It is a strange reflection as we hear of local election results, with gains for Reform…the party with only 4 MPs. Thinking back to the Labour days…the demise of the Labour government under Gordon Brown, who transferred to the Conservatives coalition aka the Dave and Nick show… That was way back in…let me think :2010 . It was Liam Byrne who left a note which read-

‘ I’m afraid there is no money left…”

It must be true that our present government must have wandered round NHS headquarters. Elephant and Castle , I seem to recall is the location. In closing down NHS and transferring it to the Department of Health, the empty desks must have revealed some letters .

There are, it is said, letters to the DHSC people:

Dear new team….Everything has gone

We attach a template for you to send to GPs.

Subject: Referral to Secondary Care

Dear Doctor,

We recognise that primary care is currently underinvested and experiencing significant demand. To ensure timely patient management, we recommend that patients be referred directly to secondary care for further assessment and treatment.

The appropriate letter is:

“Please see and advise.”

We also attach a template for you to send to secondary care consultants.

Dear Doctors in Secondary Care

General practitioners may not always meet expected levels of engagement.They are lazy and do nothing. They never see patients. Therefore, our recommendation when receiving a patient referral is to initiate contact via a brief telephone consultation. The call should ping only once before being discontinued.

Herewith template for you to send to GPs:

Dear [Referring GP’s Name],

I am writing to inform you that an attempt was made to contact the referred patient via telephone for a consultation. Unfortunately, the call was unanswered, and as a result, the patient is now classified as ‘Did Not Attend’ (DNA). Consequently, the referral has been returned to your care for further management.

Please do hesitate to contact us for further assistance.

The thing is, I actually think this might be true. Dipstick’s department rang this week. It is 3 years since MRI and we notice there has not yet been a follow up. Has your situation improved?. WTF?!

Just saying.