Melissa Kite bemoans the NHS in the tellytubbgiraffe.
For three weeks I’ve been limping around on a broken toe. The horse stamped on it and I’m in agony, but I’m not going to get it seen to because I do not want to go anywhere near my local hospital.
And why is this?
I consider a little toe the size of a big toe far preferable to the horrors that might await me at either of those emporiums of state-sponsored, one-size-fits-all, “sit down and do as you’re told” totalitarianism.
Ah, yes, the face of the bureaucratic socialist nightmare where nanny knows best.
The last time I went to St George’s, they made me fill in a questionnaire about my drinking habits before they would even look at my injury, which was a hole through the middle of my hand where I had got it stuck in my horse’s mouth. I told them I had been teetotal for most of my adult life, but that didn’t put them off. They mercilessly insisted I tick about 30 boxes with a “no” or “never”, while gripping and writing with one hand, before I qualified for anything approaching care.
And all the while, I could see people being admitted for emergency dental work. This is not my NHS, I thought. It’s someone else’s. I just pay for it. It quite likes my tax money but is not the least bit concerned about me. If it does care, it cares only in so much as I am fodder for its next risk assessment.
I believe that Dick Puddlecote wrote about this tendency to pry into personal lifestyle choices on the part of dentists a while back. That drinking habits have nothing whatsoever to do with an accidental horse bite is neither here nor there to the prodnoses, the forms must be completed or no treatment. This is the NHS that is, supposedly, the envy of the world. Indeed, so much so that countries across the globe are tripping over themselves to emulate it.
They aren’t? Why ever not?
Anyway, Melissa points out that there is an alternative on the horizon – one that had passed me by.
All of this is leading up to my hearty welcome for the news that the Government is thinking of allowing Boots to administer more health care, including such major procedures as chemotherapy. It sounds radical, but if Boots could sort my foot out, I would hop over there gleefully. In fact, if I heard Superdrug or Specsavers were setting broken bones, or even the butchery counter at Tesco, I would try my luck there before I went back to my local A&E. So bring on the health-care revolution. I’m only sorry it won’t be soon enough for my toe.
Well, yes, given that Boots – who look after my optical care – actually treat customers as customers, I’m inclined to agree.
I find myself asking why Melissa doesn’t just threaten to sue if she is not treated.
And also why she doesn’t get a horse thet doesn’t have such a foul temper 🙂
I refused to fill in just such a questionnaire when they sent me for physio after I broke my arm. Oh, they hectored and cajoled and made veiled threats, but they had to give in…
Someone mentioned the horse in the comments – it does seem to have an attitude problem 😉
I’d do as Julia did – refuse and see what they do.
I too would do as Julia.
It just strikes me as odd that this woman would hobble around for weeks without making some form of complaint.
As a journalist, she’s obviously articulate enough and as both journalist for one of the big papers and a horse owner she must have enough financial clout to get a good lawyer on the job.
Thanks be that it hasn’t happened to me yet. Pray it doesn’t. NHS sounds the pits.
Boots treat customers like customers because you can go to Supa Drug instead if the annoy you. Or some independent pharmacy. You cannot do that in the NHS, unles you just pay privately or via BUPA and a BUPA hospital (which is fine for minor things only). Now if there was real competition within the NHS we might be treated like people rather than have to fill in stupid forms which have nothing to do with the immediate problem but which a government wants stats on.
Quite.
There is not necessarily anything sinister in the questionnaire described. A fair proportion of slips trips and falls – and a lot of nastier injuries – are alcohol related. In her case its not related as the answers to thee questions will indicate. I rather suspect no-one explained why the information was being collected. Its a normal part of A&E practice to collect data (“clinical coding”)about the injuries they are treating and their causes.
Public Health analysts and statisticians study causes and promote accident prevention programmes. Or nanny-state nosy bureaucrats, if you prefer
What I do detect in this journalists account is classical symptoms of paranoia, a condition in which an individual has an unfounded belief she is being spied apon.
There may be a little bit of paranoia in this case – who can tell? However, the underlying point she makes is valid. A patient should never be under any pressure to reveal personal information if they do not wish to. NHS guidelines do not mandate that they answer these questions, so a light touch is all that is needed. Ask and a refusal should be immediately respected.
As for accident prevention is fine in the workplace where there is a degree of control over the environment, but outside that it’s simply not possible. As far as clinical data is concerned – sensible questions about that injury and how it happened is fine. A questionnaire about personal lifestyle choices is not.
London Calling makes an interesting point, but probably not the one they think they’re making. In arguing that there isn’t “anything sinister” in the unwarranted intrusion, and let’s be clear, it IS unwarranted, they demonstrate the steady erosion of our privacy by “reasonable” people, who can see the benefit of knowing this information, even while not quite being able to demonstrate what the benefit is. i.e. there’s no real harm in knowing this, ergo it must be a benefit. Not too far removed from the thinking behind “if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear” mindset.