I had to go over to my local health centre last week for a periodic check up. As I’m getting closer to three score years it’s good to keep a check on how the old body is doing, and I’m pleased to say that it’s not too bad at all. A couple of things I need to watch, but I’m doing better than maybe they thought, and this is the issue. I knew that I was doing better than the numbers that they told me I needed to be around because I had the same set of blood tests a couple of months ago at the hospital.
Bearing in mind that we are talking about two establishments both part of the Swindon NHS trust and barely two miles away from each other as the crow flies why is the information not shared?
How much time was wasted on two appointments for the tests, two more appointments for the results, two sets of postage to send the samples plus all of the consumables involved, two lots of tests?
I know the anti big brother mob are rabidly against centralising information, but this is an area where surely it would have made sense to have made the first test results available to my general practioner’s office? With all the waste in costs why oh why does this sort of thing go on?
When I had the first of the two operations at the NHS hospital I signed a form and that released all of my notes and test results from the private hospital that I had seen previously about that health issue, so if we can swap data between the private and public services, why can’t two parts of the same public service do the same?
What saddens me most is that money and time has ben wasted on me that could have benefited somone who really needed it. This government has done so much damage to the NHS it is hard to believe that it was a Labour party idea in the first place.
The Voice of the Bloke at the Back 