I went to the ENT clinic at the hospital yesterday to see if they could figure out why my hearing is so bad and came away being told I’ve got to have a hearing aid.  I’m 33 years old for god’s sake, hearing aids are for old people! I must say, I wasn’t expecting to [...]

A Scottish doctor, Dr Sue Rabbitt Roff, has suggested that English university students should sell one of their kidneys to pay for their tuition fees! Roff has written on the British Medical Journal website in favour of the right to sell your organs for profit and suggested that those wishing to sell a kidney should [...]

According to the BBC, GPs in England are being put under pressure by PCTs to half the amount of medication they are prescribing patients to bring in more income from prescription charges. Currently you can get up to 2 months’ worth of medication on one prescription but PCTs have been telling GPs to cut that to [...]

On the 1st of April, the British Department of English Health is putting prescriptions charges up to £7.40 per item. On the 1st of April, the Scottish government is abolishing prescription charges. The Welsh and Northern Irish already get free prescriptions so from April Fool’s Day, the English will be the only people in the [...]

I went to a public meeting last night at the Holiday Inn in Telford on the proposed changes to hospital services in Telford. The main shocker of the night was that David Wright MP not only stayed after the photographers had left but what he said while he was in the meeting actually made sense. [...]

I arrived home from work this evening to find a letter from the NHS. This letter was informing me that unless I opt out by the 31st of May, the NHS will create a “summary care record” in their spangly new multi-billion pound database.  The pitch informs me that in the first instance only details [...]

A year and a half ago I wrote about English PCTs weighing and measuring children and sending letters to parents telling them if their child is classed as obese on the fundamentally flawed BMI chart. Back then I said: The parents getting the “very overweight” letter will presumably put their child on a diet and [...]

The British government has started making plans to off-load millions of swine flu vaccines it bought during the swine flu hysteria last year. As expected, swine flu has proven to be less of a problem than seasonal flu and the third wave predicted by the “experts” and the pharmaceutical companies has failed to materialised. There [...]

Yesterday was National Carers Day and BBC Radio Shropshire marked it with features throughout the day. One of the features was about an announcement of a new scheme for elderly carers.  More money and support is to be given to elderly carers who need their partners to have respite care.  This annoyed me. My father-in-law [...]

A swine flu vaccine is apparently going to be available from next week on the NHS after being fast-tracked through the European Empire’s approval process. Since the kids have gone back to school the number of cases has started going back up – as it was predicted to do – but there still haven’t been [...]

I had a letter published in the Shropshire Star the other day: Easy way of saving NHS cash in England With all the talk of cutting services at the Princess Royal Hospital, it is worth bearing in mind a few things.  Firstly, the English NHS has been underspending for the last few years by a [...]

A Twitter friend re-tweeted a request for information about local pharmacies open on a Sunday evening.  Easy I thought, I’ll pop on t’interweb and get the out of hours pharmacy rota off one of the 5 million websites the NHS runs. Erm no.  NHS Direct has nothing but a list of pharmacies with normal opening [...]

Andy Burnham, the British Minister for English Health, has written an open letter to David Camoron calling on him to withdraw the whip from Dan Hannan and any other Tory that criticises the NHS. What a prize prick. He rubbishes claims the Tories are the party of the NHS as Camoron claims because Dan Hannan [...]

I went to the doctors this morning because of an irritating bad chest I’ve had for weeks and while I was there I asked him about the swine flu vaccinations and whether they have a list of at-risk patients already (#2 has a heart condition so I’m naturally interested to know).  He said they do have [...]

A few weeks ago, I emailed Andy Burnham’s office at the Department of Health after watching him talk to the BBC for 5 minutes about the English NHS without once mentioning England. Dear Mr Burnham, I just listened to you talk about the English NHS for 5 minutes yet you didn’t mention the word England [...]

Sir Sandy Macara, former Chairman of the British Medical Association, has called for MMR vaccinations to be made compulsary by making an immunisation certificate a pre-requisite to being accepted for a school place. He says that doctors have tried to convince parents but it’s not working so it has to be made compulsary, which begs [...]

The Scottish couple who were the first in the UK to be diagnosed with swine flu have gone home today, covering their faces so as not to spoil their newspaper deal. The Chief Medical Officer for England says that they won’t be routinely screening people returning from Mexico, even though that’s where the virus is [...]

At first I thought this swine flu thing was just scaremongering by the media but now I realise that it’s serious – probably more serious than even the Daily Mail could imagine. Check your spam folder for online pharmacy emails and order in as much Tamiflu as you can lay your hands on.  Get down [...]

A Shropshire man has fallen foul of the nationality lottery after Telford & Wrekin NHS Trust refused to treat him with Lucentis to try and save his sight. Allan Farley has punctate inner choroidopathy and two consultants have told him that Lucentis will help to save the sight in his right eye. He is already [...]

My father-in-law is disabled because of an über-rare disorder caused by a brain tumor when he was a child.  He is now deaf, has no balance and has no short-term memory.  My mother-in-law is his carer – he can’t go out without a wheelchair any more, he doesn’t feel pain and if left to his [...]