Another week, another hospital and another Prime Minister.

Monday found me at Bart’s within earshot of Bow Bells. Daniel, his late mother and his late sister were all born here. His mother, was a theatre sister here, many years ago. Cockney or not, she’d not Adam and Eve the NHS now.

As for me, this was the cancelled -reinstated appointment. Patients everywhere will know that we have no rights. The assumption is we are available 24 /7 for appointments at hospitals or phone appointments. These may be postponed, cancelled, late, but never ever say you can’t make it. The consequences are dire. What absolute shambles. NHS or private it’s the same dire warnings if you don’t accept the offered time/ date. You must be grateful. You must cancel/ shift /rearrange and not forgetting to find a good signal if it’s a phone call. No one seems to realise not all areas are connectivity guaranteed. No one seems to realise if the patient does not answer IMMEDIATELY, it might just be kind to try again.

Anyhow, I arrived at BARTS. Lifts weren’t working. Computers were down. Patients had to write our names on a piece of paper. Anticipating the exceptional delays I began the wait. Rang grandson O, his half term buggered up by my appointments too.

I didn’t even know what this appointment was for. Eventually some pyjama clad ( scrubs) person mumbled and stumbled over a name. That’ll be me I said. Sure enough it was. #Empkins.

Turns out this was ENT… a speech therapist and a consultant joint clinic. Maybe to get me into cockney rhyming slang? They shoved a camera up my nose down my throat. Found the camera wasn’t working and did it again. Asked if I wanted my voice changed. I said ‘er no. I don’t think so‘

I was allowed to go. Piecing it together, I think it’s to do with asthma. To check it’s really asthma that the Respiratory Consultant has diagnosed. As if he’s not quite realised that I do not have cockney throat or whatever vocal syndrome or something is.

Meanwhile nothing more from NHS urology. of course.

However having spent so much money on stupid urodynamics test to try to speed things up Mr God-of-urology rang. The urodynamics showed a dysfunctional bladder apparently. No shit Sherlock. He mumbled about some old treatment he’d actually already tried but forgotten, then he mumbled about prophylactic antibiotics which we’ve been over 1000 times. I give up. Bank balance open /cheque book / can’t do this. Patients are using private practice if they can, to get some help. But I’ve spent a load already and just ended up where I started. Idiot that I am.

In such a bad mood I joined a patient rep meeting for NHS England. It’s been set up to supervise the responses to a report by Baroness Cumberlege. Cummerbund / Cumberbatch I keep calling her. The meeting did not go well. The chair just whittered on. He lost control of the agenda, the interruptions and a nonsensical mad patient who has pissed me off all year. Dear reader I lost the plot. Told him and her what I really felt. Forgot my normal calm, didn’t use my usual cheery positive comments, no diplomacy, no tact, just blew, just yelled over bloody ‘Teams’ remembering to unmute for true effect. It has caused a bit of a fuss. TBH. With any luck I’ll be expelled. I’ve tried to resign 100 times, this time they just might agree. Hurrah.

The problem? Hospitals are run by commissioners. Commissioners are told what to do by NHS bureaucrats. In turn the bureaucrats are ruled by politics. We all know what a shit show politics has been of late. It’s totally bollocks. I don’t think I know a cockney slang for that!

News flash I am reliably informed it is Jackson Pollocks