MAKING THE NHS DIGITAL

As mother's snoring louder than a warthog on the sofa then to alleviate boredom I’m continuing my online rant on the topic of digitising the NHS which quite frankly is turning into a right royal pain in the arse.

Today, I discovered yet another ‘innovation’ on the health front that pissed me off no end, to the point that I almost picked up the phone to mother’s GP surgery there and then to let them have it both barrels such was my annoyance.

Of course, in reality I’d never do that as I’m far too polite but in the deep, dark recesses of my mind, I’d drive a Sherman tank right up to the surgery door then blast them to kingdom come much like Trump threatened to do to Iran. Clearly, he’s much too diplomatically polite as he still hasn’t.

So, what is this health service ‘innovation’ that’s got my goat? It’s the new messaging service on a platform called SystemOnline used by numerous surgeries.

Firstly, you receive a standardised email out of the blue advising you have a message on that portal. The email doesn’t give any clues as to what the hell that message might be about. You could have 6 months to live or a blood test result but until you log in then it’s anyone’s guess.

Secondly, you have to go off to log into the SystemOnline portal to find the message in order to read it. This means accessing another web site, remembering yet another set of log-in credentials, etc, etc. And as we all know, unless you’ve written these things down then at any age, this is a challenge in itself.

Oh, look. Surprise, surprise! There are loads of unread messages. Forty-one to be precise that neither of my aged parents or myself were remotely aware of because we never even knew this facility existed.

And guess what, one of those messages actually had a request on it for mother to make a GP appointment to discuss test results.

Making the NHS digital process summarised as follows:

- Surgery sends email
- Patient logs into a different website to view message
- Patient rings surgery to discuss contents of message
- Patient then has to wait at least a fortnight for the next appointment date

Basically, if I hadn’t accessed both of my parent’s laptops then I wouldn’t have been any the wiser. (Yeah, I have their passwords so can hack in at any time).

All this in spite of telling the surgery months ago that visually impaired patients CANNOT see to use a laptop, smartphone or any other device so all medically related communications should be made by phone call. Request ignored.

It would have been far easier all round if the surgery had done an ET and simply phoned home to offer mum an appointment rather than subject someone who is elderly, cognitively and technologically impaired to this digital rigmarole. Lucky for her, I’m here to deal with this shit.

What’s next on the Care in the Community agenda? Chat GP doctors? Robots that turn up on your doorstep to take your temperature? Why not just give us all syringes and we’ll draw our own blood samples? Good God!  I hope I’m not giving them any new ideas…

Oh wait, I think I read about this only the other day – iPad questionnaires to fill in at A&E reception desks. That’ll be a hoot. The last time I spent hours waiting in A&E it was largely full of drunks, hysterical teenagers or cokeheads, most of whom were in no fit state to speak to a receptionist let alone piss about on an iPad.

Seriously, this digital pathway the health service has embarked upon is going to result in most of its patients giving up the will to live but then maybe that’s their intention all along – less patients, cheaper to deliver healthcare.

Not promising this is the last NHS related cyber rant as who knows what tomorrow might bring!

DOCTOR DEFICIENCY

“It’s not looking very nice outside” says my befuddled mother oblivious to the fact that I’ve repeated the weather forecast more times than the BBC over the past 5 days. Data retention evaporates almost as rapidly as this year’s summer.

The Ancient Mariner has hitched a ride on a Ryanair galleon to foreign parts leaving yours truly to ‘Nanny sit’.  So, for the next couple of weeks, I’m trapped in an endless conversational loopy loop that goes round and round and round on the same spot like a badly stuck record.

Cognitive issues usually attributed to old age, other medical conditions such as diabetes and possible vitamin deficiencies are ripe for NHS inactivity. Referral to a Memory Clinic is now dependent on the results of continued blood testing for vitamin deficiencies resulting in delayed diagnosis of true state of mind. No wonder it takes years for patients to get a proper dementia diagnosis. Stalling tactics – that’s all this is!

Lack of B12 can cause memory impairment and this could be easily rectified in the elderly with a swift injected dose of the stuff. But we’re talking the NHS here. Due to health service penny pinching, B12 injections are no longer on the menu even for 88 year-old befuddled diabetics.

‘You can buy vitamin supplements on the High Street’ the GP informed me during our last telephone consultation. Yeah, at my expense I thought rather than on a free prescription which my mother is entitled to, her being as close to a century as Britain is to an IMF bailout. I wonder how many other patients are being fobbed off to the pharmacy without prescriptions? These supplements may help with memory deficiencies but what can we do about doctor deficiencies?

The irony of this situation is that left to their own devices, elderly memory impaired biddies struggle to remember to take daily supplements. I mean, if they can’t remember what day of the week it is then how on earth will they remember they’ve got tablets to take?

Which is why a B12 jab is perfect. It delivers a dose more powerful than anything you’ll get from a health store straight into your body’s system and all you’ve got to remember is to get to the appointment. Dr Google quickly signposted me to Superdrug pharmacies who are now offering these jabs privately at £29 per time.

The second irony is that in the past, vitamin supplements have always been heartily pooh-poohed by the medical profession as having no real medicinal value. (Insufficient evidence, blah, blah, blah – the usual NHS guff). Of course, now penniless, the shoe is on the other foot and vitamins are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Your GP is still not going to prescribe them though because if they did, the NHS would go bust.

And this brings me to the next hurdle in the NHS Grand National – getting an appointment for a blood test.

Making the NHS Digital – I dutifully filled in the online form on behalf of mother as being visually and technologically impaired this is an impossibility for her. That was on 4 June.

Within hours, an email confirmed that the surgery would contact me sometime prior to the 12 June to discuss my request.

Four days later having heard nothing from the surgery, I rang them only to be advised that the next available blood testing appointment was not until the end of June – 26 days from the date of my original online request. So much for the digital system improving access to health services.

I imagine that after her blood testing appointment, we’ll then have to wait another few weeks for the results and are likely to be told to carry on with supplements because the NHS will continue to delay a referral to the Memory Clinic until mother gets battier than Castle Dracula.

I asked her GP Surgery if it would be quicker for us to get tested at the local hospital which is how it works in Chichester where you can directly book an appointment online for blood tests at St Richards. Are you having a laugh? Not in Bournemouth it seems. ‘Oh, the hospital doesn’t like GPs booking blood tests with them and you can’t book directly.’ said the receptionist.

So much for quick access to care in the community. I can’t see it getting any better once the NHS starts passing the buck to local pharmacies or health hubs because with fewer resources they’re just going to end up swamped with requests for appointments.

As time goes on, the gulf between doctor and patient will get wider, probably as wide as the Straits of Hormuz. Greater delays in accessing diagnosis or treatments are likely to be experienced and with impatience levels being what they are these days then eventually everyone will just end up going private thus bringing about the demise of the NHS.

Perhaps rather than blowing my pension on a Lamborghini, I’d be better off setting up a High Street blood testing clinic and laboratory.

Crikey! Kerching! I could make a right killing by doing this as doctors’ surgeries could then outsource all their testing to me for a nice fat fee. Or people could just book with me directly thus making it easier and quicker for patients to monitor and treat their own vitamin deficiencies rather than wait on deficient doctors.

OLD FLOORING - RIP IT ALL UP

Bertie! Where’s that mischievous moggy got to? Ah, there he is. Taking a cat nap on my freshly washed bedding. Nothing’s sacred where cats are concerned.

Cats love the whoosh of freshness

Refreshed from our Maltese adventure, it's time to get rid of this awful dark red carpet – sort of Chilean merlot meets sleezy whorehouse. Not really my kind of colour and can’t understand why the previous owners would have chosen it either but when I consider the range of carpet colours festooned about the house prior to refurbishment (pink, green, beige) then why not throw in some red in as well. There’s a reason why most of us carpet our homes in the same colour - for continuity and flow.

Perfect for hiding red wine spillage

Wait, what’s this? Under the hideous red appears to be a second lot of flooring. Black tiles with red and white swishes of colour. Ugh! Don’t know what’s worse the red carpet or these things. Up they come.

What are these awful tiles?

Speaking to our new neighbour and inviting him in for a tour of the house, he just happened to mention that the black tiles which I’d ripped up with gay abandon might have been vintage thermoplastic tiles. Oh no!

Old thermoplastic tiles

A quick consultation with Doctor Google confirmed my worst fears. These old-fashioned tiles sometimes laid down as a damp proof course in by-gone days could contain asbestos. F**k!!! I might not live to regret this. Not only have I probably reduced my lifespan by chiselling them off with a screwdriver, no gloves or mask worn but I also took them to the tip, unbagged, and dumped them in the generic household waste section thus potentially endangering the lives of everyone working at the recycling centre. OMG! Are you nuts?

With hindsight, I should have just left them in situ. They looked so harmless. And ugly. How was I to know these might be bronchial-killers?

Well, it’s too late to cry over spilt milk or asbestosis. What’s done is done and what’s worse is that the man from Tapi Carpets said not a dicky bird when he popped round to measure up for the new floor so clearly, he was as unaware of this scenario as I was.

Too late I've taken them all up

I might jest on here but seriously, a word to anyone involved in renovating an old house particularly one built in the late 50s/early 60s – always check online before removing any materials such as old flooring, artex or boards under fascias as chances are these might contain the dreaded ‘A’ (asbestos) or other toxic substances and may have to be removed professionally.

I’m hoping that as the floor is being screed to bring it up to the same level as that of the downstairs toilet and kitchen then that will be enough to encapsulate anything that might become a problem at a later date. 

My other concern is that in removing these thermoplastic tiles, I may have created a colder surface for us to walk on by taking away the ‘thermal’ covering laid on top of the original concrete floor. Only time will tell.

Ready for new flooring

WHAT IF?

There’s a game I sometimes like to play when I’m at a loose end that I call the ‘WHAT IF?' game.

‘What If?’ is the result of an over-active imagination and too much free time on one’s hands. The rules of this game are simple. To play ‘What If?’ grab a cuppa, a comfy seat and choose a scenario. It can be anything you fancy from dropping litter to travelling to the moon and back. Now, spend hours musing over what might happen if the world at large did or didn’t do that specific something. What outcomes could arise?

I find that pondering on hypothetically extreme scenarios staves off boredom in retirement as well as providing much needed exercise for those little grey cells that have no doubt gone into hibernation since I quit the workplace. You can make your scenarios as ridiculous as you like such as imagining what might happen if everyone in the world only wore pink spotted knickers.

After the recent energy ‘pants’ cap announcement, I got to thinking with my ‘What If?’ hat on and asked myself this: What would happen if everyone in the world got solar panels? And in my ridiculous scenario, I mean everyone. Every mud hut, igloo, tree house, cave, skyscraper, shack, tent or any form of dwelling/building anywhere on the globe. Stick a panel on it, generate your own power.

OK so that is complete nonsense because not every structure is built to support solar panels but I mean, think about it. What would happen if EVERY house or building in the UK got solar panels?

Let’s see. In just a few minutes, these are some of the far-out hypothetical outcomes my brain came up with:

• Cheaper electricity bills as you’d only pay a standing charge.
• Increased sale of batteries to store all that power.
• Demand of electricity from the grid reduced.
• Energy suppliers’ profits plummet due to lack of consumption.
• Energy companies go bust.
• Ofgem would have to rethink all its policies and pricing mechanisms.
• Standing charges would rocket to prop up ailing suppliers.
• Smart meters would become mandatory by law.
• Risk of cyber hijacking of smart meters.
• People working at energy supply companies would lose their jobs.
• Increased burden on UK taxpayer.
• Rising house insurance premiums due to risk of roof fires.
• Increased pressures on emergency services.
• Increased risk of cowboy solar panel/battery installers.
• SEG payments stopped due to excess power being sold back to grid.
• Grid infrastructure overload.
• Detrimental impact on power station operation.
• UK becomes major exporter of renewable energy to other countries.
• Government’s excessive renewable energy export income reduces taxes.
• Reduced national dependence on fossil fuel imports.
• Less emissions better for the climate.
• Increased solar radiation as protective 'pollution' layer removed.
• Rise in skin cancers.
• Collapse of global economies dependant on gas or oil sales.
• Increased illegal migration as people struggle in countries facing economic ruin.
• Jobs created in UK solar related industries such as panel servicing or battery replacement.
• World’s supply of precious minerals decimated to produce batteries.
• Used batteries create environmental waste hazards.
• Waste hazards impact eco-systems to cause mass extinctions of species.
• Loss of animal habitats due to mining or land given over to solar energy production.
• Rise in artificially created food stuffs.
• Planet and even possibly the moon raped in the mining of precious minerals.
• Global wars erupt over mineral rights.
• Disruption to financial markets due to over-supply of renewable energy.
• Population over dependence on solar energy.
• Lack of research and development on other energy types.
• Re-nationalisation of electricity.
• AI data centres mushroom.
• UK population re-trains in manual trades.
• Government housing target smashed as no lack of skilled labourers.
• Housing market crash.

And the list could go on and on, limited only by your imagination because when you play ‘What If?’ there are no financial constraints or global politics to consider. It’s all in your head where anything’s possible no matter how silly or improbable.

Of course, the major spanner in the works would be the unexpected arrival of a giant meteorite or the death of the sun. No sun, no solar power.

OMG! What if there was no sun? Here we go again.