Entered on 24 April 2003 at 9:20 a.m..
Per-minute Charging for Local calls and the Pony Express
How in the world are these two things realated you may well ask. The answer isn't obvious, but it is clearly demonstrated by the National Health Service here every day. I'll use my experience to explain. But first it is necessary to explain that in the UK all calls are charged on a per-minute basis in addition to your line-rental fee. So even calling down the street will cost you more.
Tuesday morning I had a follow up visit to the local hospital for them to poke around at my knee, and to hand the crutches back in. Once they were satisified they referred me to a regular physical therapist. This official refurral was scrawled on a photocopied piece of paper. I was instructed to take it around to the physical therapy department, to hand it in and make an appointment for either Wednesday or Thursday. However upong reaching the receptionist, I was told that since I was registered with the Kingfisher Clinic, that I would have to use their physical therapy department. Great, just great. Where was that? The lady explained that it was in Newport Pagnell, and that she would just send the referral form to them in the internal mail. Now I ignored the flashing sirens in my head screaming "DONT LET THAT PAPER OUT OF YOUR SIGHT" and instead said OK. This was at 11:30 on Tuesday morning. At
1:15 I call Kingfisher Clinic to make sure the form arrived. Well it hadn't and Tracy can only do what is normally done. So since she hadn't received any paper saying I was hurt, I obviously wasn't hurt. Sigh, typical. The amusing thing is that Kingfisher Clinic is just a doctor's office. The Newport Pagnel Medical Center is where all the specialists work out of, and many doctors use them for their patients. Tracy was incapable of explaining this to me. So when she told me she didn't have my letter at "Kingfisher", she told me it must be at either Cranfield or at the Newport Pagnel Medical Center, which she referred to as "Newport Pagnel".
So we went round and round with this, I checked with Cranfield, and she was suppposed to check with "Newport Pagnel" Nada, zip. So eventually I called the hospital to ask what had happened to the referal form. Only to discover that it had been sent to the Kinfisher Clinic in Newport Pagnel, but that it hadn't left until that morning, and wouldn't be there until that evening. (We are talking less than 10 miles folks)
Tracy then much relieved that things could be conducted "the normal" way, told me that once the form got to the doctor, he'd look at it and fill out a card for me. He'd then send it (using the internal post) to the Neport Pagnel Medical Center (less than a mile away). So the NPMC should have the card authorizing them to see me soon by Friday sometime. Then I can call back and make an apointment sooner than the 8th of May.
Now back to the per-minute-charging and the pony express. I have now dubbed the NHS' internal post as the pony express because of how slow they move and how often they run. I also firmly believe that if local calls were essentially free then the NHS could advance to 1980s technology and start faxing some of these things.
That is my rant for the day