Why patients might still need patience

We hear of hundreds of patients booking appointments with their GP yet failing to turn up. Until recently, most doctor appointments could only be made on the day, so it seems like really bad manners.

As if to even the score, NHS hospitals often seem almost intentionally to keep we patients waiting quite a long time. Of course, it might just be that they are incredibly busy, almost right round the clock.

What pleasure then to receive a letter for a hospital appointment which inferred that waiting around for an hour to two belongs to the past.

It came as a heavy inference in two paragraphs which seemed to prescribe a deal: be thoughtful for us and we’ll be thoughtful for you.

Sorry to be raising the subject again, but the letter was to do with my recent cycle crash.

Embrace with mother earth

Readers may well remember that very unpleasant embrace with mother earth the other week.

I was cycling back from the discount supermarket Aldi in Epsom, Surrey. The bike and I smashed into the cycle lane, and my head struck the path so hard that for much of the night, memory of the hours beforehand vanished.

My concerned brother Christopher suggested the possibility of a TIA, a minor stroke. I passed the suspicion onto my GP tout suite and he arranged for the fitting of a 24-hour Holster Monitor.

St George’s Hospital was the chosen venue and they sent me an encouraging invitation… Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com