The Anonymous Widower

The Discontinuous NHS

I am a control engineer by training, although I haven’t really practised since the early 1970s. But any control engineer will tell you that the most difficult system to control is one with discontinuities. I always liken it to riding a bicycle, which you may be able to do happily on the flat, but then you need to go up or down a kerb and you have a problem.

Some of the biggest problems we get in life are concerned with discontinuities; such as birth, marriages and deaths.  We also get a whole series of problems when we do something like move house.

Organisations such as the banks, insurance, utility and telephone companies, major retailers, supermarkets and some government agenices like the DVLC, TV Licensing and a few others, have used modern methods, such as web sites, e-mail, text messaging and dare I say it well-designed call centres to liase with their customers in whatever way those important customers find easiest and most convenient. If say a gas company doesn’t do what the customers want, then those same customers will desert it.

Moving wasn’t particularly difficult for me, with respect to gas, electricity, banks, gas, water, credit cards, broadband, TV and phones, even if I have a couple of minor issues to sort out.

One problem I have had was getting used to the refuse system. But Hackney council were very helpful over the phone and the binmen sorted out the small details.  But in an ideal world all councils would use the same collection system.  In a few years time, they probably will, as one method will probably be cheapest for all councils to operate for a variety of reasons.  The method will probably have a high level of recycling too.

But the NHS seems almost to be designed to be discontinuous.

My previous and current surgeries are run on different lines, probably use different computer systems and have made my transfer a lot more difficult than it should be, as I can’t understand, why the same system is not used in both places. Would, BP, Shell or Esso, use different computer systems in all the garages they supply with fuel?  I don’t know, but I suspect they don’t!

Today, I miscalculated when I would run out of tablets.  I thought I had another weeks supply, which I do, except for the statins I take.  So I needed to get some more.

At my previous surgery, I just e-mailed them and they would be ready within 24 hours. But my new surgery doesn’t have a pharmacist and after visiting them this morning, they informed me, I wouldn’t get the prescription forms until tomorrow afternoon.  I had assumed as it was a repeat prescriptiuon, I could just pick one up and get it dispensed.  I thought that I might be able to get some in emergency at a pharmacist, but this would need a visit to a doctor at an NHS walk-in centre.  Would we accept such a system for buying groceries at Tesco’s.

We need two things.

1. Every surgery should use similar systems and methods.  They should also make it clear to new patients, how you get repeat prescriptions.
2. All repeat prescriptions, should be on a central NHS database, so that you can walk into any pharmacy and get the drugs you need. But would that be giving too much power to the patient and pharmacists? What would happen say if I was on holiday in Cromer and I lost my backpack with all my drugs in it?  I suspect, it would probably take a whole day to sort it out!

The NHS might save billions by doing what any sensible organisation would do and many government agencies already do. Service would improve to the more modern standards that people expect and receive from many companies they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

January 17, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Health, World | Banks, Energy, Natural Gas, NHS