Well, I went to my meeting about the NHS.  Basically it was the 5 year plan for the local area/County/adjoining Counties from the point of view of how it would affect the ‘Frail Elderly’, ie. anyone with 5 or more life threatening illnesses, age 55-ish or above.

They were extremely vague about when the 5 years began and in fact any time scales at all.  It sounded to me like it was an exercise mostly, in ‘If’s’, ‘But’s’ and Maybe’s but apparently they started putting all this in place over 12 months ago and some of it is up and running and working beautifully!

‘Frail Elderly’ was the buzz-word all evening and we even had a presentation with pictures and labels showing the target market example, a fictitious  lady sitting comfortably in her own home,  a happy smile presumably brought on by all the right care and medication!

The meeting that I went to is being replicated all over the County in convenient locations for each area and apparently if we want another meeting about other aspects of the Service we only have to ask and it can be arranged.

I am not going into details of what is planned, you will be pleased to hear, and as it is in the public domain you can look it up for yourselves.

However, I am fuming still about the total amounts of money being wasted on these meetings by the NHS.

Basically Propaganda, funded by  a Service which purports to have less money than it needs to deliver what it was originally set up to do.

And I know that I will be told that the money to hire the local Golf Club and provide sandwiches, tea and coffee, and provide and pay for the people representing  the NHS itself to attend, and here I am talking about everyone from the Chair of the Meeting itself, CCG Members, Minute Takers, Patient Panel Members and any others I may have missed in the throng.

I will be told that all of this comes out of a different pot to the one that doesn’t have enough in it to provide the more expensive Cancer Treatments and prolong lives.  A different pot to the one that might enable our AE Services to function rather than lurch from crisis to crisis, I could go on, and on endlessly but surely you get the drift.

And just one or two last little things.  If you can set up nice social meetings in nicely convenient central areas why do Patients have to travel vast mileages to attend desperately inconvenient but necessary clinics miles away from their own area’s, even Counties.

And if you can let out unused parts of Hospitals (which you do) and ‘mothball’ wards why can’t you use these spaces for public meetings?  I am sure that we don’t mind doing without the sandwiches!