Gale's NHS

It seems that Roger Gale is getting rather worried about abuse of the health-service. In this week's "in my view "(available in the Thanet extra and Thanet life), he has apparently met with a registrar from A&E at one of the counties hospitals and expresses their concerns.

80 per cent of patients should not be in A&E, this may be a fair point but has Roger Gale or the registrar ever tried to make an appointment with their doctor. The surgery that I attend infrequently, the criteria and availability of a doctor's appointment is never the same. So is it any wonder that people stagger up to the A&E

What I'm trying say is that access, to medical services is very inconsistent, subject to fashion and administrative competence . I think belatedly that people in the health professions have started to realise they are in a business which deals with people, and the vast majority no longer see why when we pay such a high price for these services we should be treated in a cavalier and offhand manner.

Mr Gale mentions, setting aside the after-school " morning after pill ", here I really take issue with Mr Gale and his acquaintance the registrar, for the five minutes inconvenience of assisting a teenager with contraception and preventing two lives being ruined I say tough, get on with it.

Then we come to the four hour breach, under government targets patients' are required to be seen within four hours if not this has to be reported. Mr Gale is not the only person to have contact with health service professionals, I once met a receptionist who told me that if a patient was particularly obnoxious and overbearing (sounds like me really) then they would do what they could to delay that person. I realise the A&E units are not some manufacturing unit but surely it is no hardship to deal with patients' within four hours, I would imagine that the main problem in dealing with patients is often health care professionals reluctance to deal with someone they feel should be at the GPs surgery.

In conclusion patients or even customers of the health service are not experts in provision of healthcare, they are just the ones who see substantial sums coming out of their wages in taxation, much of which is swallowed up in the health service.

In the same way that many patients should not turn up to the A&E, perhaps Mr Gale could address the most likely 80 per cent of managers, clerical find staff, directors etc who are pretty much superfluous to the running of the health service.