opinion formers use GP services very rarely; they're either fit middle-aged people or have private medical insurance (or both).
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
Individual surgeries will vary - my GP has a 2 week wait for routine appointments but I was summoned for a next day appointment for something urgent. After my recent op scar started looking a bit red I emailed them photos and had antibiotics waiting for me at my chemist the following morning. Of course for people who struggle with technology access will be more difficult, but there can be ways to access help beyond physical contact - if the GP surgery provides it.
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
I think you missed yesterday's uber-PB spectacle, whereby Moon and G were overanalysing an imaginary Jizzy lead that might occur at some undefined point in the future
We have seen many budgets - or fiscal events - fall apart after publication.
But for Truss and Kwarteng's first one to have fallen apart quite so spectacularly, while Downing St is trailing it and is exclusively in charge of the narrative, is really quite an achievement. ~AA https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1572875250932621313
We have seen many budgets - or fiscal events - fall apart after publication.
But for Truss and Kwarteng's first one to have fallen apart quite so spectacularly, while Downing St is trailing it and is exclusively in charge of the narrative, is really quite an achievement. ~AA https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1572875250932621313
LOL its not fallen apart.
That they're actually implementing Conservative policies, which you post-Brexit now find an abhorrent idea, is not a "problem".
Massive own goal by so-called Trans Activists who have probably done more to harm trans people’s rights than all the so called “TERFs” put together (most of whom are not anti-Trans people).
That would still be an improvement on the situation around here.
Unless you've got membership of the Chase Golf Club and Spa.
Envy of the world, the NHS.
(So said no-one who’s ever lived anywhere else in the developed world).
Test would be the lower income indigenes though, not people employed abroad on middle class benefits packages
Pretty much everywhere in the developed world, except the UK and USA, has a universal system with no large bills and fast access to doctors and treatment.
Years ago, we had a GP who had a brilliant system. You could make appointments to see him. But for a set period every day you could just turn up and wait to see him. So if there were loads of people in the waiting room, you could wait or come back another day. But if you waited you knew that you would get to see him.
Then he retired.
Why practices don't have something similar, I don't know.
Our surgery used to do that first thing in the morning. I don't know if they still do. I assume not as I had forgotten about it so I assume it stopped. An excellent idea.
minister @Nus_Ghani has confirmed UK business investment lowest in G7:
“The Office for National Statistics has calculated that the UK’s business investment was £207bn in 2021. This amounted to 14.3% of GDP, the lowest of all nations in the G7 by this measure.” https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1572884074053750785
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
I think you missed yesterday's uber-PB spectacle, whereby Moon and G were overanalysing an imaginary Jizzy lead that might occur at some undefined point in the future
Tbf unless I am missing something, qualifying as a CA presumably counts as 'training' rather than 'education', much as learning to sex chickens and caponising half of them would be.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
Surely the Mail can just get an AI to produce this kind of crap. Maybe they already do.
Not sure, the bile quotient seems too high. The sort of level at which they have to take their keyboards off the desks and wring them over a waterproof bucket every now and then.
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
Comments
DOJ investigating Mike Lindell over potential identity theft, damage to protected computer
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3654707-doj-investigating-mike-lindell-over-potential-identity-theft-damage-to-protected-computer/
If she can "force" poor performing GP surgeries to improve then she will have achieved a miracle.
Even though this is not a Budget.
Long way to go to match Barber though... https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1572864722025709568/photo/1
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-republicans-are-favored-to-win-the-house-but-not-the-senate/amp/
I was once nearly an hour late for an MRI scan in Burton because of an accident on the A38. If it had been cancelled, it wouldn't have been my fault but it wouldn't have been ideal either.
As it happens, I was lucky. Everyone else was late too, including the staff.
She was never one to be beaten down, though. One day, as a teenager, she saw a clip of Lady Thatcher at the Tory conference. She had referenced Norman Tebbit's bike speech. One night, unbeknownst to her adoptive family, who were looking after her in a pit village, she took her bike from the shed, and rode it all the way to London. Within two years, she was head of Lehmans' risk and global securities division, and the rest is history.
But from what I know, which may be completely wrong, it's probably the former.
That in itself raises questions about her integrity, but equally Harold Wilson played the same card most days and he was quite successful.
"I recently saw something in a petrol station toilet southbound on the M1 that I can never unsee"
- but it is not said what it was!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/21/i-recently-saw-something-in-a-petrol-station-toilet-southbound-on-the-m1-that-i-can-never-unsee
Not sure how you solve that one.
A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
We joke that the next election is always the one to lose but whoever wins the next election is going to have an economic situation that makes the mid 1970's look easy...
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
Seems to be something to do with a number of support staff, and the competence of the practice manager
The irony is the more I see these stories the more sympathy I have for Harry and Megan and the less I like the rest of the Royal Family (even though it's unlikely the Royal Family are involved in these stories)
I had a passing acquaintance with a Sun stringer in New York; he was quite good company but amoral didn’t really cover it.
I still made it to Cambridge, mostly because my Dad had gone to Cambridge, and his Dad was a graduate, and so there was an expectation at home that I would do well at school and go to university. When you told my Dad that you scored 98% on a test he'd want to know how you managed to drop 2%.
I know nothing about the school Liz Truss went to, but it's not implausible to me that she ended up at Oxford on her merits, and despite her school, and without any inappropriate influence.
I've no reason to like Harry - the little I know of him is from a former colleague of my wife who was at Eton with him and that's not good (although possibly the stories say more about others at Eton than about him). But I have to say I really respect him quitting his royal role and putting his family first. In his position, I hope I'd have had the balls to do the same.
As has been observed GP's practices are private businesses and it does seem there is little or no consistency and that is something Coffey needs to address in England
I would just say our A & E and operation waiting times are as bad if not worse than England though
Thank God Truss is challenging Treasury orthodoxy then.....
Though I don't think they need to, if I'm wrong, reversing the NI hike is still the right thing to do.
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/transport-for-londons-boss-andy-byford-resigns-57603/
Its worth trying at least, but most people don't even realise they can try and change GPs and assume they're stuck with the ones they have.
And the reason why the tax increase wasn't on Income tax is because the Bozo stated in the manifesto that Income Tax would not be increased...
Even if I'm quite unwell I can normally manage to drag myself ten minutes walk, but if I choose a surgery further away I'd have to drive, or be driven, or get a bus or taxi. Just like with schools, most people want to be able to use the closest GP and have it be good. They don't want to participate in a market.
The reason why NI was increased is because the Treasury realised under Gordon Brown they could raise NI "by 1p" and really increase taxes by 2p but without the media or public realising what is going on.
Quite the landmark - more RCs than Protestyants in NI now. And when you add Brexit ...
'Duncan Morrow, a politics professor at Ulster University, said: “The state was set up to put a protective ring around Protestants. You can’t take away from the symbolic significance of this change.”
In a referendum, Northern Ireland’s fate may rest with centrist voters who defy easy political categorisation, with many feeling Northern Irish as opposed to Irish or British, Morrow said. Young people were keenest on Irish unity, he added. “It’s a ticking clock.”
Patricia McBride, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Future, a group that promotes a border poll, said religious background and national identity will not necessarily determine how people will vote. Taxation, public services and other bread and butter issues could be decisive, she added.'
Max:
It's great you can switch GPs as that is the private sector in action. Drive up standards by competition.
Cyclefree:
Yeah but you can't switch always.
Max:
That's why I say, they should be nationalised so the services can be standardised by national diktat.
Perhaps the Coffey proposals will do something about this. In other respects - screening for instance - the service is very good and proactive.
1) Social care is health related so NI made (slightly more sense)
2) Employer NI is treated as fair game because the general public don't see it...
Now the question is is Truss going to bin the Social Care changes or is she going to try to implement them.
Because that by itself is going to have an impact on wages in that sector (they will need to rise to make up for the shortfall in workers unless she scraps IR35), And if she scraps IR35 Employer NI tax take is going to collapse...
Also Brexity Unionists: large numbers of Scots are naive suckers falling for Scottish government propaganda and the awe inspiring power of a single newspaper.
However I salute your honesty about acknowledging the long term trend, unlike head buriers like HYUFD.
I'm sure the one our GP uses is still derived from a DOS based text entry system...
The traditional objection is that a family doctor provides a benefit when someone has several conditions in parallel, but the triage model that seems to operate most widely doesn't cope with that complexity at all well.
https://healthandbeyond.healthcare/patients-choice-of-gp-practice/index.html
Essentlially GP practices are free to register who they wish by the look of it, but not compelled. Here's a note a Practice Manager guidance site:
Other than that, they can only turn down an application if:
The commissioner has agreed that they can close their list to new patients
The patient lives outside the practice boundary
If they have other reasonable grounds
The final point is a little bit woolly but reasons practices have used to refuse patients include:
The applicant is a close relative of a current patient with whom the practice has a difficult relationship
The applicant has previously raised a third-party complaint about a GP in the practice or a service the practice has provided to a friend or family member
The applicant has previously been a patient of the practice and left some time ago after becoming dissatisfied with how the practice dealt with a complaint – and now wishes to re-join as they are even less satisfied with the alternative
The applicant has a locally known history of violence
The applicant has previously been removed from the practice list
https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/blog/refusing-patient-registrations/
(Apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs here. I was once removed from a practice list and it is not pleasant if you have a chronic condition. I found it difficult to adapt to a very different appointment system after moving house.)
https://twitter.com/UK_Imports/status/1572873946265001985
Imports - GB Grid
@UK_Imports
Automated
·
24m
GB Grid: #Imports are supplying 0.00GW (0.00%) out of 32.68GW
#Exports: 3.29GW
Interconnectors:
France: -1.79GW
Ireland: 0.00GW
Netherlands: 0.00GW
Belgium: 0.00GW
Northern Ireland: -0.37GW
Norway: -1.13GW
System Transfers:
Scot-Eng: 0.33GW
North-South: 4.05GW
Almost 5.5% of the electricity being generated in the U.K. is being exported to keep the lights on in France
3.5% is going to Norway
Both these countries in normal times are big electricity exporters to the UK. Winter remains an interesting prospect
Then he retired.
Why practices don't have something similar, I don't know.
1) Kit failure (possible - kit components could be out of date, or expired, or have been incorrectly stored).
2) Incorrect technique - possible
3) Low level of covid markers expressed in nose (seen widely in people at the start of omicron infections - they test negative for a few days then positive)
If you are worried seek out a PCR - more accurate. However you also sound knackered (work and being ill) so I think get as much rest as possible.
We have more and more people with chronic conditions and less and less GPs.
A bit of a problem.
Some towns only have one school, but most towns have many schools. Parents absolutely can and many do put a lot of thought into what school their kids should go to, but very few put the same thought into what GP they should have.
Treat GPs more like schools. Demand better if its not good enough.
Apparently the evil private GP services have ruined expectations of GP access among the Nasty Posh People. Same day appointments, home visits, grapes peeled by servants….
And because they can't do that at the surgery, they go to A&E instead.
@MisterEdthe Trumpian dweeb in the silly dickie bow?And Dr Finlay and Dr Cameron are long dead!
But for Truss and Kwarteng's first one to have fallen apart quite so spectacularly, while Downing St is trailing it and is exclusively in charge of the narrative, is really quite an achievement. ~AA
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1572875250932621313
That they're actually implementing Conservative policies, which you post-Brexit now find an abhorrent idea, is not a "problem".
There is no longer majority support for the Gender Recognition Act.
https://thetimes.co.uk/article/1a28cbb2-39c6-11ed-a8ae-d2d57cd0511a
https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1572868972453761026
From +36 to -7 is a huge swing.
Massive own goal by so-called Trans Activists who have probably done more to harm trans people’s rights than all the so called “TERFs” put together (most of whom are not anti-Trans people).
“The Office for National Statistics has calculated that the UK’s business investment was £207bn in 2021. This amounted to 14.3% of GDP, the lowest of all nations in the G7 by this measure.”
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1572884074053750785
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.