Early Risers.

[The Lurker]

I wonder if the effects of the two world wars on British consciousness is diminishing with time. I was born less than 40 years after the Great War during which time there had been a second. But it’s 105 years since the end of WW1 and most who remember it gave long gone. 
 

but when I was a kid the second war, which had affected families more recently was still not talked about apart from in victorious terms - a bit like the World Cup - whereas even then WW1 was being unpacked and the lost deference of the “golden period” of the first decade of the 20th century remembered through rose tinted specs thus heightening the sense of devastation to families.

 

ironically from a personal point of view WW2 was more injurious to my family; one Grandad was killed and the other suffered mental and other issues as a result of being in the merchant navy.

Ww2 o. The other hand is still regarded as @worth it@ because we took out Hitler so less traumatic 

[tigerburnie]

10 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

On March 12 I rang my GP practice because my sciatica has got much worse and is often debilitating until well into the afternoon as well as my lower back giving much trouble. I managed to speak to a locum on March 17 who decided that I need to see a musculoskeletal consultant and said he would refer me to the hospital I requested. By 21 May I had heard nothing so I rang the GP practice again and after nearly an hour managed to speak to a receptionist who said that I would have to ring a referral booking centre and gave me a phone number. I also asked her for a GP appointment to discuss pain control and the best she could offer was a telephone call on June 13, which I took. I rang the referral booking centre over fifty times but simply got a recorded message saying, "This system is busy, please try again later." I therefore emailed them and received a reply the same day to say that it was not a matter for their attention but I needed to speak to the musculoskeletal referral centre instead. That I was given this incorrect information by the GP practice receptionist is, I think, indicative of the incompetence/indifference they seem nowadays to display. After more fruitless attempts at a phone call I then emailed the musculoskeletal referral centre and after two days received a reply to say that they had my GP's request for a routine appointment and when one became available they would contact me. No thought of acknowledging the referral or anything resembling patient care. I will therefore get to speak to a GP again next Tuesday after over three weeks wait and will let him or her know how I regard the treatment I am (not) receiving. At this rate I can see me biting the bullet and ringing the hospital directly to try for a private consultation, which I suppose is what they actually want.  

 

Dave

This seems to be the case right across the NHS, nurses doing some work, but doctors doing little or nothing at GP/Health centres, it has the feeling that it is co-ordinated, by I am guessing, the tory government to get us used to either paying or having a third world countries version of what the NHS used to be. Just like dentistry that used to be free and now NHS treatment is almost gone, when did we allow that to be privatised?

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

It cost £70.70 to have a tooth fixed yesterday.. it took 5 minutes... yer what.. is that why the guy who did the job only drives a Porsche Cayenne and works 3 days a week?

 

 

£108 per tooth removed for me at the moment - two coming out, should have done it when it was £55 - my fault.

[tigerburnie]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Cynical Bear suspects that more & more Docs and Dentists will dump the NHS work and go into private practice for oodles more money (or the same money for a lot less hours) - which means more strain and longer waits for NHS Patients, so they (if they can) feed the private sector in desperation.

The costs of going private for a Hip Replacement wouldn't even scratch the surface if someone needed private Cancer care, which is where it all starts to get very serious indeed.

Incidentally, Cancer care is in the news today - with Doctors reporting that the NHS is struggling to provided safe cancer care.

Our old GP(she was actually younger than me)closed her practice due to no available doctors to work with her, they could get plenty of locums charging more money than she was earning. So she is now working part time as a locum in a nearby town for more money, less hours and no responsibility for running the place. Now it seems everyone knows this is happening, but no-one seems to care.

[DaveF]

No sun again today, it was cold eough for my heating to come on for a few minutes while I was getting up - and it is turned down compared to winter.  I think that shortly I'll be putting on a sweater again.

 

Yesterday evening I spent sometime looking for my kitchen scissors.  They turned up eventually in the wrong drawer, I don't think all my reorganising and tidying is entirely beneficial.

 

Today will include a visit to church but apart from that it is a blank canvas and really depends on whether it stays dull and cool or not.

 

David

[tigerburnie]

I've got scantily clad women mincing around in stocking and suspenders all over the screen again........................................................ the lawn is never going to get cut at this rate.....................

 

nb.         it says if I want to get rid of the google adds it will cost a pound a month..............................hang on lads whilst I see if there's a fee to get more of them.......................

Edited June 8, 2023 by tigerburnie

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I've got scantily clad women mincing around in stocking and suspenders all over the screen again...

 

Is that better or worse than the cat sitting on the keyboard?

[Dave Hunt]

10 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I've got scantily clad women mincing around in stocking and suspenders all over the screen again........................................................ 

 

How annoying. How did you manage to get these adverts in the first place? Just asking out of curiosity you understand....

 

Dave

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Quite sunny today, and slightly warmer. No problems with arthritis and sciatica and even the hay fever isn't causing any problems. No eggs for breakfast this morning, when I last went into Tess Coes they'd sold out. So for breakfast I had honey poured onto wholemeal bread, no butter or margarine just another slice of wholemeal on top to make a sarnie.

[The White Rabbit]

11 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

... IIRC one of the big problems on the first day of the Somme was that it was the first major battle where Kitchener's volunteer army was used thus the Pals battalions of which my uncle was in one.  There hadn't been the time or expertise to train them all properly in Infantry tactics. Many of the battalions had been doing things like guarding the Suez canal.  Thus the only way to control them was to have them walk at a fixed pace. Many of the Pals battalions took an awful losses and the system was never used again. ...

 

My grandfather was in the Leeds Pals and went to Egypt in late 1915. In (March?) 1916 they were transferred to France. During the Somme he became one of the casualty figures. Some might say that with 'a Blighty one' he was lucky. Though he spent most of the rest of his life (40 years)  in pain. Whether it's better to survive in those circumstances or die will always be a subjective issue. 

 

11 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

... Talking of the casualties of the two world wars no apparent mention has been made of the far east or indeed of Asia. In WW1 India supplied men for the labour battalions (as did the West Indies) but no mention has been made of their casualties. Since few were sent near the front lines the casualties would have been lower. It would be interesting to see the far eastern casualties during WW2. This may be complicated by the fact that the Japanese invaded Manchuria prior to the start of WW2. Its a not very well known fact that the XIVth army was mostly formed from Indian Army units who displayed exceptional bravery.

 

Quite a few people round the world say WW2 started in the 1930s. (Personally I'd actually describe WW1 as the [Napoleonic Wars] as that was also a global conflict). But yes, I'm afraid it's only recently that people have become more aware of their contribution. As mentioned previously, my grandmother was a QA in India/Burma during that campaign and many of the troops were Indian. As an aside, that made for more complex logistics - you had to have separate food for different sections of the 'Indian' troops. To put it crudely, you couldn't just make 100,000 sandwiches with one filling in for lunch - one religion would mutiny if served beef, another would if served pork, etc. So the logistics/catering sections had to consider these cultural and religious sensibilities so as to keep the troops fit and happy. Not easy at places such as Kohima. 

[PeterBB]

@AndyID  @iL Dottore @tigerburnie @Dave Hunt

 

First the road junction - this type of junction is always a problem and from what you say definitely needs better signage, yes - the revenuse consequences from the pure money orientated US and yes go to the governor.  

 

NHS dentistry goes back to the founding - the dentists were far too powerful and basically refused to become part and parcel of the NHS terms and conditions.  Going on from this there is a payment system - what ever party is in control - providing a fixed rate for a procedure whether e.g. that for one filling or half a dozen fillings and after the first filling the NHS dentist is currently losing money for the work done and of course the maintenance of premises and support staff salaries.  No wonder that they are refusing to acept NHS patients.  This alo cuts down on their work as in fact formerly regular dental appointments are no longer booked by many so general tooth care is going down.  

 

Like doctors there are no longer enough of them (there are many potential dentists, GPs etc. from abroad who cannot work until they are 'processed' but that is another story).

 

Access and costs of health care - Dave's  eperience is not at all good and SWMBO is on a 'waiting list for a waiting list for hip surgery' but otherwise our local GP practice has been extremely responsive although the hold-on for a telephone answer is of the order of 45-50 minutes.

 

The introduction of 'computers to cut down on paperwork' has in fact increased more than 100 fold the unnecessary bureaucracy that management/governments love to cloud issues.  This in turn greatly affects the amount of teaching and tremendous waste of genuine patient care or studen/class teaching time etc.  (As an aside look at the pointless emails after even buying an article costing less than 50p 'please rate your purchase etc' that inevitably appears).

 

Adding all these up is where the 'work life balance ' has really been lost as more of the working hours are spent on the bureaucracy than the important practise and the overall effect it has on members of the profession and subsequently cause the general public to complain.

 

How can this be sorted?  I have had a go at health management, in my 40 odd years of service some cases highly appropriate, but overall there is insufficient money in the NHS and the only way that can in reality be found is by tax increases at the appropriate level - in my terms the 'fat cats' and 'asset strippers' - making millions while the workforce that is resonsible for it are often paid 'peanuts' (I was about to go into a political comment here but resisted).  

 

Who actually wants to pay more tax? - Nobody!  Until the politicians get rid of the unnecessary bureaucracy and political shenanigans to concentrate on the necessary I do not see much hope.

 

Seems a it like a rant.

Edited June 8, 2023 by PeterBB
Spelling

[polybear]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Why is “work life balance” such a bad thing? 

 

Absolutely nothing at all - Bear transferred to a 4-day, 30 hour week some years ago for that very reason, along with all the cr@p doing me nottalottagood whatsoever (I was lying awake at 3am writing documents in my bonce...).

They were less than happy (and some....) about it though, but since on a Friday you could bvgger off at lunchtime if you wanted (and had enough flexitime) it often made being there on a Friday pretty pointless anyway.  I always played the game that if they REALLY needed me there on a Friday I'd do so (and take another day off instead) and if I was working away I'd work a 5 day week.

Downsides?  Well it affected the Pension a bit; salary was obviously less by 20% but by starting early (0630) I'd make up 4 hours of the 7.4 hours I was "losing" so the effect was minimal.

Biggest downside?  Career suicide - if you wanted a different job in the Company then as soon as they heard you worked 4 days a week they weren't interested.

 

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

How annoying. How did you manage to get these adverts in the first place? Just asking out of curiosity you understand....

 

Dave

 

Apparently Google Images is a start, or so I'm told.....😉

[Sidecar Racer]

15 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Its interesting to see how the US which has a broadly similar pioneering heritage went one way with its  focus on individualism (which in it worst form is the  "my Rights Come First!" cry of the COVID lockdowns)  while  Australia was born on the  concept of mateship ( which in its worst form is the protection of those who perform awful acts because you dont dob in your mates). 

 

 

 Bit slow in with this reply .

 

 Could this be down to the different way of 'pioneering' , the US was pioneered voluntarily so

there was more chance to be an individual ,while Aus was mostly forced pioneering by convicts

so 'we look after our own ' would prevail .

[polybear]

On the subject of "going private"....

I look forward to a test case in the High Court where someone has been told by their Consultant there's a 6 month waiting list for treatment - only they'll be dead in 3 months if they don't start treatment now; the only option open to them is therefore to go private and start treatment next week.

So they sue the Gov. (or NHS?) for the cost on the basis they've paid all their taxes & NI all their life and the Gov. is failing in their part of the bargain (a sort of "breach of contract?").

Perhaps there have been such cases, or maybe some small print stops people from doing that?

[The Lurker]

1 minute ago, polybear said:

On the subject of "going private"....

I look forward to a test case in the High Court where someone has been told by their Consultant there's a 6 month waiting list for treatment - only they'll be dead in 3 months if they don't start treatment now; the only option open to them is therefore to go private and start treatment next week.

So they sue the Gov. (or NHS?) for the cost on the basis they've paid all their taxes & NI all their life and the Gov. is failing in their part of the bargain (a sort of "breach of contract?").

Perhaps there have been such cases, or maybe some small print stops people from doing that?

They'd probably wait more than 3 months for a court date, so it would be too late...

[polybear]

4 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

They'd probably wait more than 3 months for a court date, so it would be too late...

 

Not if they started private treatment immediately - assuming they have the funds to do it of course.

 

Incidentally, and on the subject of costs, Bear recalls visiting my previous NDN - known as "Uncle Dave" though he was no relation - when he was having Chemo in Hospital.  He pointed to a bag of "Chemo Gloop"** that had to be shielded from the light and asked me to guess the cost - about £6K he'd been told, and that was in the 1990's.

I wonder how much such drugs cost now - more, or maybe less?  Over to you, @iL Dottore.......

 

**Technical Medical/Pharmaceutical term

 

In other news.....

Bear did a diddy bit of architrave work then headed to the Co-op for essential supplies (no, not cake - that's coming by truck tomorrow....courtesy of Sainsbugs purely cos' I had a voucher for £18 off a £60 spend**); yet another "5 for a fiver" deal out of the freezer cabinet was scored - the last one available cos' Bear got the last bag of Onion Rings, so that was a lucky result.

 

**Actually I discovered that Sainsbugs appears rather expensive for many items - I discovered stuff in my local small village Co-op this morning that was noticeably cheaper than that on the list for delivery tomorrow, so the order list has been amended accordingly.  If it hadn't been for the voucher I would never have placed the order.

 

Right, time to get the little furry ar5e in gear.....

BG

 

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

This seems to be the case right across the NHS, nurses doing some work, but doctors doing little or nothing at GP/Health centres, it has the feeling

Sorry, but that’s utter ******

Do you know what GPs do when not seeing patients? How about

• Reviewing lab reports; CT, MRI, PET Scan reports, pathology reports
• Integrating the results of said reports into patient care plans
• Writing long reports for short procedures for the NHS (e.g. removing earwax from a clogged ear now requires about a page of notes instead of short sentences along the lines of “removed earwax, tympani OK, no other findngs”)
• Keeping up to date with NHS and other (internationally recognised) guidelines for disease management best practice
• Keeping up to date with NHS guidelines on non clinical matters that have to be followed
• Keeping up to date on the latest pharmaceutical developments (sometimes accompanied by thoughts of “I wonder if NICE will turn this one down as well?”)
• Finding time for mandatory CME (continuing medical education)
• Dealing with the NHS paperwork that practice staff can’t do or aren’t allowed to do.
• Dealing with practice management matters that can’t be delegated to practice staff (if a partner)

And maybe

• Grab something to eat/have a cup of coffee

With all that (and more) to deal with and not enough full-time GPs to go around, the “doing little” GPs are doing all the review work of several GPs (and much more besides)

 

According to the UK’s ONS the number of patients per fully-qualified GP has risen over recent years, from 2,100 to 2,300. If a GP wanted to dedicate 15 minutes to each patient and willing to work a 60 hour “facetime” week (so without paperwork, etc.) it’d take almost 3 months to work through the patient list…

 

No wonder GPs are bailing out and becoming locums: better money, minimal paperwork, better hours, minimal practice related stressors.

 

If you want to blame someone, blame those governments (of all political persuasions) who think it is appropriate to micromanage patient treatment and care (and that goes for other medical specialties, not just GPs)

[iL Dottore]

25 minutes ago, polybear said:

I wonder how much such drugs cost now - more, or maybe less?  Over to you, @iL Dottore.......

They can cost an awful lot.
 

But don’t forget that most modern anti-cancer drugs are very sophisticated (and often temperamental to make) molecules requiring complicated and sophisticated production plants (which cost in the multi, multimillions) and require very highly skilled and experienced technicians and scientists to oversee and run the production processes. These skilled and experienced individuals who, being rarer than rocking horse poo, can pretty much write their own salary slip (for example: if you are highly skilled at mRNA synthesis, you can pretty much be confident that there are going to be lots of pharmaceutical companies more than willing to fight each other savagely for the privilege of employing you and handing over large wodges of dosh for you to synthesise their mRNA drugs)

 

And that’s only before you even start testing your drug. The cost of any drug is not in the ingredients but is the cost of producing the molecule and learning how the drug actually works. Each patient participating in a clinical study has to have their medical tests paid for, their study related medical care paid for, nursing and physician time paid for, study managers time, paid for and – on top of all that – all the costs associated with analysing and interpreting the patient generated data not to mention fees that have to be paid to regulatory authorities who both approve clinical trials and who then review all the data you submit for a NDA [New Drug Application]). So you are already ££££££££££££££££££ out of pocket before you can even start selling the new drug (assuming, of course, you do get regulatory agency approval).

 

it always amuses me to read those claims that the government should be developing the drugs and not the private sector. And whilst it is true that, when it wants to, the government can have very deep pockets indeed, the reality is that getting the Treasury to fork out any sort of money can be an uphill struggle and if my experience of working in the government is anything to go by, the competition would be doing a product launch at ASCO (where most newly approved anti-cancer drugs are presented to the world’s oncologists and oncological scientists) just as the government sponsored drug project management-team finally decides on what sort of biscuit they are going to have at the meetings….

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

My grandfather was in the Leeds Pals and went to Egypt in late 1915. In (March?) 1916 they were transferred to France. During the Somme he became one of the casualty figures. Some might say that with 'a Blighty one' he was lucky. Though he spent most of the rest of his life (40 years)  in pain. Whether it's better to survive in those circumstances or die will always be a subjective issue. 

 

 

My fathers cousin, who I refer too as my uncle enlisted in the Manchester Pals in August 1914. He was pulled out for promotion as a grammar school and university scholar and returned to his unit a a Lieutenant.  After Palestine (I think) he went to France and survived the Somme.   He became the Quartermaster but returned to battalion duties in 1917.  He ws killed near Arras on the 23rd April that year.  The same date my eldest was born.  As an officer his death is recorded in the war diary and I've been able to locate the scene to within 50 yards.  I went with a friend on the actual centenary of his death.  I managed to make a makeshift wreath of red roses, as he was in a Lancashire regiment.

Dave and I then walked from the cemetery at Wancourt to the area where he was killed.  En route we passed this reminder, part of the iron harvest as it's known.

Then we walked on up onto the battlefield.  On the way we met an elderly French couple and chatted.  Ver graciously they tanked us for the sacrifices that had been made on their behalf then with great emotion the old lady said, " You don't know what it was like to be occupied".

 

Then up to where the battalion HQ had been as they assaulted part of the Hindenburg line.  Geoffrey had gone forward to find out what was happening for his colonel.  He was shot on the way back with the message.  The RSM carried him back the last stretch.  he delivered the message then died.  My father was only 3 at the time but he remembered the effect that the loss of their son had on Geoffrey's parents.   His letters home and medals etc are in the Liddle collection at Leeds University.   The action took place in the field in this picture.  It was snowing that day in 1917.  

Jamie

 

1

 

1

 

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by jamie92208

[Dave Hunt]

Just popped in to wish our Swiss medical rep a very happy birthday with lots of good grub and cake to follow. 

 

Dave

[The White Rabbit]

Thoughts with those with health concerns/problems, including Mr H and Peter BB. From my own experience, both personally and those close to me, it's not the GPs which have let us down or crippled or killed us but a combination of hospital staff, consultants and politicians.

 

1 hour ago, polybear said:

... So [an aggrieved patient could] sue the Gov. (or NHS?) for the cost on the basis they've paid all their taxes & NI all their life and the Gov. is failing in their part of the bargain (a sort of "breach of contract?").

Perhaps there have been such cases, or maybe some small print stops people from doing that?

 

My recollection of admin law is very hazy (we weren't taught much and I never practiced any when I was younger) but as far as Bear's idea goes, I fear the state would wriggle out of it. Possibly by saying it was actually Parliament whose responsible as the decision was taken under the provisions of an Act - this is exempt from judicial review. Or maybe by deciding as a matter of public policy not to allow a claim to succeed as otherwise it would open the floodgates of claims. Much of judicial review is about procedure rather than declaring something foolish or incompetent - 'Wednesbury unreasonableness' notwithstanding. Personally I agree with the suggestion made some pages ago that if a country had a system which allowed any petition with a large number of signatures to be put to the population in a referendum and if approved, passes into law (as in Switzerland) then the chances of holding the state to account are much better. It won't surprise anyone who has read my posts about my health problems over the last few years if I say I certainly feel I and my family have been failed massively by the government - and are due our money back. 

 

Thoughts this afternoon are also with those affected by events in France. 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 Bit slow in with this reply .

 

 Could this be down to the different way of 'pioneering' , the US was pioneered voluntarily so

there was more chance to be an individual ,while Aus was mostly forced pioneering by convicts

so 'we look after our own ' would prevail .

 

England only stopped sending convicts to the American colonies when the American War of Independence commenced, and then started sending them to Australia, so like Australia, the American colonies were initially "pioneered" using convicts.

 

 

[iL Dottore]

Regarding Clinical Trial costs, a single - average complexity - Phase III oncology clinical trial costs in the region of £16 million. In @polybear terms, that’s  256000 Waitrose No.1 Lemon & Lime Drizzle Cakes

[tigerburnie]

6 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Regarding Clinical Trial costs, a single - average complexity - Phase III oncology clinical trial costs in the region of £16 million. In @polybear terms, that’s  256000 Waitrose No.1 Lemon & Lime Drizzle Cakes

Bloody hell those cakes are expensive..................................

[Sidecar Racer]

15 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

England only stopped sending convicts to the American colonies when the American War of Independence commenced, and then started sending them to Australia, so like Australia, the American colonies were initially "pioneered" using convicts.

 

 

 I  agree to some extent , but I was really commenting on the original landing in 1620, convict

transport was about 100 years later so the real pioneers were free to do the best for themselves

while the convicts would have been in a similar situation to the Australian ones .

 

From Wicki with my bold word .

 

Not many people know that between 1718 and 1775 over 52,000 convicts were transported from the British Isles to America, mainly to Maryland and Virginia, to be sold as slaves to the highest bidder.