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.

ENERGY & EPR PAIN

Depeche Mode once sang about ‘a pain that I’m used to’ and this morning’s energy price cap headlines confirmed that pain.

It’s a pain that I’m getting used to at least 4 times a year because since the ‘pants’ cap was introduced back in 2019, all we’ve seen is our bills steadily increasing as illustrated by this fabulous bar chart produced by Bionic.

The 'Pants' Cap

It won’t be long before each bar is consistently over the £2K mark especially if the trend for non-payment of bills continues or supplier’s start going bust as a result of ongoing wars pushing up wholesale costs. Smaller companies that can’t afford to hedge by buying cheaply in advance are going to struggle to weather this storm. Oh yes and naturally, Ofgem will protect them by pushing the cap upwards.

Muppet Miliband’s great push for more renewable energy sources is noble but flawed all the time the cost of electricity is wedded to gas prices. That divorce has long been overdue but I suspect it won’t happen in my lifetime. Any remaining UK industry, already on its knees, will be left without a shirt on its back too before anyone sees sense and de-couples this pricing mechanism.

War is also playing straight into Ed’s hands in that issues affecting LNG (liquified natural gas) are going to give him carte blanche to push up gas bills exponentially especially as the UK imports about 15-20% of the country’s gas supply.

My guess is that what we’ll begin to see on our bills is a continued harmonisation between the cost of electricity and gas. Given time, it’ll no longer be cheaper to have gas cooking or heating because it will cost exactly the same as electric. Good news for UK plc as it won’t need to pay so much for imported gas, bad news for Punter plc as we’ll all be paying through the nose.

Luckily, germinating beans requires zero energy other than that produced for free by the force of the sun’s rays. Almost within days of planting my last lot of seeds, germination has succeeded thanks to a combination of this unprecedented May heatwave and a few scoops of top soil. NO peat-free compost was used in the making of this production!

Hurrah!   Beans have sprouted

Beady-eyed readers may have noticed that instead of using a fancy propagator, I’ve used a re-purposed plastic container following a tasty chicken drummy dinner. And this brings me to a new ‘pain’ that we’re all going to have to get used to – it’s called EPR or Extended Producer Responsibility.

EPR is a new environmental levy about to be foist upon businesses who produce or supply items that create waste packaging. Its intention is that by charging manufacturers for unsustainable packaging, companies will design more recyclable products thus reducing the waste management burden.

Of course, as we all know, any Government levy or tax on business in any way, shape or form is never simply absorbed by companies from their profit margins but is immediately passed down the line to the end user. Expect to see food prices increase to cover retailer’s additional costs of EPR as the Government’s not going to back down over this policy.

So, the pains we’re getting used to: increased energy costs, food and petrol prices, rising inflation and if this heatwave continues – water shortages. 

Get ready for that hose-pipe ban. I can feel it in my water!