Twycross Trip and Visit to Urgent Care Centre

Last year we visited Twycross Zoo for the first time. Well, it was for me. As Carol lived in Leicestershire, in a village called Thornton, which is very close, she says she remembers visiting when she was at school. A one-and-a-half hour journey up the A5 and we found it fairly easily. I think it's quicker than going north on the M1, which, as far as I know, still has roadworks which means you have to drive at 50 m.p.h., which is somewhat annoying. These roadworks have been going on for far too long and what is more than annoying is the fact that they close off mile upon mile or motorway lanes and there never appears to be any work going on. I think something seriously needs to be done about this as it must be causing inconvenience to many people and must be frustrating to local businesses.

The day started out relatively cold, although bright. It was therefore quite difficult to decide what to wear and I wore my hooded fleece. As the day progressed the weather got warmer which meant I didn't really need the fleece and spent most of the day carrying it around with me.

We got to Twycross at 10.30 and immediately noticed that the carpark had been re-surfaced. Infact the whole place  seems to have had a make-over, with not only roads and paths having new surfaces but a complete re-design of the logo and better signage through the zoo. We immediately made for the newly-opened Gibbon Forest exhibit, which was being build when we visited almost exactly a year ago. At that time it was under wraps and it meant you have to navigate the zoo too avoid any of the building work. There is an island exhibit, which looks as if it is still being completed. But you go inside the building and up several levels and can see the gibbons in very naturalistic environments. We spent some time watching these amazing creatures climbing and swinging about on ropes and what look like tapes and moving very fast across the ceiling of the exhibit.

We had something to eat in one of the many cafes and restaurants throughout the zoo. By this time it was getting quite warm and the place was beginning to get quite crowded.

Over-all, our stay at the zoo was around three and a half hours. You can never get to see everything, which means we can visit again and manage to see the rest of the animals that are exhibited. We left and returned home. We had to do shopping so visited Sainsbury's.

We had our evening meal, and Carol was concerned about a rather nasty rash on her leg. It has become very uncomfortable and itchy. She has a cream, prescribed by her doctor, but it does not seem to be clearing. She says that it has begun to swell and it may have something to do with the fact that she has type 2 diabetes. She said she needed a doctor's appointment. I was beginning to get somewhat concerned. She could have waited until Monday to make an appointment, but, considering how the appointment system works at our surgery, Ashfield Medical Centre, it would be almost impossible to get an appointment. So we decided to go to the Urgent CareCentre at Milton Keynes Hospital, formerly called the 'Walk-In Centre.' This is where you go if you have a medical condition which isn't strictly urgent enough for you to need to go to Accident and Emergency. It is staffed by doctors and nurses who are able to diagnose specific medical problems and refer you to other medical practitioners if they are unable to help. We were reluctant to go there, but as this rash was getting worse it was clear that something needed to be done. We drove there, arriving at around 8.15. Carol was questioned by the receptionist, a form of triage and we sat and waited for her name to appear on the digital board so she could see a staff member. The place was already very busy when we arrived, and more people came in in the time we were there. In all we were there around three hours. She got prescription for antibiotics and we had to go to Boots at Kingston, near the big Tesco store, as there is a night pharmacy which could dispense the medication she needed. There were other people waiting, who we'd already seen in the Urgent Care Centre. You had to press a bell and a young man appeared and hand over your prescription form for him to make up the prescription. Carol has an exemption card which means she does not have to pay the prescription charge as she is diabetic. We had to go home as we didn't have my wallet which had the card in it. 

Late Night Visit to Urgent Care Centre

I mentioned on an earlier post on here about how I attempted to get Carol a doctor's appointment and failed because after around two hours of trying to get through on the telephone because that is now the only method available to get seen by a doctor at our surgery. So she still hasn't got an appointment and her health has got worse over the weekend ( I shall not describe on here what it is that is causing her problems as it it somewhat personal and she wouldn't thank me for giving such information, if you will excuse me from doing so. This doesn't matter because I really want to write about the N.H.S.'s inability to make available access to their services by people who are in need of serious attention and the fact that Carol, as a teacher, is what you would describe as a 'Key Worker' along with such people as ambulance drivers, paramedics, doctors etc, who keep the country going and cannot make appointments during work hours, hanging on telephone lines attempting to make doctor's appointments by using such ludicrous systems as set up by out-of-touch bureaucrats who sit in offices and don't use such services themselves (or so it would appear.)

At around 3 0'clock on Sunday morning Carol was in real pain. She has been taking paracetamol without much success, so we decided it would be best to visit what is called the Urgent Care Centre at Milton Keynes Hospital, formerly known as the Walk-In Centre. It's for those who need medical attention but not serious enough to need to go to Accident and Emergency. I have used that service when I had my original heart attack and subsequent angina attacks which then lead to over-night stays in hospital. She rang the 111 phone number and gave details of her problem and was then told to go to the Urgent Care Centre where an appointment was booked for  3.50 a.m. We had to get dressed and I was half asleep, as you can imagine at such an early hour. The dogs must have wondered what on earth we were doing getting up in the middle of the night so they had to be put in the kitchen, much to their surprise as they usually spend the night with us in the bedroom. Spoilt doggies.

It was an easy drive to the hospital. We live directly behind Milton Keynes Hospital and we could have easily walked through to the Urgent Care Centre but we decided as it was so late and dark (and who knows who would be wandering around the streets at that time of night. Probably no safe unfortunately.) We got to the carpark and decided against payment. Sorry, we didn't have any cash and it seems unfair to expect you to pay when you visit any hospital department. Fortunately the reception had details of Carol's ailment on their computer but this didn't mean we were seen any faster. There was only one other person waiting so we couldn't see why we had to wait so long. Another hour or so before a nurse saw her and then another hour before a doctor saw her. Only two other people came in and sat in the waiting area. The two vending machines in the place were not working. Not very good considering you were likely to wait several hours to be seen and the place was really dirty with empty coffee cups, coke cans and crisp wrappers on the floor. Some people seem incapable of putting their rubbish in the bin provided. No magazines to read either or even a television on as you might expect. The plastic chairs you have to sit on are so designed to make the whole experience as uncomfortable and unpleasant as possible. Possibly an attempt to put off that element of the community who treat the N.H.S. and it's services with some sort of contempt and think they can get every single minor cut, broken finger nail, sniffle, sore ear, throat or big toe treated in such places and waste money and time doing so. I know I'm ranting a bit but such people don't need to clog up the system when they can deal with those minor ailments by going to a chemist and speaking to a pharmacist who will tell them to take aspirin or paracetamol or just go home and go to bed for a couple of days until they feel better or to just be more sensible and take evasive action so as not to cut their finger or stub their toe and thus allow more serious ailments of other people to be dealt with in a calm and sensible manner.

Anyway, we left after barely two hours and Carol was given a prescription for some medication as well as being told by the doctor who eventually saw her that he'd sent a letter or no doubt an email to our surgery to the effect that she needed an urgent appointment. So we drove home where I then made mugs of tea which we drank in bed and went back to sleep. So I imagine I'll be rung on Monday or probably Tuesday by the surgery in Beanhill to give Carol an appointment.

After our early-morning visit to Urgent Care, we didn't get up until quite late. It must have been at least 9.30. The sun was shining so it seemed in order to get out so we drove up the A5 past Weedon to visit the Heart of Shires shopping village, somewhere we've visited on quite a number of occasions. There are quite a few of these sort of places dotted along the A5 which we love to visit because the A5, Watling Street is a rather pleasant drive as an alternative to the M1 which is such a soulless drive and the service areas over-priced and very bland. This particular place has a wide range of really great shops, selling a range of products such as food and drink as well as antiques. We had a pleasant meal in Darlington's Tea Rooms where we both had ploughman's lunches which were better than the average you would get elsewhere with plenty on our plates and we also had coffee. Very efficient service and reasonably priced in very pleasant surroundings. It was a shame that the weather changed as we were in there and by the time we went back out to the car to return home it was getting very windy, the sky began to cloud over and it looked as if it was going to rain.