🎭 Archers thread 125: Ambridge Mysteries! The Case Of The Missing Pandemic. Where Is Pat? What Is Lynda Snell's Kompromat? Follow the clues and discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you’d love to be in the Mysteries, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks for thread title ideas to @Roysnewshirt and @Witchwife. Apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone else.

Do we think the Mysteries replace the usual fun storylines around giving things up for Lent? Light relief while we wait to see if the SWs go for realism and tragedy when Alice’s baby is born, or bottle out (as it were) and go for everything being fine? Will Jazzer and Tracy get back together again? (No bookie in the land would take money for that, of course they will.)

Over to you!

Interesting question @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime (as befits your name ). Your NHS medical records ‘move’ from your old practice when you register with a new one. If you never register with a new GP then your old notes may be sitting on someone’s shelf or in their computer and they may be none the wiser. Every now and again NHSE accuse GPs of ‘fraudulently’ keeping these patients on our books - as if we’ve got nothing better to do than work out who hasn’t been to see us for a while and, our of those people, who it’s just because they’re not unwell and who is because they’ve moved to Australia or whatever...
Hospital notes tend to get destroyed after 10yrs without being accessed but that’s because they’re paper records and therefore often there’s a space implication to keeping them, whereas GP records have been largely computerised for years and so honestly I’m not sure anyone would notice.

As for vaccinations: do you need to be registered with a GP? It’s true that GPs have been doing a lot of the legwork in the first few cohorts, but once it’s opened up to ‘ring 119 if you’re over 50’ or whatever I don’t know that you have to be registered. There’s been a lot of work going on, for example, to ensure that homeless people are vaccinated as a priority and many of them won’t have seen a GP in years.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to that question. Not in London either so can’t speculate as to why uptake is lower there.

You do have to be registered with a GP to get the Covid19 vaccination.

I know someone in London without a GP (long story, not mine to tell) who tried to book to be vaccinated online giving an NHS number and was refused, rang 119 to ask about it and was eventually told by a splendid women who took a lot of time finding out exactly what went on that slots can only be booked off GP-generated lists, and the only way to do anything about it was to write (not email, on paper) to "NHS Covid-19 Vaccination Booking Service Complaints Patient Experience Team, South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (etc)" even though this was not actually a complaint, just a request. I have suggested that perhaps finding a GP to register with might be a good plan, but that has proved difficult as yet. (My alternative suggestion, rocking up at a homeless hostel and asking them to help, was rejected as impractical because of the cat.)

But if there are a lot of people in London who are in that position it might explain at least come of the low figure.

My husband wouldn't have a GP if I hadn't encouraged him to join the practice I did when I moved in with him. He is disgustingly healthy and had never seen the need to take up a GP's time until then, not since he left home. He has been to them once in ten years, I think (with an injury), apart from supportively turning up to routine "we are testing everyone's blood-pressure" drives.

A question might be "does Alice have a GP?" or at least "did Alice have a GP until the end of last year?" She was probably registered with Tim Hathaway all those years ago, but since then she has been away at university and may not have bothered to register with a local practice in Hollerton or Borchester when she came back, since she's never been ill that we have heard.

some of the low figure

My alternative suggestion, rocking up at a homeless hostel and asking them to help, was rejected as impractical because of the cat

Possibly the cat in question has Principles. Rare, admittedly, but not technically impossible. Your acquaintance sounds a bit of a tit, tbh.

The thing about Alice is, though, that until she propelled Martha Jasmine out with great force into Jazzer's face/the back seat of Jim's Riley (I'm still thinking about that; my spatial awareness is fairly crap, I admit, but HOW?), Alice was the only actual patient involved. Surely she had some rights to confidentiality. Ok, multi-agency clusterfuck when she has produced the thing and anxieties about FAS/FASD have been tabled, but until that point, it was no one else's business.

Love Plot de Weiss syndrome

Apparently today is World Re-Wilding Day.

So looking forward to Monday's news on how Rex and Phoebe led Ambridge through this momentous event.

@PursuingProxemicExactitude

Apparently today is World Re-Wilding Day.

So looking forward to Monday's news on how Rex and Phoebe led Ambridge through this momentous event.

I thought that was last week.

You'll have to take it up with Trees For Life, AQATT - their email announcing said Day arrived this morning.

Is it difficult to register with a GP in London or is it just that the population is younger and less likely to have seen it as a priority (doesn't really fit with lower uptake though). Or lower uptake is due to higher BAME population?

When we moved within a city ten years ago, at least one GP practice refused to register me as I already had a GP locally. I wanted one in walking distance not five miles away when I rarely had access to a car.

I honestly don't know how difficult it is to find a GP in London (haven't tried for oops fifty years!) but yes, a younger population and without children might explain it.

As it would explain Alice not having had one when they was her position.

that was her position

When I used to move towns quite often, getting a new GP was quite a priority to get the Pill. I know you could also go to the FPC, but I found the GP easier. So I would think young women would sign up. Young men less so.

@Taswama

Is it difficult to register with a GP in London or is it just that the population is younger and less likely to have seen it as a priority (doesn't really fit with lower uptake though). Or lower uptake is due to higher BAME population?

When we moved within a city ten years ago, at least one GP practice refused to register me as I already had a GP locally. I wanted one in walking distance not five miles away when I rarely had access to a car.

I think all of those are good reasons - but also that it is difficult to register with many GPs. My last three GPs in London - over about 7 years - seemed to have processed entirely designed to discourage registration. Same as the approach to booking appointments, which involved literally hours on the phone / conducting a ritual to sacrifice your first born. In several places I lived in London I therefore simply didn’t register - it was just too much time when I was busy with work and the opening hours were limited.

That all sounded very critical of GP practices so to add nuance - lots of them are over subscribed too because of population density. Which also makes it harder.

Good point on chemical contraception as a reason young women would potentially register.

Alice of course is unusual in Ambridge having left the entire county to go to university. So she may well have registered there while she was a student. Presumably she wasn’t seeing a GP regularly for contraception given that she a) got accidentally pregnant and b) there were no cries of “I can’t believe my pill failed”. I suppose maybe she’d forgotten to take a pill (or several) what with all the hangovers/morning drinking, but irl I think Alice would have an implant.

She's been back in Ambridge for at least a decade. I can imagine her being at the time to get an implant replaced, and thinking, another week won't matter...

@PursuingProxemicExactitude

Apparently today is World Re-Wilding Day.

So looking forward to Monday's news on how Rex and Phoebe led Ambridge through this momentous event.

Well, colour me amazed that we haven't spent the last few weeks being treated at length to their discussions about it and plans for it. Maybe they're keeping it as a lovely surprise for us all?

( Am now more than slightly worried that they have indeed been talking about it - but I've missed it all because as soon as Phoebe and Rex start talking I completely zone out ...)

I am a Social Worker in child protection and at the very least a child and family assessment would likely have been completed as the rehab facility would probably have done a referral in to children’s services after making an assessment of Alice’s drinking levels. The social work assessment would have involved meeting Chris and potentially extended family, as well as Alice, to look at support around the child and insight in to how protective and supportive they would be of the child. However, I thought they didn’t really get child protection right with the Helen & Rob storyline either!

So are you saying, Tulips, that irl Alice wouldn't be allowed to keep her alcoholism secret from her extended family?

Surely the threat of that (if it feels like as threat) is a dreadful additional stress. What if being seen as 'normal' and coping is all that's holding a person together?

@PursuingProxemicExactitude

So are you saying, Tulips, that irl Alice wouldn't be allowed to keep her alcoholism secret from her extended family?

Surely the threat of that (if it feels like as threat) is a dreadful additional stress. What if being seen as 'normal' and coping is all that's holding a person together?

But, surely, the safely of the child should be the top priority. You just know all her family are going to be forcing drinks into her hands now she's no longer pregnant.

the safely of the child should be the top priority
Now, maybe. Not in utero; at that point it has no independent rights in law. Alice couldn't be compelled to engage with that intrusive 'assessment '. I suppose the sprog could be removed at birth if she didn't, though.

@PursuingProxemicExactitude

So are you saying, Tulips, that irl Alice wouldn't be allowed to keep her alcoholism secret from her extended family?

Surely the threat of that (if it feels like as threat) is a dreadful additional stress. What if being seen as 'normal' and coping is all that's holding a person together?

IRL an assessment wouldn't necessarily include extended family without parental consent however in some cases, the extended family are an essential part of the safety plan so parents don't get much choice in practice because if the safety plan isn't strong enough then the case may escalate to a higher level.

@theThreeofWeevils

the safely of the child should be the top priority Now, maybe. Not in utero; at that point it has no independent rights in law. Alice couldn't be compelled to engage with that intrusive 'assessment '. I suppose the sprog could be removed at birth if she didn't, though.

Whilst the law does not legislate for the rights of unborn babies (correctly) if a parent does not engage with pre birth assessment then care proceedings can absolutely be issued at birth.

It is surely only a matter of time before Alice is offered a drink to 'wet the baby's head'.