Follow-up stroke care 'lacking'

The follow-up care given to stroke patients in England once they leave hospital is often lacking and needs immediate improvement, regulators say. This in a BBC article this week.

View Original Article

Interesting news this: it seems though to have taken those who make the decisions about these things years to come to the same conclusion that we, as those who live with the effects of stroke every day, both sufferers and carers, already knew. Targeted rehabilitation surely cannot be that difficult to manage: each person has different needs, because no two strokes are the same. However there are marked similarities in most stroke effects that simply need a pro active approach from the health professionals to enable best use of resources and to achieve the best results for the individual.

Manage the stroke effects by simply creating an individual plan for each patient and ensure that the required treatment/rehabilitation is delivered within a sensible timeframe. Work with the patient to understand what they would like to achieve; don't leave them out of the loop. If the patient has an input they also have more reason to co operate with the care and treatment because they have been involved in the choices. Just because you are trained doesnt mean you always know best! Include the carers and family in those choices too because they too are affected on many levels by the effects of stroke.

2011..

I looked at the site here and realised that it is a place I should come to more often. I am always bemoaning things that happen and I never record them, so I think perhaps I should start doing that here.

New Years seem to come round far too fast these days: that of course is a function of getting older. So, as i move into middle age i will continue to write, and share my thoughts on these pages.

Of late there has been one great moment for me: England retianed the Ashes in Australia, and went on to win the series 3-1. This hasn't happened for some 24 years so it's a triumph for the guys who are fast becoming the best in the world, and have most assuredly knocked the Australians off that posuition. For those who are not cricket fans it will mean nothing, but for those who follow the game there is more meaning to the Ashes than to any other sporting trophy in cricket: ask any player who has played for England or Australia, they will always say "The Ashes" are the pinnacle of their cricket career.

I still travel to London daily for work, and yet again the fares have increased: South Eastern , our franchisee here in Kent has been allowed to increase their fares more than any other train operator because they run the HS1 High Speed service. That's all very well, but while there are definite benefits, for me there are none. I have a colleague at work who lives in Ashford, and can now travel in on the train in under 40 minutes! Now that is great. My journey, which is slightly longer still takes nearly 2 hours, and there is no High Speed service from my station. Even if I go to where i can get an HS1 train the journey is some 1 hour and 20 minutes; hardly worth the extra few hundred pounds they charge.

Recently we had some snow: not much but any excuse and the train companies had 2 days when virtually no services ran into London. One of the most annoying things is the lack of communication. In this age of internet, and smartphones and computers, surely a massive organisation like South Eastern could find a way to tell the poor commuters waiting on freezing platforms that the train they were expecting has already been cancelled !

Charlie..

Charlie is our dog; a fantastic rescue dog we have had nearly 3 years now. He is a boxer, and is the best of all the dogs I have ever owned. He has the best temperament, and the most brilliant personality. He truly is one of the family and we count ourselves very lucky to have got him.

Now, today was stressy! Charlie had this funny growth from his gum over his canine teeth; just skin but the vet suggested it needed removing. In fact he had two, one on each side of his mouth. So, early this morning we took him to the surgery and left him for the operation. i have to say we both worried all day till they told us he was OK and we could come and get him. 

So we went to collect him and bring him home: and while they said he had come round ok, he was still very wobbly, and couldn't stand properly and his tongue was all hanging out of the side of his mouth. Poor thing, he flopped onto the sofa and stayed there most of the evening, and has now gone up to his bed, which is by our bed and seems to have settled in there quite well. He couldn't walk up the stairs so i had to help him but with any luck he will be better tomorrow and back to his usual bouncy self.

Stand Behind the Yellow Line!!

I travel to work most days on public transport. that involves trains and the underground in London. Frankly its a bummer of a journey which because it is some 80 miles each way and takes over 2 hours both adds a lot to my working day and is fraught with opportunities for the train companies to screw you over at any one of dozens of places on route 

Now, on the tubes in London, the platforms are often crowded and to minimise the possibility of falling onto electric lines they paint a yellow line about 18 inches from the edge of the platform and continuously via the public address systems extoll the virtues of "standing behind the line"

"...For your own safety please keep well behind the yellow line, the train is approaching. Keep behind the yellow line for your own safety..."  and so on, ad nauseum. 

Now, certainly at night , and even in the day times, the underground system in London is not always a safe place to be: there are pickpockets, and muggers and all sorts there. So, I was dutifully standing behind the yellow line the other day when it struck me: just WHAT does "stand behind the line" mean? Now, i can be safe from electrocution by standing on the platform side of the line, but, I may get mugged or pickpocketed. So, what if i stand the other side? I am still technically "behind" the line just from a different perspective. So, If i stand teetering on the edge of the platform "behind the yellow line" would I be safe from pickpockets and muggers because they wont cross the line? 

Question is, I think i may opt to stay trackside, because i reckon a damn more people get mugged and robbed in london each day than get killed falling on tube train lines. 

 

Time marches on!!

God how time flies.
There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day or days in the week right now. Earlier in the year i though i would start blogging again, and all of a sudden three months are gone and i still haven't. So, concerted effort from now on, at least two posts a week.

No particular subject, but whatever takes my fancy. Gives me plenty of scope.

It doesnt seem like nearly a year since I failed my ADI part 3 exam and had to stop teaching people to drive. I was lucky though, in that i found a good company to work for back in the taxi business, and even though i travel to London again, and the commute takes two hours each way on top of my day, its a reasonable job and they seem to like me. It will be a year with them on 15th September.

I still have this thing in my head about teaching, and have recently done my CRB disclosure (seems anyone who works in any kind of public post these days needs a crimninal records bureau check). I have 6 months from the date of the check to restart the ADI process to becoming a qualified instructor again; yes, the stupid thing is that you have to do the whole lot again!

So I will do it and I hope to try and build it around my work as a part time thing to start, which might give a supplementary income.

There is lots to do before that comes to fruition but hopefully, by the end of the year... who knows.

what if I really needed the police...?

At work today we had an incident which meant i had to send one of our drivers to a police station. I won't bore you with all the details that led up to that, but it ended up with a baby of under two years old, left in one of our cars by a passenger while he was out of the car doing something (probably) dubious.

The driver called me and explained this kid had been in the car for some 40 minutes, and he was unable to contact the parent/passenger. I tried the phone but came up blank. Another 10 minutes and i instructed the driver to drive to the nearest police station, explaining i would call the police so they were expecting him when he arrived.

I googled the police in Southwark, and got a number, thinking i would be able to talk with the police station. Surprise surprise! Call centre in East London! Explained to the operator what I needed, and why and she offered to put me through to the station concerned; then discovered she actually didnt know how to put a call through. I have to ask myself why on earth someone is operating a switchboard at all if they don't know how to transfer a call?

Anyway after several abortive attempts she offered me the direct line phone number, and i duly dialled the police station myself. No answer. The phone rang and rang, and eventually someone picked up and dropped receiver back in the cradle. This happened twice more, by which time the driver was at the station, and awaiting my confirmation that I had spoken with them.

I couldn't give that confirmation because the police didnt answer the phone!

Now, as it happens, we didnt need to escalate the situation: the passenger called the driver and that all got resolved.

But.. if i had had an urgent need to talk to the police at that station, then I may well have had a big problem. These are the people who are charged with upholding our laws, and they can't even answer the damn phone?

I ask you.....

A time to catch up...

So here we are, April 2009 and a decision to change some of the ways I use the net.

Hence this blog. I have blogged before but not for some time, and not for any great length of time. When i started blogging some years ago it was about very specific subjects but I want this to be all-encompassing, giving me the opportunity to say what i feel about anything and everything that catches my attention: whether it be my own life, something i see in the news, or anything else i feel moved to write about.

I have a lot of catching up to do in terms of where I am at present and i will do that in the next few weeks as i find suitable reasons to write; hopefully it wont all be too boring.

So, I will be jumping about from time to time with subjects that catch my attention; sometimes the posts will be longer, as some background explaining might be needed, other times there may just be a comment. i will add links in the posts if it makes sense.