Brexit Arms

[DustyDiamond]

Welcome to the Brexit Arms!!

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#PrayForSally
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I can throw together a healthy juice for you GenuineQuestions. No beetroot, though. Good for the liver, terrible for the kidneys. You don't mind it in a wine glass?

Jezza. Boris's secret weapon.

Singing, it's been a long time coming and I'm afraid it's those poorer communities who took the sheer brunt of Blairs policies.

Labour abandoned them a long time ago.
Hopefully they will all collapse (after election) and a new form of Labour can rise again with people from the those areas, not grammar, private educated, elite who think they know what these people want and need!! And tell them in that special patronising way!!

Jezza the secret weapon indeed, maybe its jezza with the the hot line to the ruskies....

Beetroot for bp. Thanks singing. Soothing.

There are lots of different pockets living cheek-by-jowl in the SW, Pumpkin, some affluent and some struggling. My own village is a perfect example. However, there are some things that unite us. Infrastructure is a real problem - public transport is hit and miss; wifi exists (we know it does, it says so on TV) but you might have to stand on tiptoe and lean out of the bedroom window to get a signal.

All of that combines to make it hard to start up a business, improve employment prospects, and on it goes.

Boris is making his usual promises without checking with the experts.

He has said he will tackle the average three week wait for a GP’s appointment. The Royal College of GPs has urged him not to promise shorter waiting times to see a GP as there aren’t enough GP’s to staff quicker appointments. (DH is a GP).

He has also promised training of another 500 GP’s a year. It won’t happen - a previous Tory promise was to recruit an extra 5,000 GP’s by 2020 - they managed 272! Being a GP is not an attractive option in the medical profession and overseas doctors are no longer choosing the UK.

I've been relatively lucky so far, Parker. My GP surgery is a training surgery with a massive, mostly rural, patient list but by utilising trainee GPs and having a fantastic team of community nurses, they manage.

My local community hospital (it's so friendly, I'm fairly sure all the staff are related ) has also done an outreach deal with the area's big standout hospital. The latter sends their consultants to the community hospital to do all-day clinics that really work well. There's also been a huge amount of money and support put in by James Dyson to improve cancer treatment and neo-natal care.

The whole NHS set-up needs a proper review. I'm nervous about saying that though, as every other review - from Gordon Brown's big PFI push to Andrew Lansley's meddling - has simply provided what appears to be a quick fix for today's problem, leaving tomorrow's problems to take care of themselves.

Morning all Congratulations Dusty DS.

My almost 17 yo is trying out the waffle iron - I'm MNing to keep me calm. No chance I'm enabling her or her big sister to learn to drive.

and overseas doctors are no longer choosing the UK

Sorry, missed this bit. I blame Theresa May. In her steely determination to cap immigration, we were put in the ludicrous position of turning away Australian, NZ, Canadian, Indian and Chinese doctors because the only immigration that she could limit was non-EU. Madness.

Refill, howabout?

Ah but the key question is, who's going to clear up the kitchen when she's done?

Thanks for the offer SingingLily . My dh has just brought me tea and toast in bed while he gets on with wrangling our dd. But a mid morning tea wouldn't go amiss in a while.

overseas doctors
I think (?) changing the Visa rules for graduating students should help this instantly.

Re replacing JC with Sir Keir. If Northern Leavers won't vote JC then they certainly won't be lectured into voting for Sir Keir.

Phew, Bellini. I thought you'd cut and run because you'd heard about my terrible tea-making.

I've been practising.

Going to have to do some RL stuff now. Any volunteers to mind the bar till #ComradeHilda emerges from the cellar?

Just a reminder, though. It's not a proper pub without the resident pub bore. Just hand them whatever they're drinking and then ignore.

howabout - overseas doctors no longer want to work as a GP and conditions and pay are much better in countries such as South Africa, Australia and Poland.

singing if it's only dishes that need clearing up I'll take that as a win.

On the upside she's got Buckcherry on full blast to clear the cobwebs. She has absolutely no patience. She's studying advanced higher physics and I'm sitting here explaining heat radiation.

DH has loads of family in SW. Agree roads are dire - the A303 is the good bit. DH's family are all self-employed small business arty types. They have been there over 50 years and so could afford their houses, but incomers / seasonal tourism have wrecked the local wages / prices dynamic.

In answer to the wages / supply of labour query it comes down to the old chestnut of is a business viable if it can't afford to pay living wages?

#prayingforepic

We have an excellent GP surgery here that has won awards. They now do video consultations but most of the time there's same day appointments available. They will always see a child on the same day. We are semi-rural and the surgery has around 8,000 patients. The surgery where I used to work as a nurse had over 20,000 patients (Manchester inner city) and even there it was possible to get a same day appointment. Management is a big factor. Our GPs are happy for you to email them and they will send a prescription down to the chemist if needed. When ds had an infected injection site I emailed a photo and the GP just sent a script down to our nominated chemist. I'm not dismissing the problem of GP shortages and funding issues but management has a lot to do with the patient experience.

Bercow I would love to have a surgery like that! Emailing in photos of small stuff!
That's already saving huge amounts of time.

Free prescriptions coupled with use of pharmacies for minor ailments in Scotland is helping pressure on GPs. Also we don't need a note from the GP to keep our DC off school.

Still a shortage of GPs in rural areas but Scottish Govt is having some impact with flexible placings for extended working holidays to fill gaps. Wages aren't the issue because housing in Scotland is much cheaper than rUK.

What are you drinking Parker

My GP does phone consults. You can order prescriptions online or by phone for direct collection from pharmacy. You do need to be organised though as the process can take almost a week.

Management is a big factor

Staffing is the bigger one, I think, as good management depends on a stable workforce without big gaps. Based on what I hear from family, GP services largely seem to depend on whether the practice can attract doctors and this is quite patchy - some areas find it easy (often nicer but cheaper bits of northern england) some find it harder (often places with high housing costs). In practices with chronic GP shortages it makes sense that other doctors won't want to work there, because short-staffed practices must be grim places to work if you want any sort of work-life balance.

My ILs in a north midlands town have an excellent GP (same one for 20 years) and a well managed practice. My 80-something mum in a SW town and my sister in a different SW town struggle to get appointments, never see the same GP twice and my mum in particular finds the gatekeeping impossible to navigate. Fortunately she is a very fit 80 year old but if she's to stay that way she needs a knee problem seeing to and it seems impossible to do this - NHS services have been so poor that I've suggested she get it done at my expense in France.

Blimey, those voting intentions are interesting

At least with a decent majority the Tories would have no more excuses for not getting on with it

Fair point, Bear.

Domestic crisis temporarily averted. 😅. Going back to GenuineQuestion's earlier post, here's an excerpt from today's Telegraph about David Blunkett (met him in RL - a gentleman. Ditto Alan Johnson. However, had several dealings with George Osborne before he was Chancellor. On the basis of "say nothing if you've nothing good to say", I'm saying nada )

"Lord Blunkett has described his “despair” at the “anti-Semitism and thuggery” in the Labour Party and suggested Jeremy Corbyn is on course for a 1983-style drubbing at the polls.

The former Labour home secretary said the party is “plagued by intolerance and division” which made the chances of a Corbyn majority “extraordinarily slim”. He suggested the best Labour could hope for was another hung parliament, and urged moderates within the party to “stay and fight” to make sure “the voice of reason” prevailed. It came as Mr Corbyn was accused of a “shocking” lack of leadership as 11 Labour parliamentary candidates came under pressure to quit over anti-Semitic comments or past behaviour."

I don't know whether DB made these comments before he knew of Tom Watson's departure. Whatever you might think of TW's involvement in the Operation Midland case, he was the linchpin of Future Britain. That leaves a bit of a chasm.

SingingLily I'm also struck by parallels between 1983 and now. All we need is for Jezza to turn up at the Cenotaph tomorrow in a donkey jacket! With a black armband to mourn the falling of the Berlin Wall

Re the NHS, the great majority of people aren't regular visitors to either the doctor or hospital. I was talking to someone the other day who described how amazed she was at the wonderful big hospital in the city, how fantastic its facilities were and how much better it was than the old one. She didn't credit this to any particular government (it was in fact built under Labour), but certainly didn't think there was any NHS crisis.

All we need is for Jezza to turn up at the Cenotaph tomorrow in a donkey jacket!

😂 Limer.

I recall reading an article years later - an interview with Mrs Foot. She was still quite upset about all the comments. She'd bought it for him because she thought it would look smart compared to his usual attire.

Perhaps she got it from Marx & Spencer. From what I gleaned, the USSR didn't pay its agents lavishly and Agent Boot wasn't exactly classed as a primary source.

I was born and raised in Liverpool, which is solidly Labour. It'll be interesting to see if the Cons / BXP /LD's get any seats there.

It's shaping up to be a very interesting election. Anyone else planning on staying up all night for the results?

Limer hospitals around me were in severe crisis by the end of Blairs tenure. The horror story's all around were terrifying.

They have been getting better under tories, and are ok now. I'd still feel concerned about my care being admitted however.

Comrade Corybn in his donkey jacket and a black arm band 😂😂😂😂😂