NHS cuts

The media seem to love scaremongering and sensationalising news as they have done regarding government cuts and the loss of "front line services".

It would be very satisfying if they picked up on and reported the following actual waste of public money.

Most normal people know that enormous savings are to be made in public services such as the NHS that would avoid the need to reduce front line staff.

I have first hand experience recently of how non-added value procedures cost us, the public, money.

Having experienced a problem with one of my eyes I used the NHS Direct via the Internet to diagnose the problem and was instructed to go directly to Accident and Emergency. Believing this to be a little dramatic I phoned NHS Direct and was given, in no uncertain terms, the same advice.

Immediately I went to the Royal Eye Infirmary ( on NHS advice ) and waited to see triage nurse and this is where the waste of our money started. I was told that I was not an emergency and "no" I could not make an appointment to be seen that day but should go to my usual opticians, which I duly did.

The optician was not surprised, but a little angry, that I, like others before me, had been referred by the Eye Infirmary.

Subsequently, after a full check I was told I would need another test and that the optician would write to my GP for him to arrange a check at the Royal Eye Infirmary from whence I had just come!

So to summarise the unnecessary steps in this ridiculous process the following is where increased costs have been met by you and I.

1     Full eye test at private optician.
2     Letter from optician to GP
3     Contact from GP to Sentinel Healthcare ( to arrange appointment )
4     Phone call to me from Sentinel to discuss appointment.
5     Letter from Eye Infirmary to me confirming appointment.
6     Phone call from Eye Infirmary to remind me of appointment ( yet to happen)
It is an absolute disgrace that we are wasting public monies just because the establishment has procedures which have absolutely no purpose. These people are there to serve the public, not to waste their hard-earned cash.
Please send a link to this Blog to any MP's that you know and lets shake the system up a little.

Country Credit Ratings

I am no economist so perhaps someone out there can explain to me the beneficial uses of country and bank credit ratings.
It seems to me that some of them will be self-fulfilling prophecies as if  companies like Fitch downgrade a country then the cost of borrowing increases for that country putting it in a worse position than before.
Why do organisations and media talk down the world financial situation so much? We all know that the borrowing culture, by individuals, banks, countries has got out of hand and everyone needs to reign in their borrowing habit so why make the situation worse by spreading gloom and doom?
The UK situation looks brighter than we are led to believe. We are reducing our public spending in order to control borrowing. It does not take a genius to realise that this is the only course of action we can take as if taxation is increased then the public will borrow more, so reduction in spend is the only answer. Hopefully history will tell that we have a government that is putting the future of the country ahead of its own political fortunes.
Of course we will hear the usual political rhetoric from those who are on the other side, but that is what they do!! It has nothing to do with logic, reality or common sense.
It is a pity that we have political parties at all during this time as the pragmatic approach is the only one which will resolve the problems we currently have.
The coalition government will probably not have long enough to put in place all the actions we need to take and we will get a change of government too soon.
Remember, there are less than one million people in the membership of the parties that rule the country and more than 60 million people who are not members of any party, so we are governed by a tiny majority, although the current incumbents seem to be doing what the majority wish.
So let's get more positive, the media MUST curb their enthusiasm for bad news and their ill hidden joy at any thing which seems detrimental to us all.
The silent majority has the power to change the world if only they could be motivated to do so. Things can not be too bad yet or they would be uniting now. Small innefective groups such as "Occupy xxxxx" are distracting us from the solution.  It would be better if they used their enthusiasm to unite millions of others in a sensible course of action