My mother died a couple of years ago after twenty years of NHS care. I know whereof I speak. I visited her in I can't remember how many London hospitals. Some were grimmer than others. I met some quite wonderful house officers and consultants and tea ladies but many, many decisions that here would be made in a couple of hours took two and three days of processing up and down chains of authority and some of what people were doing was just plain silly. One example: recording glucose levels at different times every day, some before a meal, some after a meal, all neatly entered on a graph that showed...glucose levels rise when you've eaten and fall when you haven't. 'strawdinry! Naturally I asked the nurse why they were doing things this way. She explained that everyone was so overworked, they got to the tests when they could fit them in. Even if this made a nonsense of the test. The work was certifiably getting done.
I expect it's better in the countryside. Many things, including beer, are.
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
