2024 UK politics - now with Labour in charge
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It was the Consultant’s Secretary she got referred to when she chased it up and who told her she’d been removed from the list.
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Cheers.
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Thanks, she worked the last 15 years or so of her life as a nursing assistant with the NHS so doesn’t like pushing things but think she plans to on this occasion. She should really have sued them for the one hip she had replaced as they used some new system that left her with some mercury (I think) leaking into her blood and the joint having to be replaced again but didn’t as it would be taking money out of the NHS.
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In that case I'd kick up a bit of a stink with them first, but starting gently, leaving the door open for an about-turn before ramping up the ante. I suspect you've got dates etc., and can testify that your mother simply would not overlook an important communication like that, let alone two. Even better if you can get also the GP saying how on-the-ball she is, if the GP knows your mother well enough... I'm sure that they'll be miffed too.
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Has she checked where they were sending the letters. I had this when I was referred for an X-ray on my hip. Turned out they were sending the appointment letters to an a address where we hadn’t lived for 6 years. I had previously been told that with the NHS spine computer system it was impossible for letters to be sent to wrong address.
I was told I would have to be re referred, so I suggested they may have committed a data protection breach by sending my personal details to wrong address. I got an appointment the next week.
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We had exactly this recently. My Mum was taken off a waiting list for (allegedley) not responding to letters. The waiting list was for a memory clinic to ascertain the level of dementia that we suspected and wanted diagnosing. My sister and I had authority to be contacted by her surgery, but, no deal.
Hope you get your situation sorted.
2020/2021/2022 Metric Century Challenge Winner0 -
There's a PhD in researching how many cases of dementia are missed due to stupidity like this or written off as 'just getting a bit forgetful in old age'. It took a couple of years to get my father in law diagnosed.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
Regarding dementia, I am not sure it makes a fat lot of difference being diagnosed. I am personally likely to get it because my father has it, and I already know the best I can do is not smoke, reduce stress (failing at that), and not be single like he is. There aren't any actual treatments. (The recent "game changers" you read about in the press just aren't, they are modest benefits for some and pointless towards what might be a fruitful research direction that will benefit generations I'm not in).
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Would disagree. Would have helped him get more care sooner, which would have made his life more comfortable.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Perhaps. I don't want to offend. For my Dad he's paying for his own anyway, so his diagnosis is largely irrelevant. It does allow us to use power of attorney, but that's about all. It has no bearing on his actual condition.
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Will have to try harder than that.🙂
Too much detail for here, but it was obvious to us long before it was finally diagnosed. That then allowed care to be initiated.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
As previous, it was the care that we wanted and more importantly the leverage to get her and my father rehoused as they were living in a inappropriate house (same rented place for 50+ years). We were very concerned that an incident on the stairs would be a disaster. We eventually got her a CT scan to confirm no tumours etc, and she was then (re)placed on the waiting list for diagnosis.
I'm not posting this for effect, it is what it is, but she died a month ago following a fatal fall on the stairs in the night.
2020/2021/2022 Metric Century Challenge Winner0 -
Sorry to hear that.
My dad knew he had problems 15 years ago, but kept walking out of appointments to avoid diagnosis, so he could keep driving. Yes, I know.
I guess something on paper may have helped persuade him to sort out his affairs. But he is such a stubborn person I don't think it would.
For this reason I also don't think his quality of life would have been affected, because even under a PoA respecting the person's wishes is primary and we could still only take steps once it was clearly needed and his welfare took precedence. This was quite a while after he was assessed as lacking capacity.
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for certain types of dementia you can basically make a 90% recovery and massively slow down the rate of mental degeneration - speaking from close experience here.
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Rick, there's no treatment that can cause recovery from dementia. There are some drugs that can help the symptoms in the short term and decline can be slowed slightly.
Vascular dementia, I believe, can be slowed significantly. I do not know about recovery as such. Imagine possible that brain can readapt to cellular loss, as is the case with stroke.
But whatever the 90% is referring to, it can only be either incorrect or a measure of a transient change.
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Ok I’ve had 4 close family members die from dementia, each one a different type and speed so I have some up close experience with this.
my grandmother went from literally shitting in the middle of the floor, not knowing where she was and not being able to speak properly to basically being normal with just some obvious memory problems after medication - which took about 2 months to get right, the stress of which basically killed off her husband and my grandfather.
Had we sorted that out sooner and not let it get to that crisis she would not have been a gibbering mess during the funeral of her husband who’d she been married to for 55 years, and we wouldn’t have sold her home during that 2 month period and she would have been kept out of a home for longer with better support and quality of life.
So my advice is the same as the doctors, get it dealt with early.
I can promise you, having dealt with 3 of them now, you do not want to wait for the crisis moment to do something about it. They are deeply traumatic for everyone involved. And they will happen, even if you think they won’t. And they really are awful.
Dont stick your head in the sand and think oh well, can’t be helped. That crisis moment is what you’re looking to stave off with the medication and that is worth all the effort
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Not sure what you are describing Rick, I suspect you will be talking about metamine or some other drug that attempts to block glutamate production or reduce it's concentration in the blood. Or one of those targeting the beta amyloids.
Am at an age where a lot of people I work with are watching their parents die, mostly with dementia. I'm watching my aunt go, my dad go, seen another aunt go.
People have good days and bad days. But the advice one gets about these treatment sis that it can help a bit, for some people. I also understand them to be more effective for arresting early stage dementia. But these are relatively small effects. The best cases for even the new hyper expensive ones are 40% reduction in rate of decline over 5 years for some people at early stage.
I am therefore pushing back against what might be seen as a description of something close to false hope.
I accept that the trajectory to where my dad is now may have been kinder, and that it may have taken a little longer. The latter is splitting hairs because I don't think starting to forget who his family is at 85 or 86 makes a lot of difference really, and the former would have required him to be more consciously facing his inevitable fate for longer.
For that reason I'm fairly confident that the reason he was so avoidant is because that was the best way, for him, to cope with what is probably eventually going to kill him.
If it's me, I'm off to Switzerland.
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Looks like a different approach to migration.
Some way short of the 45,000 they removed when they were last in power, but a step up from handing cash to African countries.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
On the debit front, making positive noises about the TPTCCCTTPP thing to the detriment of EU opportunities. Disappointing.
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Making trade in goods easier. I assume the figures for the TPCPCCPCPC thing are still in the same range of 0.1% of GDP over five years, or whatever it was.
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...
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That's not even treading water in the scheme of things. Given that there are recent polls saying that immigration is currently the most important issue formthe General public, the chickens will come home to roost before too long if Labour don't do something something about it.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
EU is rules based. Unless you start signing up to the various things that were considered a red lines it’s not going to change.
Good vibes won’t change much.
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Sure, but the TCP thing appears to be closing off avenues to explore... I get that that's probably why the Tories did it - a deliberate snub despite the paltry alternative offering - but I can't see why Labour is making this statement at this stage, while they are seemingly trying to undo the damage caused by the deliberate Tory friction.
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It wasn't a comment on overall immigration levels. That's down to visa allocation.
Aside from people refused access at ports and airports, who are sent straight back, deportations cover Foreign National Offenders and unsuccessful asylum applicants. In the whole of 2023 3,577 FNO and 5,284 unsuccessful asylum applicants were deported is treading water. 14,000 in 5 months equates to around 33,000 a year, which is a significant improvement on <9,000. Obviously it's not got a blue sticker on, so you are duty bound to slag it off anyway.
As for polling, we had the one that matters in July.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Doubt Labour will be any more successful at deporting people.
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The bar is currently exceptionally. Labour managed 45,000 when they were last in government. The coalition did well as well.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I'm still entertaining the thought that Tories wanted the system to break so they could blame furriners for all our ills and divert our gaze from all their other mismanagement. It's worth comparing this with other situations (e.g. NHS, trains) that would have been cheaper to solve without breaking the systems, but might not have been, as a way (again) of demonising the groups they don't like (or want to use for political ammunition).
Given that, improving on that shambles might not be quite as challenging as was being made out, even if it's not going to be solved in the first three months of the new government, as I'm sure Tories will claim it should be.
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Clearly the legal migration which makes up the larger numbers of total migration also needs managing. I'm sure we can all find stats to suit our argument, but if the current level of net migration continues then even Labour's house building plans (which you said were ambitious) will not be able to keep pace. As I've said before, supply is only one part of the solution - we need to reduce demand as well.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0
