More N.H.S. Waiting Rooms-1

Carol still continues to have pain problems. No amount of medication seem to relive this awful situation. She's been on some really powerful medication. We had to ring Ashfield Medical Centre yesterday to get a repeat prescription of Tramadol. You have to go through a really tortuous process to get anywhere near a doctor for an appointment as I've explained in earlier blog posts. A triage system, meaning the receptionist who answers the phone asks you what your problem is and then assigns a doctor to ring you so that he/she can decide whether you need a face-to-face appointment. I think it's to weed out time-wasters (those who have minor ailments: a sore throat doesn't need an appointment: just go to the nearest pharmacist and get an over-the-counter medication, cough syrup or other product. It obviously doesn't need a doctor's appointment and certainly doesn't need a prescription for antibiotics, as an example.) Generally it takes a couple of hours before you get a ring-back and you see a doctor that day. We did eventually get through and she was able to get the doctor to agree on a prescription for Tramadol. We were told that the prescription would be ready for collection 'after 2 p.m.' All very well and I went off to pick this up, hoping that I could then go to the pharmacy which is near the surgery to get it made up and then return home. When I got to the surgery I asked the receptionist for it and she looked for it on the computer system and told me 'it's gone to Sainsbury's (sent electronically). I was somewhat annoyed, as it then meant that I would have to drive to the store in Witan Gate to collect it. (Actually the pharmacy is now run by Lloyd's and not Sainsbury's but is within their store. Don't ask me why it changed. It seemed fine as run by Sainsbury's.) On arrival I asked if the prescription had arrived and I was told it hadn't. It was then that I couldn't for the life of me remember what the drug it was that he prescriptions was for. I knew it was a fairly powerful drug for dealing with pain, but I simply could not remember the name of it. I suggested the pharmacy ring Ashfield M.C. and get them to tell them the name, but they wouldn't without the name of drug the prescription was for. My only choice was to return home and ask Carol what the drug was. When I got home she told me it was Tramadol and I rang Sainsbury's back and when I told them I was informed that, as it was a controlled drug, the surgery couldn't send the prescription electronically. This made sense, because, having been a carer and administration of medication to the client base I worked with was part of my job, I was totally aware that controlled drugs had to be stored carefully, in a locked cupboard, but also had to be carefully signed for, usually by two members of staff, so it was no surprise that they would not send the prescription electronically. By now it was clear that we weren't going to get to the bottom of this situation unless we went to Ashfield Medical Centre and find out what on earth was going on regarding the prescription. The girl of reception said that, having looked at their computer, they had sent the prescription to Sainsbury's. It turned out to be for two other medication that Carol has, but nothing of the Tramadol could be found. Then we said, no doubt it was because it was a controlled drug. After a great deal of scouring around the various files and other places, it turned out that the doctor who was supposed to deal with signing the printed prescriptions hadn't done so and after a further search, the tramadol prescription had somehow slipped through the net. The receptionist said she would go and speak to the doctor, but at the time of speaking she was with a patient. We had to sit and wait in the waiting room whilst all this was going on.

How is it all N.H.S. waiting rooms have such un comfortable seating in them? We've had to endure several of them over the past couple of months, in A and E, at the Urgent Care Centre as well as another out-patient department we went to last week that Carol had to attend following her time in hospital (to see a consultant). They seem to make these facilities as unappealing as possible, the seating in particular as uncomfortable as they can. If you're in A and E as long as we have and you feel like lying down, they've made the long stretch of seats which you'd feel like lying on, have metal bits that make it virtually impossible to lie on as they really cut into your back. I think they deliberately put uncomfortable seating into N.H.S. facilities in a vain attempt to put people off using them. At any rate, the seats I've had to sit on in the last few weeks at least are so designed to make you only want to experience them for at least 20 minutes and certainly no longer. How difficult can it be to have them with at least padded seats? Those plastic chairs in hospital wards don't allow for long sitting as they have a slippery surface that makes you slide off and are extremely uncomfortable. I realise that the N.H.S. is keen to have every surface cleaned in an attempt to combat cross-infection and reduce the risk of N.R.S.A. (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus)  spreading, so plastic surfaces would be easier to keep clean, but do these chairs have to be so uncomfortable

The receptionist eventually returned with the printed, and signed, prescription form, so we could then go to Cox and Robinson a few yards along from the surgery, to get the thing made up and could at last go home.