Backwards In High Heels

We Could Have Bought Green Bananas After All

I'm so pleased the world didn't end yesterday...now we can look forward to a future with such important benchmarks as Posh's hairdo.

Nice To See You...

NICE (The National Institute for Clinical Excellence) has been in the news for the usual reasons lately: the rejection of new drugs based largely on financial decisions.

It is gut wrenching to see such decisions and the chasing tail discussion of the treatment postcode lottery.

Sadly the NHS does not have a bottomless purse and rather than leave the debate at the feet of NICE, proclaiming them nasty, heartless goblins, could it not be widened to identify the wider causes of our health service hemorrhaging money?

The bureaucracy and failing-before-it-starts computer system are just two points. The running and long term management of the NHS needs a critical overhaul if it is to cope with our growing and ageing population.

But patients, or are we consumers?, have to recognise our role. As a country we have become hugely greedy, dismissive and over expectant of the NHS. There is no worse example than those who give no thought to missing appointments.

I live in the the average village/town. We hit average on all those national statistics they like to throw at us. In my doctors surgery, as many do these days, there is a sign recording how many appointments were missed the previous week without the surgery being contacted. It now averages 8 hours per week.

That's the equivalent of wasting one doctor's time for a whole working day; a waste of £200 a week or £10,400 a year - FROM ONE SURGERY. There are 8700 GP surgeries in England, so are we wasting £90,480,000 in missed appointments alone? And think this is before we even hit the dizzy heights of missed hospital appointments.

Sadly I suspect the majority of these missed appointments are from people who just don't think anything of it yet are the first to mouth off when nasty NICE are reported for not approving treatments. I am quite happy for my surgery to introduce a deposit, fine or small payment system for those people who repeatedly miss appointments without notification when they have no due reason.

Co-op, Compost and Common Sense

My metamorphosis into Victor Meldrew quickens with each day and God bless the Daily Mail for fuelling it.

The latest story to have me rolling my eyes is the story of Mary Whitner. In summary, she has worked at the Co-op for 23 years and lately a customer was buying 4 bunches of flowers. One of these bunches was now out of date so Mary wasn't allowed to sell them, instead she would have to follow the code of practice and throw them in the rubbish bin. But instead she let the lady have that one bunch for free rather than see them go to waste.

A colleague then snitched on Mary to the bosses and Mary was subsequently given the choice of jump or be pushed, just weeks before she was due to retire.

This would be the same Co-op who pride themselves on being as green as possible, fair trade and friendly. Did Mary really commit such a heinous crime?

She wasn't passing off food which could have been contaminated, we all know what flowers on the brink are like. The flowers were destined otherwise for the bin and from what I gather not the compost variety.

And don't get me started on the jobs-worth who reported her.

The waste from shops and restaurants in this country is disgusting. I can't watch bloody foodie programmes. Self important chefs throwing plates of perfectly good food away because his underling hadn't peeled a perfectly spherical pretentious fruit. I actually start to growl.

I feel guilty when  I open the fridge to find another well intentioned lettuce has passed over before heading down the garden to feed it to my beloved compost bin.

And on the subject of my compost bin. Had a great gardening day on Tuesday. the garden is springing nicely into life. Here's a few pictures of the blossoms and flowers:

Bonsai Crab Apple Tree Blossom

Pear Tree Blossom

Yellow Tulip