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  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    I like it! One of your better ones :)
  • Options
    PClippPClipp Posts: 2,138

    Have the Lib Dems come to a decision on their intentions on the vote on Wednesday. (Thought they were deciding today)

    Today isn´t finished yet. Mr Wales. Patience.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    Chris_A said:


    When ringing a consultant or their secretary - and I do regularly - I've never had a phone unanswered,

    Lucky you. It is not a universal experience.
  • Options
    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    It is a right established under the Data Protection Act
    That is what I said when I met resistance. There was only one instance where the admin staff refused point-blank to give me my notes but the consultant got me a copy at my next appointment.

    The correct channel is via Patient Affairs office, as detailed in the link I gave below. Following this path means that the data set will be complete by law, an informal approach like the one you took does not guarantee that the notes are complete.
  • Options
    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098
    Dair said:


    Yes. I had an illness that required 4 hours of surgery. It took me 4 years to get that 4 hours. It was never in doubt that it could only be fixed via a surgeon, everyone knew that from day one. It just took 4 years for my paperwork to be bounced around the country a few times, lost several times and rebuilt from my file copies. I even had to get NHS complaints to deal with NHS managers who ignored paperwork sent to them by my consultants.

    The thing is that I was not unique in this. I came across other patients and many of them were also having a bad time of it, in fact I would go so far as to say that I sailed through the process compared to most.

    You must live a very sheltered existence. I could put you in touch with dozens of people who are having a hell of a time just getting initial appointments, or others who have huge waits between appointments because paperwork gets lost. I have one friend who waited over a year to get a test result.

    I am not that sort of person. By week 4 I was on the phone / email / letter / whatever, but what do you do with phones that never get answered, or emails that never get replies or letters that "never arrived" even when sent Recorded Delivery?

    ...

    I can only reference the experience of myself, my family and everyone I know. But I know of no-one that has every had a sub-standard experience of the NHS outwith certain reasonable considerations.
    Well, bully, for you. For the last twenty years or so I have been a high user of the health service (after 40 years of never putting foot inside a GPs surgery) and in that time I have experienced the best and the worst of it. Even making allowances and "reasonable considerations", I can tell you that at its worst the NHS is fecking appaling - a vet who treated a stray dog in the way I have been treated, and seen other patients treated, would be struck off. You and yours may have perfect service but your experience is not common.

    However, I am still here and that is due very largely to the skill of some very, very good NHS staff, though like Mrs C I have had to give them a nudge in the right direction from time to time - had I been more accepting of everything I was told I probably would have snuffed it in 1999.



  • Options
    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036
    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
  • Options
    PClipp said:

    Have the Lib Dems come to a decision on their intentions on the vote on Wednesday. (Thought they were deciding today)

    Today isn´t finished yet. Mr Wales. Patience.
    Maybe keep it for tomorrow to continue the fevered atmosphere !!
  • Options
    FensterFenster Posts: 2,115
    Really bad news on the imminent, violent collapse of Venezuela too.

    That country which was set on eradicating poverty by rejecting neo-liberal policies.

    Inflation now running at well over 100%.
  • Options
    DairDair Posts: 6,108

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Hand up, if you read a story about fat-shaming on the underground and SeanT was mentioned, which role would you expect him to have played in the scenario?

    I was surprised.
  • Options
    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838
    Chris_A said:

    Dair said:


    I am well aware that organisations have internal problems since I make my living out of removing such problems within companies and businesses.

    So you have a dog in the fight.
    Yes. I had an illness that required 4 hours of surgery. It took me 4 years to get that 4 hours. It was never in doubt that it could only be fixed via a surgeon, everyone knew that from day one. It just took 4 years for my paperwork to be bounced around the country a few times, lost several times and rebuilt from my file copies. I even had to get NHS complaints to deal with NHS managers who ignored paperwork sent to them by my consultants.

    The thing is that I was not unique in this. I came across other patients and many of them were also having a bad time of it, in fact I would go so far as to say that I sailed through the process compared to most.
    Dair said:

    The funny thing is, that for most of the sob stories, really the best outcome would be to just tell the moaners to toughen up or simply point out the very basic steps the individual could have taken to aid their own outcome.

    You must live a very sheltered existence. I could put you in touch with dozens of people who are having a hell of a time just getting initial appointments, or others who have huge waits between appointments because paperwork gets lost. I have one friend who waited over a year to get a test result.
    Dair said:

    For example, if the consultant advises you that you will get an appointment within 3 weeks and after three weeks you sit there instead of phoning them, guess that, that's YOUR fault not the NHS.

    I am not that sort of person. By week 4 I was on the phone / email / letter / whatever, but what do you do with phones that never get answered, or emails that never get replies or letters that "never arrived" even when sent Recorded Delivery?
    When ringing a consultant or their secretary - and I do regularly - I've never had a phone unanswered,
    I've had a couple of health problems that have required a quite a lot of NHS attention in the last year and, while the people have been charming and the clinical staff seem to have been very competent, the administrative side has been chaotic. I don't get the impression it's the fault of the people at the coalface but rather of the systems they work with, ancient technology and Byzantine processes. It's dispiriting because in most other respects it's been a very good service.

    I don't think it's anything to do with the funding model. It just needs to be sorted out.
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036
    Fenster said:

    Really bad news on the imminent, violent collapse of Venezuela too.

    That country which was set on eradicating poverty by rejecting neo-liberal policies.

    Inflation now running at well over 100%.

    Not sure, the collapse of the regime sounds excellent.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Dair said:

    Chris_A said:

    Junior doctors' strikes suspended. Will be difficult news for those of you looking forward to "heartless striking doctors killed my mother" type headlines. Will have to await seeing the concessions that Hunt has made.

    Strike suspended until Jan 13th. Any Contract that results from the discussions will go to a ballot of Junior Doctors. With a 98% mandate for strike and 99.5% for industrial action there are going to have to be major changes if it is going to be acceptable.
    I am sure you are correct, Doc, and I am sure to settle the matter is going to cost a lot of money. That money will have to come from somewhere, patient care perhaps? Perhaps another department will have its budget raided to buy off the junior doctors, so there will be less money spent on roads or infrastructure or something.

    My worry is that in the long term this episode is going to come back and bite the medical profession. Industrial history is full of examples in which strikers, or intended strikers, have seemingly won their battle but go on to face a losing war. Terms and conditions of service in the NHS will in all likelihood change and not to the doctors' advantage.
    The new contract costs the same as the old contract. Abandoning it and sticking to the old one will not cost a penny.
    As Scotland is doing.

    Scotland which has contained the rise in NHS costs (more or less identical to 2010 while NHS England spends 15% more) while delivering better service levels.

    I suspect Lansley has much more to answer for than people already give him (dis)credit.
    Lansley destroyed the management structure of the NHS - cost overruns are caused by poor management.
  • Options
    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036
    Dair said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Hand up, if you read a story about fat-shaming on the underground and SeanT was mentioned, which role would you expect him to have played in the scenario?

    I was surprised.
    Of course he wouldn't have been the one fat shaming. I'm guessing his position would be that people can do what they want with themselves.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    It is a right established under the Data Protection Act
    That is what I said when I met resistance. There was only one instance where the admin staff refused point-blank to give me my notes but the consultant got me a copy at my next appointment.

    The correct channel is via Patient Affairs office, as detailed in the link I gave below. Following this path means that the data set will be complete by law, an informal approach like the one you took does not guarantee that the notes are complete.
    I did not know that but perhaps it will help someone still involved with treatments. My ordeal is over except that I will be on medication for the rest of my life. Nothing major and I can read my blood tests as well as my GP. She and I get on very well :)
  • Options
    FensterFenster Posts: 2,115
    RobD said:

    Fenster said:

    Really bad news on the imminent, violent collapse of Venezuela too.

    That country which was set on eradicating poverty by rejecting neo-liberal policies.

    Inflation now running at well over 100%.

    Not sure, the collapse of the regime sounds excellent.
    Sorry, I was thinking bad news for the people... Apparently you can trade 10,000 of whatever their currency is for $10. How sad is that?

    I remember earlier in the summer Jeremy Corbyn was eulogising about how wonderful, redistributionist and just their political system was. Sounds a doozy.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139
    Dair said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Hand up, if you read a story about fat-shaming on the underground and SeanT was mentioned, which role would you expect him to have played in the scenario?

    I was surprised.
    I confess when he said 'caused a twitterstorm' I presumed he had been the provoker by his action, although at that point I did not know the focus of the storm of course, and my view changed.
  • Options
    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838
    Fenster said:

    Really bad news on the imminent, violent collapse of Venezuela too.

    That country which was set on eradicating poverty by rejecting neo-liberal policies.

    Inflation now running at well over 100%.

    Thank you Hugo http://labourlist.org/2013/03/thank-you-hugo-chavez/
  • Options
    DairDair Posts: 6,108

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    It is a right established under the Data Protection Act
    That is what I said when I met resistance. There was only one instance where the admin staff refused point-blank to give me my notes but the consultant got me a copy at my next appointment.
    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Given your background, I would have expected you to know that a 2 minute phone call to the Trust's DPA Officer would have seen your request expedited without delay.

    Every time you expand on your "truthy" story it makes it clearer that you are just the type of person who makes the NHS' job far harder than it need to be, ties up huge amounts of resources and wastes everybody's time.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670



    The evidence that patient outcomes adjusted for casemix at the weekends are worse is highly dubious. Take the Mirror headline last week. Still birth rates are as high on Wed Thur and Friday as they are on Sat and Sunday. The unusual days were Mon and Tuesday not the weekend, and that was before the authors conclusion that variation had anything to do with medical staffing levels.

    You cannot run a 7 day service on 5 days of staffing (across multiple disciplines including social services, pathology, imaging, ambulances, secretarial services, pharmacy etc). To get better outcomes is everyones goal, but denuding midweek services is not the way. To pretend that it can be done without significant funding is mendacious.

    I have pointed out many times the recruitment and retention crisis in British medicine. We should aim to have a contract that improves this rather than worsens it. Foundation doctors are currently applying for Specialist Training posts beginning in August. I expect vacancy rates to be higher than ever (50% posts unfilled for GP training in the East Midlands for example), except in Wales and Scotland where Hunt has no power and the old T and C's apply.

    Thank you for that. I have to say that when I see expressions like ,"Adjusted for casemix" my antennae twitch and, though I have very little time for this government, I have not reached the stage where I am prepared to believe they are going out of their way to pick an argument with the medical profession for the hell of it.

    However, I am just a patient seeking information, so I am grateful for your views.
    I presume "adjusted for casemix" means that if you were to plot when people suffering the effects of massive alchohol consumption (from catatonic overdose to being glassed in a bar brawl) are admitted to hospital I bet Wednesday is not the most common day for that happening.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Chris_A said:


    Every patient should take responsibility for their treatment and we should stop making the NHS responsible for patients' notes. Patients should be responsible via an encrypted smart card. The funding model will not change the propensity to loose notes or not.

    What a brilliant idea. No one will ever lose their smartcard or forget to bring it with them. It would never develop a fault and scramble all the data into digital mush. All patients are fully cognisant and totally responsible for their actions at all times because no one has mental health issues that cause an inability to cope. Or abuse issues like alcoholism.

    Have you ever met and dealt with real people?

    It is astounding how often the idea of the public being the sole holder of their medical history comes up. I presume it is some kind of techno-middle-class fantasy utopia which has no connection with reality.
  • Options
    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838
    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
    And no doubt they'll squeal piteously when that is done. Contemptible people.
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    isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Wanderer said:

    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
    And no doubt they'll squeal piteously when that is done. Contemptible people.
    I wonder why on earth anyone would do that?
  • Options
    Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237
    edited November 2015

    Chris_A said:


    Every patient should take responsibility for their treatment and we should stop making the NHS responsible for patients' notes. Patients should be responsible via an encrypted smart card. The funding model will not change the propensity to loose notes or not.

    What a brilliant idea. No one will ever lose their smartcard or forget to bring it with them. It would never develop a fault and scramble all the data into digital mush. All patients are fully cognisant and totally responsible for their actions at all times because no one has mental health issues that cause an inability to cope. Or abuse issues like alcoholism.

    Have you ever met and dealt with real people?

    Just like the NHS would never lose your notes but at least it would be your responsibility and we would be saved your knocking the NHS at every opportunity.
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    watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474
    Dair said:

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    It is a right established under the Data Protection Act
    That is what I said when I met resistance. There was only one instance where the admin staff refused point-blank to give me my notes but the consultant got me a copy at my next appointment.
    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Given your background, I would have expected you to know that a 2 minute phone call to the Trust's DPA Officer would have seen your request expedited without delay.

    Every time you expand on your "truthy" story it makes it clearer that you are just the type of person who makes the NHS' job far harder than it need to be, ties up huge amounts of resources and wastes everybody's time.
    Is there any topic on which Admiral Dair isn't the worlds leading expert?
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Dair said:


    Yes. I had an illness that required 4 hours of surgery. It took me 4 years to get that 4 hours. It was never in doubt that it could only be fixed via a surgeon, everyone knew that from day one. It just took 4 years for my paperwork to be bounced around the country a few times, lost several times and rebuilt from my file copies. I even had to get NHS complaints to deal with NHS managers who ignored paperwork sent to them by my consultants.

    The thing is that I was not unique in this. I came across other patients and many of them were also having a bad time of it, in fact I would go so far as to say that I sailed through the process compared to most.

    You must live a very sheltered existence.

    ...

    I can only reference the experience of myself, my family and everyone I know. But I know of no-one that has every had a sub-standard experience of the NHS outwith certain reasonable considerations.
    Well, bully, for you. For the last twenty years or so I have been a high user of the health service (after 40 years of never putting foot inside a GPs surgery) and in that time I have experienced the best and the worst of it. Even making allowances and "reasonable considerations", I can tell you that at its worst the NHS is fecking appaling - a vet who treated a stray dog in the way I have been treated, and seen other patients treated, would be struck off. You and yours may have perfect service but your experience is not common.

    However, I am still here and that is due very largely to the skill of some very, very good NHS staff, though like Mrs C I have had to give them a nudge in the right direction from time to time - had I been more accepting of everything I was told I probably would have snuffed it in 1999.



    I have seen both sides of it myself. Fox jr had appendicitis at Uni. From arriving in A and E to being on the operating table in less than 6 hours (I didn't pull any strings btw as I work 150 miles away). The surgery was done well (by a junior doctor) but the after care on the surgical ward was very poor. Such cases of peritonitis are at risk of pelvic abcesses, but basic obs were done only twice a day, and the overall standard of nursing care bordered on neglect.

    So I believe you HL*. The question is how do we raise the standard of care? I think better training is fundamental, as well as better selection processes. Hunts contract does not address these and is very likely to worsen recruitment and retention.

    * I have similar tales from a variety of health systems in Europe, North America and Australasia so not unique to the NHS.
  • Options
    DairDair Posts: 6,108
    Alistair said:

    Dair said:

    Chris_A said:

    Junior doctors' strikes suspended. Will be difficult news for those of you looking forward to "heartless striking doctors killed my mother" type headlines. Will have to await seeing the concessions that Hunt has made.

    Strike suspended until Jan 13th. Any Contract that results from the discussions will go to a ballot of Junior Doctors. With a 98% mandate for strike and 99.5% for industrial action there are going to have to be major changes if it is going to be acceptable.
    I am sure you are correct, Doc, and I am sure to settle the matter is going to cost a lot of money. That money will have to come from somewhere, patient care perhaps? Perhaps another department will have its budget raided to buy off the junior doctors, so there will be less money spent on roads or infrastructure or something.

    My worry is that in the long term this episode is going to come back and bite the medical profession. Industrial history is full of examples in which strikers, or intended strikers, have seemingly won their battle but go on to face a losing war. Terms and conditions of service in the NHS will in all likelihood change and not to the doctors' advantage.
    The new contract costs the same as the old contract. Abandoning it and sticking to the old one will not cost a penny.
    As Scotland is doing.

    Scotland which has contained the rise in NHS costs (more or less identical to 2010 while NHS England spends 15% more) while delivering better service levels.

    I suspect Lansley has much more to answer for than people already give him (dis)credit.
    Lansley destroyed the management structure of the NHS - cost overruns are caused by poor management.
    A lucky escape for Scotland, no wonder so many in England wish they had the SNP in charge.

    Out of interest does anyone know if Blair's GP contract were implemented in Scotland? There doesn't seem to be the GP appointments issue here either.
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    Dair said:

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    It is a right established under the Data Protection Act
    That is what I said when I met resistance. There was only one instance where the admin staff refused point-blank to give me my notes but the consultant got me a copy at my next appointment.
    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Given your background, I would have expected you to know that a 2 minute phone call to the Trust's DPA Officer would have seen your request expedited without delay.

    Every time you expand on your "truthy" story it makes it clearer that you are just the type of person who makes the NHS' job far harder than it need to be, ties up huge amounts of resources and wastes everybody's time.
    I think it's great that we no longer have to cross reference anything, check facts or consult Wilipedia.

    No, we have Dair and he knows everything about everything
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,193

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Hmmm.... "When the Tube cleaning staff turned up at the depot late tonight, the last thing they expected to find was the blood-eagled corpse of....."
  • Options
    watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474
    edited November 2015
    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:


    Every patient should take responsibility for their treatment and we should stop making the NHS responsible for patients' notes. Patients should be responsible via an encrypted smart card. The funding model will not change the propensity to loose notes or not.

    What a brilliant idea. No one will ever lose their smartcard or forget to bring it with them. It would never develop a fault and scramble all the data into digital mush. All patients are fully cognisant and totally responsible for their actions at all times because no one has mental health issues that cause an inability to cope. Or abuse issues like alcoholism.

    Have you ever met and dealt with real people?

    Just like the NHS would never lose your notes but at least it would be your responsibility and we would be saved your knocking the NHS at every opportunity.
    Siding with the provider rather than the patients, as always. Why not take the comments on board, rather than slagging people off?
  • Options
    AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Would it have been okay if they'd done the same thing to a fat bloke?
    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    edited November 2015
    Dair said:


    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Because he had the notes in front of him and it took him 30 seconds to copy it. You see, when you see the consultant they have your notes from the previous meeting in front of them. Radical stuff...
    Dair said:

    Given your background, I would have expected you to know that a 2 minute phone call to the Trust's DPA Officer would have seen your request expedited without delay.

    I have answered that elsewhere on this thread.
    Dair said:

    Every time you expand on your "truthy" story it makes it clearer that you are just the type of person who makes the NHS' job far harder than it need to be, ties up huge amounts of resources and wastes everybody's time.

    Well I have no intention of discussing my medical stuff with you with so we will just have to leave it there.


  • Options
    Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    So as well as being incompetent with losing notes they're also incompetent in not knowing the legal requirements for notes? Any other moans you want to get of your chest while you're at it?
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    My most recent experience with NHS dentistry was

    15:05 Start eating Refresher bar (Left over from Halloween)
    15:06 Discover I had pulled out filling with aforesaid Refresher bar
    15:07 Swear
    15:08 Phone dentist
    15:40 Turn up at dentist
    15:45 Seen by dentist
    16:00 Leave with new filling

    And it cost me Fourteen whole pounds!
  • Options
    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @maxshanly: @PickardJE At the 1981 Tribune rally Beckett called Kinnock a scab for not voting for Benn. Oh how times change.
  • Options
    Wanderer said:

    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
    And no doubt they'll squeal piteously when that is done. Contemptible people.
    Think themselves lucky, on the Japanese tube they would have been physically molested.
    I'm not taking this lightly, BTW, I think this behaviour could be the start of something more serious.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    edited November 2015
    Chris_A said:

    Any other moans you want to get of your chest while you're at it?

    Yes. Underwire bras can be hell when the wire pokes through the fabric. Definitely best off the chest when that happens.

  • Options
    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Hmmm.... "When the Tube cleaning staff turned up at the depot late tonight, the last thing they expected to find was the blood-eagled corpse of....."
    :)

    Copyright it quick. He is a novelist....
  • Options
    FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    I see Abbott offered some support... and someone else told her to join the tories !!


    Oh what fun the new redder than red Labour party is.
  • Options
    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838
    SeanT said:

    AndyJS said:

    Would it have been okay if they'd done the same thing to a fat bloke?

    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
    No, not at all. But individual women are, of course, more vulnerable.

    Anyway these cowards would not risk it with a man, I suspect.
    Yes, it's unlikely they'd try it on a sumo wrestler.
  • Options
    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Hilary Benn may have led quite a few Labour MPs off to his office after the PLP meeting – presumably for a game of bridge?
    -

    See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/gary-gibbon-on-politics/labour-plp-the-sequel/32040#sthash.hAPmG4JJ.dpuf
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,223
    SeanT said:

    AndyJS said:

    Would it have been okay if they'd done the same thing to a fat bloke?

    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
    No, not at all. But individual women are, of course, more vulnerable.

    Anyway these cowards would not risk it with a man, I suspect.
    My sister's not exactly slim - I dread to think what she'd do if a creep gave her something like this. Sooner or later these tossers will get what's coming to them.
  • Options
    Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237
    Wanderer said:



    Yes the technology is creaking and the processes became hugely more Byzantine on 1/4/13 thanks to Lansley.

    Take for example you have primary pulmonary hypertension brought on by your heart failure and you end up in my Trust for some entirely unconnected reason. We can treat the condition which brought you in but cannot treat the PPH because that's a condition covered by NHS England and we're not a specialist regional centre. Before the Health and Social Care Act we would have just treated you but now there are a large number of hoops to jump through before we can supply you with Viagra to treat it.

    There are many other conditions where this dichotomy between CCG and NHSE funding applies and you can spend a large chunk of every day tracking down who pays for what.

  • Options

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    I like it! One of your better ones :)
    Thank you Bev!

    PS Hope you're in good health now.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,975

    Chris_A said:

    And here's another one knocking the NHS probably because it's publicly funded and they cannot stand their taxes going towards it.

    You clearly have no clue what what you are talking about. You do not know me or my opinions on the NHS, so kindly stop telling me that I "... cannot stand their taxes going towards it" because you are wrong. I have no such objection and I never stated that I did.

    I have spent the last four years getting treatment on the NHS. I have dealt with nurses, GPs, consultants, surgeons, Practice Managers and patient groups and the reality is this: Everyone in the NHS generally means well, but collectively they could not organise a p*** up in a brewery.

    In the end I had to be my own health care manager. My case file, with all my notes, letters, etc, is over 3 inches thick and I took it with me to every appointment because in about half of my meetings my results or letters had not arrived or had gone missing somewhere. I dread to think how people less used to project management than I am get through the system.
    My wife has - not a condition - but a harmless version of something that can cause problems. So, for years, they have tracked her non-condition, as a valuable example. Except when they lost all the notes. 15 years of research down the drain.

    Apart from my copy. Which I wasn't supposed to have....
    Anyone can have a copy of their medical records if they are willing to pay for the photocopying. Apply via the Patients Affairs office at the Trust and it will be with you in 28 days.
    Someone tried to claim it was valuable research data so couldn't be released - classic 'crat making up excuses in the vaguely deniable kind of way (bollocks as an excuse, of course). I pretty much elbowed my way to the photocopier....
    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!
    My wife was standing next to me - the numpty tried telling her that she couldn't have a copy.
  • Options
    Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    Chris_A said:

    Any other moans you want to get of your chest while you're at it?

    Yes. Underwire bras can be hell when the wire pokes through the fabric. Definitely best off the chest when that happens.

    LOL
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,324

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Hmmm.... "When the Tube cleaning staff turned up at the depot late tonight, the last thing they expected to find was the blood-eagled corpse of....."
    Can we be sure the cards did not contain steganographed Bruce-Partington Plans ? Where's Mycroft when we need him?
  • Options
    DairDair Posts: 6,108

    Dair said:


    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Because he had the notes in front of him and it took him 30 seconds to copy it. You see, when you see the consultant they have your notes from the previous meeting in front of them. Radical stuff...
    You have absolutely no self-awareness.

    It takes time. It involves delaying the Consultant and involving a nurse (most likely who a consultant would ask to copy it) and 30 seconds is a lie, I'd expect in many cases it will be several minutes depending on how far the copier is, eating into the time TWO clinical staff have to treat patients.

    Not only that but you are disrupting the paperwork of the consultant and increasing the chance paperwork is lost or mis-filed. It seems VERY clear that a lot (if not all) of the issues you have experienced with patient records are entirely your own fault,

    You are making the wrong requests of the wrong people at the wrong time and disrupting your own treatment. And yet lack even a basic self-awareness to understand you are doing it to yourself.

    Pitiful.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    edited November 2015

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    I like it! One of your better ones :)
    Thank you Bev!

    PS Hope you're in good health now.
    Yes thank you. :) Fitter than ever.

    There was a dodgy moment when they told me I had to wear flats for 6 to 8 weeks, no heels, not even wedges....
  • Options
    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,324
    edited November 2015
    tlg86 said:

    SeanT said:

    AndyJS said:

    Would it have been okay if they'd done the same thing to a fat bloke?

    SeanT said:

    RobD said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Disappointed Sean was described as a mere "commuter" rather than "best-selling thriller-writer"!

    BTW - I came up with "Apocalypse Mao", on PB, natch :)
    Better-advised websites called me "novelist". The Guardian ignored me entirely.
    What an utter bastard.
    Did you speak to the woman who received the card, or did you feel bound by the strict social conventions on the tube?
    She was staring at the floor of the carriage in stifled tears. I had to get off at the next stop - Warren St (where, interestingly, this guy - or these people - handed out a similar card yesterday). So I got off.

    But I was so dismayed and angry I felt I had to tweet what I'd seen. It was the triviality, in a way, which made it so upsetting. Someone got cards printed just so they could quietly humiliate women on the Tube, in the most cowardly fashion? They just wanted to make individual women - and I've no doubt this is aimed at women - feel terrible.

    Fuckers. Anyway I raised a bit of awareness and hopefully next time they try it they will get kneed in the bollocks.
    No, not at all. But individual women are, of course, more vulnerable.

    Anyway these cowards would not risk it with a man, I suspect.
    My sister's not exactly slim - I dread to think what she'd do if a creep gave her something like this. Sooner or later these tossers will get what's coming to them.
    A few years back there was a case where a couple of men dressed as transvestites were attacked by a gang.

    Only the two men turned out to be cage fighters out for the night in fancy dress ...

    Edit: nearly right. It was two men who attacked them.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8296190.stm
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,975
    Chris_A said:

    Dair said:


    If you do not believe that the exact same isolated incidents that occur in the NHS (such as the ones you highlight) do not occur in every single large organisation in the world, then you are living in some sort of spectacular dreamworld.

    I am well aware that organisations have internal problems since I make my living out of removing such problems within companies and businesses.
    Dair said:

    The NHS does a pretty good job,

    On the clinical side I would agree with that. Once I got through the admin debacle and got hold of clinicians I liaised directly with them and cut out the admin layer as much as possible. That smoothed a lot of problems out.
    Dair said:

    My own experience with long term outpatient care has been excellent, my mother's cancer a few years back had her admitted within 4 day of diagnosis for her op.

    I am glad that you and your mum had good outcomes. Good news is always nice to hear.
    My experience for my children and various relatives is that for an extended stay in hospital you have to manage the care yourself. That includes that checking the tests have been order, samples taken, medication and notes communicated at shift changes etc...

    In every single hospital stay, the staff have tried, but I kept finding mistakes and omissions. You get very skilled at fixing something while trying to be polite.

    Quite simply the administrative and support system does not seem to work. In some hospitals it seems that the probability that a blood test will be done (first time) when ordered by a doctor is in the 80% range, for example
    Can we have some evidence rather than anecdote?
    Well I've had to re-order tests on just about every hospital stay I've be involved in... Unless I and my family are remarkably unlucky....

    The NHS is actually quite good - providing you can either manage your own care or have someone fit and well enough to do it for you. Probably the test gets done the next day, normally.

    To me, the horrifying thought is for those who either aren't up to it or are of the disposition to sit and wait for the doctor/nurse to fix everything.
  • Options
    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Chris_A said:

    And here's another one knocking the NHS probably because it's publicly funded and they cannot stand their taxes going towards it.

    You clearly have no clue what what you are talking about. You do not know me or my opinions on the NHS, so kindly stop telling me that I "... cannot stand their taxes going towards it" because you are wrong. I have no such objection and I never stated that I did.

    I have spent the last four years getting treatment on the NHS. I have dealt with nurses, GPs, consultants, surgeons, Practice Managers and patient groups and the reality is this: Everyone in the NHS generally means well, but collectively they could not organise a p*** up in a brewery.

    In the end I had to be my own health care manager. My case file, with all my notes, letters, etc, is over 3 inches thick and I took it with me to every appointment because in about half of my meetings my results or letters had not arrived or had gone missing somewhere. I dread to think how people less used to project management than I am get through the system.
    My wife has - not a condition - but a harmless version of something that can cause problems. So, for years, they have tracked her non-condition, as a valuable example. Except when they lost all the notes. 15 years of research down the drain.

    Apart from my copy. Which I wasn't supposed to have....
    Anyone can have a copy of their medical records if they are willing to pay for the photocopying. Apply via the Patients Affairs office at the Trust and it will be with you in 28 days.
    Someone tried to claim it was valuable research data so couldn't be released - classic 'crat making up excuses in the vaguely deniable kind of way (bollocks as an excuse, of course). I pretty much elbowed my way to the photocopier....
    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!
    My wife was standing next to me - the numpty tried telling her that she couldn't have a copy.
    That is correct. If you want to give her a copy, that is fine, but the health care provider cannot give her a copy of your records.

    (Some people have interesting lives that they wish to keep from their partners!)
  • Options
    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098


    I have seen both sides of it myself. Fox jr had appendicitis at Uni. From arriving in A and E to being on the operating table in less than 6 hours (I didn't pull any strings btw as I work 150 miles away). The surgery was done well (by a junior doctor) but the after care on the surgical ward was very poor. Such cases of peritonitis are at risk of pelvic abcesses, but basic obs were done only twice a day, and the overall standard of nursing care bordered on neglect.

    So I believe you HL*. The question is how do we raise the standard of care? I think better training is fundamental, as well as better selection processes. Hunts contract does not address these and is very likely to worsen recruitment and retention.

    * I have similar tales from a variety of health systems in Europe, North America and Australasia so not unique to the NHS.

    Well, some of my worst experiences have been down to staff being there but just not doing their job. That is possibly a training issue but certainly a leadership one - who is in charge and who should be making sure that the staff are doing what they are supposed to do? In Fox Jnrs case, who was in charge of nursing on that ward? Why weren't they kicking arse and why weren't they having their own arse kicked?

    By the way the lack of supervision and leadership is not unique to the NHS. Starting in the early 1990s I saw the same thing happening at the Home Office and, via my wife, in the police. I think it is a malaise that now affects the entire public sector.

    As for recruitment and retention I have some thoughts but they would never be accepted by the medical profession and in anycase I can only speak from a position of ignorance. So it's not much point in me joining in the debate.
  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    edited November 2015
    Dair said:


    It takes time. It involves delaying the Consultant and involving a nurse (most likely who a consultant would ask to copy it) and 30 seconds is a lie, I'd expect in many cases it will be several minutes depending on how far the copier is, eating into the time TWO clinical staff have to treat patients.

    FFS! He moved the mouse up his screen and pressed the little icon that looks like a printer. Then a machine went *whirr-click* and a magic copy appeared.

    Even my GP has one of these magic machines.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,975

    Dair said:


    If you do not believe that the exact same isolated incidents that occur in the NHS (such as the ones you highlight) do not occur in every single large organisation in the world, then you are living in some sort of spectacular dreamworld.

    I am well aware that organisations have internal problems since I make my living out of removing such problems within companies and businesses.
    Dair said:

    The NHS does a pretty good job,

    On the clinical side I would agree with that. Once I got through the admin debacle and got hold of clinicians I liaised directly with them and cut out the admin layer as much as possible. That smoothed a lot of problems out.
    Dair said:

    My own experience with long term outpatient care has been excellent, my mother's cancer a few years back had her admitted within 4 day of diagnosis for her op.

    I am glad that you and your mum had good outcomes. Good news is always nice to hear.
    My experience for my children and various relatives is that for an extended stay in hospital you have to manage the care yourself. That includes that checking the tests have been order, samples taken, medication and notes communicated at shift changes etc...

    In every single hospital stay, the staff have tried, but I kept finding mistakes and omissions. You get very skilled at fixing something while trying to be polite.

    Quite simply the administrative and support system does not seem to work. In some hospitals it seems that the probability that a blood test will be done (first time) when ordered by a doctor is in the 80% range, for example
    Part of this confusion is due to loss of continuity of care because of Doctors working shifts, with insufficient handover. This will be worse when staff are rostered off midweek, as different parts of the team will be rostered off at different times.

    One of the many things wrong with Hunts proposals is that continuity of care will be even worse than at present. This has adverse consequences for patient care, training of junior doctors and overall team working.
    The problem is also that the back office systems plain don't work. The entire system appears to be a network of people not communicating. Everyone is an island.

    Integrated logistics and ordering systems aren't some 23rd cent. dream. They exist off the shelf.
  • Options
    DairDair Posts: 6,108
    Alistair said:

    My most recent experience with NHS dentistry was

    15:05 Start eating Refresher bar (Left over from Halloween)
    15:06 Discover I had pulled out filling with aforesaid Refresher bar
    15:07 Swear
    15:08 Phone dentist
    15:40 Turn up at dentist
    15:45 Seen by dentist
    16:00 Leave with new filling

    And it cost me Fourteen whole pounds!

    I need a filling replaced and I can't get it until January the 6th,.

    How shocking is that, what a shoddy way to treat patients, the NHS should be ashamed, just think of the pain and suffering I will have to go through until the NHS can be bothered to actually treat me in the way my taxes deserve.

    Something should be done and the SNP should be utterly ashamed at the way they've allowed the Scottish NHS to fail people like me. I mean, 6 weeks for a filling. It's ridiculous.

    Of course, in reality, I need to have my braces taken off to have the filling replaced and my next orthodontic appointment is on the 6th January, both in the morning and afternoon, so they can take it off in the morning, allowing my dentist to do the work and fit my new wire in the afternoon.
  • Options
    Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    Chris_A said:

    Dair said:


    If you do not believe that the exact same isolated incidents that occur in the NHS (such as the ones you highlight) do not occur in every single large organisation in the world, then you are living in some sort of spectacular dreamworld.

    I am well aware that organisations have internal problems since I make my living out of removing such problems within companies and businesses.
    Dair said:

    The NHS does a pretty good job,

    On the clinical side I would agree with that. Once I got through the admin debacle and got hold of clinicians I liaised directly with them and cut out the admin layer as much as possible. That smoothed a lot of problems out.
    Dair said:

    My own experience with long term outpatient care has been excellent, my mother's cancer a few years back had her admitted within 4 day of diagnosis for her op.

    I am glad that you and your mum had good outcomes. Good news is always nice to hear.
    My experience for my children and various relatives is that for an extended stay in hospital you have to manage the care yourself. That includes that checking the tests have been order, samples taken, medication and notes communicated at shift changes etc...

    In every single hospital stay, the staff have tried, but I kept finding mistakes and omissions. You get very skilled at fixing something while trying to be polite.

    Quite simply the administrative and support system does not seem to work. In some hospitals it seems that the probability that a blood test will be done (first time) when ordered by a doctor is in the 80% range, for example
    Can we have some evidence rather than anecdote?
    Well I've had to re-order tests on just about every hospital stay I've be involved in... Unless I and my family are remarkably unlucky....

    The NHS is actually quite good - providing you can either manage your own care or have someone fit and well enough to do it for you. Probably the test gets done the next day, normally.

    To me, the horrifying thought is for those who either aren't up to it or are of the disposition to sit and wait for the doctor/nurse to fix everything.
    Yes I too have had to inquire sometimes about tests which should have happened, I just put it down to mistakes which happen in a large complex organisation. I do not, despite paying for it through taxes, expect it to be perfect. As to you having to do it at nearly every hospital stay, frankly I don't believe it. Whether I do or don't it's still an anecdote.
  • Options
    Fenster said:

    RobD said:

    Fenster said:

    Really bad news on the imminent, violent collapse of Venezuela too.

    That country which was set on eradicating poverty by rejecting neo-liberal policies.

    Inflation now running at well over 100%.

    Not sure, the collapse of the regime sounds excellent.
    Sorry, I was thinking bad news for the people... Apparently you can trade 10,000 of whatever their currency is for $10. How sad is that?

    I remember earlier in the summer Jeremy Corbyn was eulogising about how wonderful, redistributionist and just their political system was. Sounds a doozy.
    Be fair! They are probably very good at redistributing the blame and the nothing they have - indeed now they are all bankrupt they are all equally screwed!
  • Options
    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    SeanT said:

    I caused my first twitterstorm today

    *proud*

    Yes. I noticed you on the ITV news webpage. How come you did not tackle the nasty young man like one of your literary heros?

    ;)
    Hmmm.... "When the Tube cleaning staff turned up at the depot late tonight, the last thing they expected to find was the blood-eagled corpse of....."
    Can we be sure the cards did not contain steganographed Bruce-Partington Plans ? Where's Mycroft when we need him?
    At this time of night he will be either in his lodgings in Pall Mall or at the Diogenes Club, same as always.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,975
    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    Dair said:


    If you do not believe that the exact same isolated incidents that occur in the NHS (such as the ones you highlight) do not occur in every single large organisation in the world, then you are living in some sort of spectacular dreamworld.

    I am well aware that organisations have internal problems since I make my living out of removing such problems within companies and businesses.
    Dair said:

    The NHS does a pretty good job,

    On the clinical side I would agree with that. Once I got through the admin debacle and got hold of clinicians I liaised directly with them and cut out the admin layer as much as possible. That smoothed a lot of problems out.
    Dair said:

    My own experience with long term outpatient care has been excellent, my mother's cancer a few years back had her admitted within 4 day of diagnosis for her op.

    I am glad that you and your mum had good outcomes. Good news is always nice to hear.
    :

    Quite simply the administrative and support system does not seem to work. In some hospitals it seems that the probability that a blood test will be done (first time) when ordered by a doctor is in the 80% range, for example
    Can we have some evidence rather than anecdote?
    Well I've had to re-order tests on just about every hospital stay I've be involved in... Unless I and my family are remarkably unlucky....

    The NHS is actually quite good - providing you can either manage your own care or have someone fit and well enough to do it for you. Probably the test gets done the next day, normally.

    To me, the horrifying thought is for those who either aren't up to it or are of the disposition to sit and wait for the doctor/nurse to fix everything.
    Yes I too have had to inquire sometimes about tests which should have happened, I just put it down to mistakes which happen in a large complex organisation. I do not, despite paying for it through taxes, expect it to be perfect. As to you having to do it at nearly every hospital stay, frankly I don't believe it. Whether I do or don't it's still an anecdote.
    Well, all I can say it that it happens. I almost find it entertaining - I takes bets with the wife on the probability that x will or won't happen next.

    The problem, to me, is for the people who don't know how the system works. Posh Evul Middle Class Barstewards like myself can game the system, get things done etc.. What happens to those who just sit and wait?
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    Wanderer said:

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
    I don't really follow Tomlinson's twitter, so I can only go on what I've just seen now - but it doesn't seem like she's a Corbyn supporter (in the sense she agrees with everything he says). She just supports him because he's Labour leader - so it is more easier for her to make a genuine judgement on how people feel about him, then 'real' Corbynites, who see Corbyn as 'taking our party back'.

    You're getting onto correct territory when see sex positive feminism as the opposite to Dworkin's feminism. The term orginates from the 1970s-80s, when feminists were split between those were anti pornography, and those who weren't. Now, sex-positive feminism has a much wider definition, in terms of being about a woman's freedom to express her sexuality (or, to not express her sexuality) in whatever way she chooses.
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    MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,960
    Dair said:

    Alistair said:

    My most recent experience with NHS dentistry was

    15:05 Start eating Refresher bar (Left over from Halloween)
    15:06 Discover I had pulled out filling with aforesaid Refresher bar
    15:07 Swear
    15:08 Phone dentist
    15:40 Turn up at dentist
    15:45 Seen by dentist
    16:00 Leave with new filling

    And it cost me Fourteen whole pounds!

    I need a filling replaced and I can't get it until January the 6th,.

    How shocking is that, what a shoddy way to treat patients, the NHS should be ashamed, just think of the pain and suffering I will have to go through until the NHS can be bothered to actually treat me in the way my taxes deserve.

    Something should be done and the SNP should be utterly ashamed at the way they've allowed the Scottish NHS to fail people like me. I mean, 6 weeks for a filling. It's ridiculous.

    Of course, in reality, I need to have my braces taken off to have the filling replaced and my next orthodontic appointment is on the 6th January, both in the morning and afternoon, so they can take it off in the morning, allowing my dentist to do the work and fit my new wire in the afternoon.
    You need a filling replaced? As in the original one has come out?

    And Alistair's filling had come out too.

    What is happening with dentistry in your neck of the woods? I've never had a filling come out.....
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    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,975

    Chris_A said:

    And here's another one knocking the NHS probably because it's publicly funded and they cannot stand their taxes going towards it.

    You clearly have no clue what what you are talking about. You do not know me or my opinions on the NHS, so kindly stop telling me that I "... cannot stand their taxes going towards it" because you are wrong. I have no such objection and I never stated that I did.

    I have spent the last four years getting treatment on the NHS. I have dealt with nurses, GPs, consultants, surgeons, Practice Managers and patient groups and the reality is this: Everyone in the NHS generally means well, but collectively they could not organise a p*** up in a brewery.

    In the end I had to be my own health care manager. My case file, with all my notes, letters, etc, is over 3 inches thick and I took it with me to every appointment because in about half of my meetings my results or letters had not arrived or had gone missing somewhere. I dread to think how people less used to project management than I am get through the system.
    My wife has - not a condition - but a harmless version of something that can cause problems. So, for years, they have tracked her non-condition, as a valuable example. Except when they lost all the notes. 15 years of research down the drain.

    Apart from my copy. Which I wasn't supposed to have....
    Anyone can have a copy of their medical records if they are willing to pay for the photocopying. Apply via the Patients Affairs office at the Trust and it will be with you in 28 days.
    Someone tried to claim it was valuable research data so couldn't be released - classic 'crat making up excuses in the vaguely deniable kind of way (bollocks as an excuse, of course). I pretty much elbowed my way to the photocopier....
    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!
    My wife was standing next to me - the numpty tried telling her that she couldn't have a copy.
    That is correct. If you want to give her a copy, that is fine, but the health care provider cannot give her a copy of your records.

    (Some people have interesting lives that they wish to keep from their partners!)
    You misunderstand - she was told that she couldn't have her own records.
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    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    Wanderer said:

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
    I don't really follow Tomlinson's twitter, so I can only go on what I've just seen now - but it doesn't seem like she's a Corbyn supporter (in the sense she agrees with everything he says). She just supports him because he's Labour leader - so it is more easier for her to make a genuine judgement on how people feel about him, then 'real' Corbynites, who see Corbyn as 'taking our party back'.

    You're getting onto correct territory when see sex positive feminism as the opposite to Dworkin's feminism. The term orginates from the 1970s-80s, when feminists were split between those were anti pornography, and those who weren't. Now, sex-positive feminism has a much wider definition, in terms of being about a woman's freedom to express her sexuality (or, to not express her sexuality) in whatever way she chooses.
    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.
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    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 19,240
    Dair said:

    Dair said:


    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Because he had the notes in front of him and it took him 30 seconds to copy it. You see, when you see the consultant they have your notes from the previous meeting in front of them. Radical stuff...
    You have absolutely no self-awareness.

    It takes time. It involves delaying the Consultant and involving a nurse (most likely who a consultant would ask to copy it) and 30 seconds is a lie, I'd expect in many cases it will be several minutes depending on how far the copier is, eating into the time TWO clinical staff have to treat patients.

    Not only that but you are disrupting the paperwork of the consultant and increasing the chance paperwork is lost or mis-filed. It seems VERY clear that a lot (if not all) of the issues you have experienced with patient records are entirely your own fault,

    You are making the wrong requests of the wrong people at the wrong time and disrupting your own treatment. And yet lack even a basic self-awareness to understand you are doing it to yourself.

    Pitiful.
    Dair, Beverly_C is reporting her efforts to cope with a system which, while mostly adequate and occasionally brilliant, can sometimes be inadequate and occasionally appalling. She is trying to tell you things. Her testimony is a verbal report from a reasonably intelligent observer trying to report the observed facts. Such accounts may or may not be wholly accurate but adhomineming (sic) her is unjustified.
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    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,334
    edited November 2015
    White Dee, I believe, was the reality TV celeb and CBB star who briefly considered trying to become an MP before deciding that she was making so much through PAs in clubs and store openings that she could could not afford the paycut!
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    'Defensive, uninspiring, and unimaginative' sounds like an accurate analysis of Labour right now, tbh.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @JananGanesh: How can they stand it? On a basic day to day level, how do Labour MPs go to work knowing they are nominally outranked by these jokers?
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139

    'Defensive, uninspiring, and unimaginative' sounds like an accurate analysis of Labour right now, tbh.

    IDK, Corbyn's leadership style has been highly imaginative.
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    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,607

    Wanderer said:

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
    I don't really follow Tomlinson's twitter, so I can only go on what I've just seen now - but it doesn't seem like she's a Corbyn supporter (in the sense she agrees with everything he says). She just supports him because he's Labour leader - so it is more easier for her to make a genuine judgement on how people feel about him, then 'real' Corbynites, who see Corbyn as 'taking our party back'.

    You're getting onto correct territory when see sex positive feminism as the opposite to Dworkin's feminism. The term orginates from the 1970s-80s, when feminists were split between those were anti pornography, and those who weren't. Now, sex-positive feminism has a much wider definition, in terms of being about a woman's freedom to express her sexuality (or, to not express her sexuality) in whatever way she chooses.
    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.
    I know (or can guess) what an underwired bra is.

    What @rcs1000 said about Proxies and Thor and IP addresses meanwhile...not a scooby doo.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    The Times article is up, and it's brutal
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    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 19,240

    Dair said:


    It takes time. It involves delaying the Consultant and involving a nurse (most likely who a consultant would ask to copy it) and 30 seconds is a lie, I'd expect in many cases it will be several minutes depending on how far the copier is, eating into the time TWO clinical staff have to treat patients.

    FFS! He moved the mouse up his screen and pressed the little icon that looks like a printer. Then a machine went *whirr-click* and a magic copy appeared.

    Even my GP has one of these magic machines.
    'mazing. They do say that one day every home will have such a magic machine, whereby people from around the world will gather on one screen to discuss the politics of the day and how one may profit from wagers thereby. Can't see it, myself...:-)
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    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098
    TOPPING said:

    Wanderer said:

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
    I don't really follow Tomlinson's twitter, so I can only go on what I've just seen now - but it doesn't seem like she's a Corbyn supporter (in the sense she agrees with everything he says). She just supports him because he's Labour leader - so it is more easier for her to make a genuine judgement on how people feel about him, then 'real' Corbynites, who see Corbyn as 'taking our party back'.

    You're getting onto correct territory when see sex positive feminism as the opposite to Dworkin's feminism. The term orginates from the 1970s-80s, when feminists were split between those were anti pornography, and those who weren't. Now, sex-positive feminism has a much wider definition, in terms of being about a woman's freedom to express her sexuality (or, to not express her sexuality) in whatever way she chooses.
    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.
    I know (or can guess) what an underwired bra is.

    What @rcs1000 said about Proxies and Thor and IP addresses meanwhile...not a scooby doo.
    Nor me and I treasure my innocence in both matters.
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    DairDair Posts: 6,108


    You misunderstand - she was told that she couldn't have her own records.

    Because the clear nuance is that she regularly asks (and wastes the time of) the wrong people in making these ridiculous demands which likely contribute to the problems with her records.

    The story also sounds heavily massaged.
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    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256


    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.

    Really Mr Llama... an underwire bra is one where the cup is stiffened and supported by a hard wire that runs under the cup from one side to the other. Eventually the wire wears through the fabric and starts jabbing you. If this happens in the middle of the day you have little choice other than to pull the wire out and throw it away resulting in having a "saggy" side for the rest of the day.


  • Options
    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    viewcode said:


    'mazing. They do say that one day every home will have such a magic machine, whereby people from around the world will gather on one screen to discuss the politics of the day and how one may profit from wagers thereby. Can't see it, myself...:-)

    Next they will be eliminating slips of paper and allowing electronic bets.

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    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838
    kle4 said:

    'Defensive, uninspiring, and unimaginative' sounds like an accurate analysis of Labour right now, tbh.

    IDK, Corbyn's leadership style has been highly imaginative.
    It's been unconventional but it's starting to be predictable and formulaic. Just imagine what a caricature hard-leftie would do and bingo, that's it.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Newsnight. What is Labour Foreign policy?

    Ummm.......
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    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    Dair said:


    You misunderstand - she was told that she couldn't have her own records.

    Because the clear nuance is that she regularly asks (and wastes the time of) the wrong people in making these ridiculous demands which likely contribute to the problems with her records.

    The story also sounds heavily massaged.
    I think you have mixed my posts with Malmesbury's. Maybe a lie down, a cup of coffee and two Panadols will help.
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    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838
    Scott_P said:

    @JananGanesh: How can they stand it? On a basic day to day level, how do Labour MPs go to work knowing they are nominally outranked by these jokers?

    It must be absolutely surreal.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Emily Maitlis "Jeremy Corbyn has bottled it"
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    kle4 said:

    'Defensive, uninspiring, and unimaginative' sounds like an accurate analysis of Labour right now, tbh.

    IDK, Corbyn's leadership style has been highly imaginative.
    I suppose the idea of the Labour party leading Corbyn, rather than Corbyn leading the Labour party is quite a unique leadership style. Bringing back Mao....well, I guess there's got to be some way to describe that. Even though that particular incident still leaves me speechless.
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    dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,291
    https://twitter.com/Nogoodboyo22/status/671458127200583680

    Today Abby has been finding out about the myth of Labour's kinder, gentler politics on Twitter.
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    AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 2,869

    Wanderer said:

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
    I don't really follow Tomlinson's twitter, so I can only go on what I've just seen now - but it doesn't seem like she's a Corbyn supporter (in the sense she agrees with everything he says). She just supports him because he's Labour leader - so it is more easier for her to make a genuine judgement on how people feel about him, then 'real' Corbynites, who see Corbyn as 'taking our party back'.

    You're getting onto correct territory when see sex positive feminism as the opposite to Dworkin's feminism. The term orginates from the 1970s-80s, when feminists were split between those were anti pornography, and those who weren't. Now, sex-positive feminism has a much wider definition, in terms of being about a woman's freedom to express her sexuality (or, to not express her sexuality) in whatever way she chooses.
    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.
    Ahem .....
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    WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838

    Wanderer said:

    Sorry to hear that Abby Tomlinson is getting a lot of flack from the Corbyn supporters. While I don't agree with her views on Ed Miliband, it's clear she is far more in touch with reality than many Corbynites.

    I see @Plato_Says mentioned yesterday's discussion (in the previous thread). I never saw 'sex-positive feminism' as a PC term, but oh well (just name which describes what's on the tin). The likes of @GeoffM are probably why most women under 45 don't vote Tory.

    I almost wonder if the reason Abby Tomlinson has been attacked is that it is apparent that she is in touch with reality even though she supports Corbyn, and subliminally that is registering that she doesn't "really" support him.

    I've always understood "sex-positive feminism" to mean "not Andrea Dworkin". Not a PC term - actually I think those feminists were relatively less PC (or perhaps PC in a different way)?
    I don't really follow Tomlinson's twitter, so I can only go on what I've just seen now - but it doesn't seem like she's a Corbyn supporter (in the sense she agrees with everything he says). She just supports him because he's Labour leader - so it is more easier for her to make a genuine judgement on how people feel about him, then 'real' Corbynites, who see Corbyn as 'taking our party back'.

    You're getting onto correct territory when see sex positive feminism as the opposite to Dworkin's feminism. The term orginates from the 1970s-80s, when feminists were split between those were anti pornography, and those who weren't. Now, sex-positive feminism has a much wider definition, in terms of being about a woman's freedom to express her sexuality (or, to not express her sexuality) in whatever way she chooses.
    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.
    Hehe. I'm a man actually. Feminism is interesting stuff (but I was talking about the Seven Years' War earlier, so I'm not completely beyond redemption).
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    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Dair said:

    You have the right to access the data held on yourself, but obviously not on other people!

    A surprising number of staff seemed to disagree with that.
    It is a right established under the Data Protection Act
    That is what I said when I met resistance. There was only one instance where the admin staff refused point-blank to give me my notes but the consultant got me a copy at my next appointment.
    Why did you waste the time of a consultant on a non-clinical matter?

    Given your background, I would have expected you to know that a 2 minute phone call to the Trust's DPA Officer would have seen your request expedited without delay.

    Every time you expand on your "truthy" story it makes it clearer that you are just the type of person who makes the NHS' job far harder than it need to be, ties up huge amounts of resources and wastes everybody's time.
    "Expedited without delay" lol. Another armchair theorist.
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    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098


    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.

    Really Mr Llama... an underwire bra is one where the cup is stiffened and supported by a hard wire that runs under the cup from one side to the other. Eventually the wire wears through the fabric and starts jabbing you. If this happens in the middle of the day you have little choice other than to pull the wire out and throw it away resulting in having a "saggy" side for the rest of the day.


    Thank you, Mrs C., you efforts to remedy my ignorance are appreciated. However I now have information that I rather wished I didn't have and which I am going to have to do my best to forget.

    Once, on a course, I was the only chap amongst the delegates staying at a particular hotel. Naturally we all went out for drinkies and a curry but the four ladies found that having a man present was cramping their conversation. So they made me an honorary girl for the evening. Gosh, I learned a lot and a lot that no man should, in my opinion, be allowed to know. I got drunk as a quick as I could so that I would no longer be completely embarrassed and would, hopefully, not remember too much of the conversation. Unfortunately the ladies matched me drink for drink and as they too got drunk so they became even more uninhibited in their talk.
    By the time I made to my bed I was a much wiser and much sadder man.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Mortimer said:

    Dair said:

    Alistair said:

    My most recent experience with NHS dentistry was

    15:05 Start eating Refresher bar (Left over from Halloween)
    15:06 Discover I had pulled out filling with aforesaid Refresher bar
    15:07 Swear
    15:08 Phone dentist
    15:40 Turn up at dentist
    15:45 Seen by dentist
    16:00 Leave with new filling

    And it cost me Fourteen whole pounds!

    I need a filling replaced and I can't get it until January the 6th,.

    How shocking is that, what a shoddy way to treat patients, the NHS should be ashamed, just think of the pain and suffering I will have to go through until the NHS can be bothered to actually treat me in the way my taxes deserve.

    Something should be done and the SNP should be utterly ashamed at the way they've allowed the Scottish NHS to fail people like me. I mean, 6 weeks for a filling. It's ridiculous.

    Of course, in reality, I need to have my braces taken off to have the filling replaced and my next orthodontic appointment is on the 6th January, both in the morning and afternoon, so they can take it off in the morning, allowing my dentist to do the work and fit my new wire in the afternoon.
    You need a filling replaced? As in the original one has come out?

    And Alistair's filling had come out too.

    What is happening with dentistry in your neck of the woods? I've never had a filling come out.....
    Due to a decade of my own neglect in the middle of my life my teeth are in dreadful shape and it is basically an amazing salvage job by the dentist at the moment.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @BBCNewsnight: "Labour are not acting like a credible alternative to government," says @RSylvesterTimes #Newsnight
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    My general advice now is brush your teeth properly. It is worth it.
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    AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 2,869


    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.

    Really Mr Llama... an underwire bra is one where the cup is stiffened and supported by a hard wire that runs under the cup from one side to the other. Eventually the wire wears through the fabric and starts jabbing you. If this happens in the middle of the day you have little choice other than to pull the wire out and throw it away resulting in having a "saggy" side for the rest of the day.


    A minor operation on the bra when new will prevent this. A small incision on the fabric covering the loop, remove an inch or so of the wire itself with wire-cutters, and hey presto! no jabs.
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    MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,960
    Alistair said:

    My general advice now is brush your teeth properly. It is worth it.

    Agreed - dentists must hate the electric toothbrush....
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    Political betting below the line is a remarkable place. Tonight it is an interpolated palimpsest of politics, dentistry and practical lingerie management.
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    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034



    I have seen both sides of it myself. Fox jr had appendicitis at Uni. From arriving in A and E to being on the operating table in less than 6 hours (I didn't pull any strings btw as I work 150 miles away). The surgery was done well (by a junior doctor) but the after care on the surgical ward was very poor. Such cases of peritonitis are at risk of pelvic abcesses, but basic obs were done only twice a day, and the overall standard of nursing care bordered on neglect.

    So I believe you HL*. The question is how do we raise the standard of care? I think better training is fundamental, as well as better selection processes. Hunts contract does not address these and is very likely to worsen recruitment and retention.

    * I have similar tales from a variety of health systems in Europe, North America and Australasia so not unique to the NHS.

    Dr Fox> Check out what the Joint Commission is trying to do on bringing High Reliability Organization principles to hospitals. I have been doing a lot of research on this in the past few months. Several US hospital systems have made great strides doing this:

    http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/Chassin_and_Loeb_0913_final.pdf
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    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    AnneJGP said:


    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.

    Really Mr Llama... an underwire bra is one where the cup is stiffened and supported by a hard wire that runs under the cup from one side to the other. Eventually the wire wears through the fabric and starts jabbing you. If this happens in the middle of the day you have little choice other than to pull the wire out and throw it away resulting in having a "saggy" side for the rest of the day.


    A minor operation on the bra when new will prevent this. A small incision on the fabric covering the loop, remove an inch or so of the wire itself with wire-cutters, and hey presto! no jabs.
    The most worthwhile post on PB this evening. I shall go and dig out the wire cutters!
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036
    Mortimer said:

    Alistair said:

    My general advice now is brush your teeth properly. It is worth it.

    Agreed - dentists must hate the electric toothbrush....
    My dentist is always moaning that I should floss. I probably should, but I'm hoping that my bi-annual visits to the dentist/hygienist make up for it.

    Alistair- did you not go to the dentist for 10 years, or did they keep badgering you about stuff but failed to follow through on it (much like me?)
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036

    Political betting below the line is a remarkable place. Tonight it is an interpolated palimpsest of politics, dentistry and practical lingerie management.

    It's why the pub analogy for the PB comments section is so apt.
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    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256


    Crikey, first we have Mrs C with her malfunctioning underwired bras (whatever they are) and now we have you two discussing expressions of female sexuality. This is a politics site, ladies, and some of us chaps just don't need to know about that stuff.

    Really Mr Llama... an underwire bra is one where the cup is stiffened and supported by a hard wire that runs under the cup from one side to the other. Eventually the wire wears through the fabric and starts jabbing you. If this happens in the middle of the day you have little choice other than to pull the wire out and throw it away resulting in having a "saggy" side for the rest of the day.


    Thank you, Mrs C., you efforts to remedy my ignorance are appreciated. However I now have information that I rather wished I didn't have and which I am going to have to do my best to forget.

    Once, on a course, I was the only chap amongst the delegates staying at a particular hotel. Naturally we all went out for drinkies and a curry but the four ladies found that having a man present was cramping their conversation. So they made me an honorary girl for the evening. Gosh, I learned a lot and a lot that no man should, in my opinion, be allowed to know. I got drunk as a quick as I could so that I would no longer be completely embarrassed and would, hopefully, not remember too much of the conversation. Unfortunately the ladies matched me drink for drink and as they too got drunk so they became even more uninhibited in their talk.
    By the time I made to my bed I was a much wiser and much sadder man.
    :):):)

    Welcome to the other side Mr Llama. I am sure the conversation was much more interesting than, say, racing cars or horses....
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