Dear NHS (by sarah)

Dear NHS

I love you, you save my life, keep my children disease free with immunisations and keep my parents going. But sometimes I think you need a big hammer taking to your structure.

The main issue I have today is appointment booking. Getting to the Drs today I booked in and found it was only saying Nurse, I did not worry at first as I had double checked when I made the appointment that I was booking both nurse and Dr. So I finished booking in on your funky touch skin panel and waited for my nurse appointment.

Getting into my appointment I find that the room is double booked and the nurse has to move use into another room she knows is free, then the smear I'm having because I'm still bleeding and loosing gloop 9 weeks after having my baby apparently shouldn't be done whilst I'm still bleeding :/

That all done along with blood tests I've had to starve for I leave - the nurse was lovely but I still felt disorientated which is why when I tried to book in for the Drs appointment I felt I must be doing something wrong and asked at reception - where it turns out I don't have one :/

Now I wasn't thinking so left thinking this was my fault until Alaric reminds me that I double checked and that he hadn't called NHS direct at the weekend when I lost a load of black jelly ribbons as well as blood because I was seeing the Dr this week.

Getting home I check and find that my doctor doesn't actually have a clinic on Tuesdays which I summise is part of where things have gone wrong.

I find this sort of error so frustrating because it shouldn't be able to happen - they printed me out an appointment slip and we noticed it had said just nurse and asked and they said no I was booked for both and they would be one after another which was why there was only one slip of paper. Now I think this was a combination of us not knowing the Dr didn't work Tuesdays and the receptionists not listening and assuming things as I had two things needing doing by the nurse. As a patient I myself made the mistake of assume the two things to be being done in ONE appointment where as they must have been thinking of it as two.

This is not the only time this sort of thing has happened either - I've had cases of letters with dates on them when the hospital clinic doesn't run, or has a day name (Monday, Tuesday) that doesn't correspond to the date given. I've turned up to an appointment at the Drs to be told I'm discharged from a clinic at the hospital I hadn't even known I was supposed to be attending but was supposed to be at a week ago. And so on... some of these things are easy to sort out and some are not. Like whilst at university I waited two years for an MRI scan to sort out my pain and muscle stuff only to find out that in agreeing to go on the pain management course had taken me off the waiting list. To be fair the Dr I had at the time was very angry that I had too wait so long for the diagnostic tests some of which I 'fell' off the waiting lists for three times through clerical error :/

Dr surgeries and hospitals still rely on post to get appointment letters too you - why they can not email, text and post I don't know - they say it's a security risk - and I suppose having neighbours end up with your post and opening it isn't?

The other thing is they are expected sick people to remember stuff which really is not going to work very well.

How they relay information, store it and use it needs an over haul, the amount of money and resources lost due to patients not turning up when they should could be drastically reduced with sending reminders. Plus it would save people having to book so much time off needlessly for appointments that then don't happen.

Plus there have been situations were what I have been prescribed by a locum at the drs surgery never getting into their records - that I find scary - I would prefer all the A&E departments, Drs etc... to be linked up - because I can't remember all the meds I've had and if I'm treated in Essex the Dr in Gloucestershire still needs too know. Obviously there might be need for nominity in say the family planning clinics and SDT treatmets and the whole issue of domestic violence and control can be thorny but there should be a way of exempting people not having it so everyones in a muddle all the time.

I was really pleased when I saw computers appearing in Drs surgeries as I thought this would help but they don't even keep all you files there accessible they still do things like printing out the old stuff and keeping it in boxes in the antic :/ So your entire medical history is not avaliable to them there and then.

This does not make sense to me.

The same as not having the medicines in a searchable data base as to who can and can't take it - rather than have the Drs having to flick through huge books.

You may think this is a mountain out of a mole hill but were the NHS is concerned an error of miss filing can cost lives as we very well know.

Science-Art (by sarah)

I have set up a Science-Art website which is specifically designed to deal with things like my paleo-art and space man picture, not too mention Cloud Computing and my sci-tech poetry and world building stuff.

It will have regular articals/ posts and be where I collect together the pictures, sculpture and the like that is to do with science.

Check it out at:

http://www.science-art.co.uk/

April’s Challenges (by sarah)

April starts off busy with the Cheltenham Poetry Festival which I am/have been performing several things for. Then there is Script Frenzy - this is a writing challenge along the lines of NaNoWriMo but the idea is that within a month I write a 100 page script - I am reattempting last years project of a graphic novel script which chronicals the Punks life from the fall of Babel - it's all on Purple Monster for those interested.

Then there is a yet another poetry challenge NaPoWriMo - I am going to be using this as an excuess to work on songs. I will spend at least one hour a day on song writing and polishing. Bar however long it takes me to do the Little Book of Easter Poetry for Jean and Mary.

I am also launching my Science-Art Website on the 4th which I hope people will like 🙂

Poetry and Piaf (by sarah)

I am going to be reading my poem Piaf tonight as part of the Poetry and Piaf event at Cafe Rouge Cheltenham as part of the Poetry Festival - event starts at 7 pm and tickets are £10. The singer is fantastic and even if you think you don't know the songs you will as alot of them where hits during the second world war and so appear in lots of films etc... The singer Eve Loiseau is brilliant and tells the story of Piaf's tragic life - it's well worth watching even if I wasn't going to be there 😉

There are also some other cracking events - I'm hoping to catch [A. F. Harrold]\9http://www.afharrold.com/wordpress/?page_id=32) and Peter Wyton at 6 pm (also at Cafe Rouge!) - tickets for that are £5 each.

And of course there is the opening night party at Slak (also in Cheltenham!) run by Calmer* which is £6. I really want to go to this but need to check my energy levels etc... and also see how Mary is with drinking out of a bottle whilst mummy is socialising!

What is a Garden for? (by sarah)

To me a garden is an extention of home, and once you have kids this means it is primarialy somewhere for them to play, grow and develop = toys slides, swings, paddling pools, bikes and the like. Economy over asthetics comes in at this point ie they are most likely to be bright plastic faded in third hand use but the kids don't care and may even prefer it to the hidden away fits with the garden furniture wooden stuff that you need a small mortgate to buy!

Secondly the garden is somewhere the family should enjoy - I favour eating outside which I start doing as soon as I can tolorate the cold and I only stop when the autumn winds start blowing the table over! This means things like BBQ's, tables, seats and preferably fiary lights. Given my own way there would be a perminent brick built thing with and eating bar and everything.

Thirdly the garden is for relaxing in, this means reading or sitting quietly and watching the bunny rabbit hop about. A nice summer house complete with bar would be the apex of this but again your looking at ouchy money and a 15 quid gazebo from Argos will do for now.

Fourthly - if there is room growing fruit and veg and maybe having a few ducks is the sort of thing I like. In times of food shortages, economic crises and war I would expect this to be bumped up to first.

Fifthly becuase I can I work in the garden as in drawing and writing.

And because I have children I would think it essential to give them little areas to plant flowers and vegetables - complete with garden fairies and boot flower pots. The tackier the better in my opinion as long as the kids like it.

This brings us round to garden appearance - this is not what I concider a high priority - it would be nice to have it all looking swanky but really I would be happy with just neat and tidy. To me flowers are like having matching couch covers and curtains - nice but not the sort of thing I'll fret over.

They are something you bother with once you've done everything else. Gardens should not be burdens they should be enjoyed.

Fithly to me a garden is somewhere you can if you have time and space bring a bit of nature to the man made landscape that is by necessaty our homes - everybodies because farms and gardens are not natural - they too are man made and managed. Gardens are one of the most artificial things there are - just think about the plants you grow there - most of them can't even produce viable off spring.

It's nice to bring nature in for the kids but again it has to be in a way that suites the persons time table and tastes.

Jean and Mary are lucky that they get to fish frog spawn out of the pond (well Jean does and I assume Mary will!) and jump streams but I feel that they should have within the context of the time and society we live in things like slides and swings. If I had my own way there would be a bark chip area specifically for this but I don't.