Lumps and Grumps...

 

Another late diary post tonight: even more sore throat, even grumpier - looks solidly like strep throat, the tell-tale pale patches having appeared on my throat earlier today. Looks like my once-a-decade appointment with streptococcus has arrived after all. So all I've got to do now is navigate our post-covid surgery regime in the morning, which is still operating a - frankly unnecessary and Byzantine - system.

This involves ringing the practice reception and asking for an appointment, which now for whatever reason [unclear], cannot be booked on the computer by the receptionist, as only a doctor can make an appointment [since when?]; upon which you are told that you'll get a callback at some unspecified time from a doctor themselves, who will give you a brief telephone interview, before allotting you a slot for a visit at some time later in the day: during the pandemic, this made perfect sense.

Strikes me that there's a lot of duplication and waste of effort going on here [to what end?], that was never present under the old practice system, which in latter years after the institution of boards and business hierarchies under our brave new world of semi-privatised medicine, had admittedly already started to creak a little. But at least you could still just drop in to the surgery when needed and see your doctor within the hour. Post covid-restrictions, I just wonder why things haven't reverted to a more normal and relatively efficient system. Told you I was still grumpy...