As a matter of interest, when did the school day length change? When I was at school we had 7 lessons/day from 09:25 to 16:10, but they all seem to be out and roaming the streets by 15:30 these days.

That seems to be the way of it in terms of trying to make an appointment by phone, though recently part of the frustration was reduced when a count down info system was installed that informed where in the queue you were while holding on for someone to reply.
On a recent and rare visit to see the nurse, she emailed the doctor who was a few doors down the corridor, and who then decided to came along to look at me... So it seems the nurse may be operating as a filter system..?

I have been most fortunate in terms of health and would rarely if ever visit the doctors... So much so it was not until I was retiring that I was in need of attention and the Doc commented on my little use of the service, and had to create a new file for me.

Is there any real wonder that the load on the health service was increasing exponentially given the Baby Boomer generation are reaching the stage of ever more complex health issues... add Covid related complexities to exasserbate staffing issues and Doctors retiring early etc.etc.etc. Add to all that our previousley ever increasing expectations while eating ever more junk foods over the years, and it seems to have created a potential for a perfect storm...?

There are a few laws regarding school contact time, and the DfE has now said that schools should provide 32.5 hours of teaching a week by Sep 23.

Within that, schools are allowed to set their own start and finish times. We have three 2000+ secondary schools in a small area, so try and stagger start and finish times to prevent carnage every evening.

Our first bell is at 8.40 in the morning, and we currently finish at 2.45 Mon/Fri and 3.35 Tue/Wed/Thu. Mon/Fri kids get a 15m break mid morning and a 45min lunch. OnTue/Wed/Thu they get two 15mins breaks and a 40min lunch.

How many of appointments at the GP practice are no shows, I would think quite a lot? At my mothers NHS GP practice they had a board that said this week 42% of appointments were no shows, there in lies a considerable part of the problem. Over here you have to pay a CoPay of $15-$20 to see your Doctor which means you only go to see the Doctor when really necessary, to see a Specialist you pay $20-25 and you keep your appointment. For a lot of minor ailments you go to the Pharmacist or an Urgent Care Center. Now we are over 65 yrs old and on Medicare we don't pay to see our Doctor but do pay the CoPay to see a specialist.

Whilst over in the UK last month visiting in Cornwall my wife took a fall and broke her femur at the hip socket and was admitted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital so we experienced the NHS firsthand in it's current state. The ambulance would have taken 3 hrs minimum to get to her lying on the side of a road, with help from some very good locals we managed to get her into a ladies car who drove us the 40 minutes to the hospital, where a Paramedic team transferred her to a wheelchair. I then had to push her into the A&E, in great pain she waited 1.5 hours to be seen with no pain relief given, once seen by the Nurse she was immediately taken away. Long story short she had dynamic hip screw surgery two days later and spent a week in the trauma ward (not a pleasant experience) before being transferred to rehabilitation hospital before being declared Fit to Fly back to America. Thank goodness for Travel Insurance who were brilliant in monitoring her medical treatment, arranging the rehabilitation and paying for everything. The hospital bill was just over GBP9,000 which is charged as a NHS package. The NHS Staff were brilliant, way over worked and functioning in a system that was clearly failing them.

Part of the organisational difficulty of the NHS is that it is broken down into area Trusts all with their own financial budgets etc. So performance can vary from Trust to Trust.

Secondly some Trusts specialise more in certain areas and create more capacity to deal with the local demographics eg I live in a big retirement area so geriatric services are pretty comprehensive whilst paediatrics are less well resourced. My mother lives in the Midlands and her local Trust are more focussed the other way round on Children's services and the Geriatrics are the poor relation. So I get a much better and more compressive Geriatric services and more resources leading to shorter lead times and more specialists in the field, than my mother has access to.

Our GP surgery lists the number of "no show" appointments per week. I asked why they didn't list names: that, it seems, would be an invasion of some right to privacy.
I was told that a substantial percentage of the "no shows" are serial offenders. I asked if they could be "delisted" by the practise, again not possible.
I suggested that they be charged a "no show" fee and was told that most are on benefits and wouldn't pay and anyway even if they had to co-pay those on benefits would be exempt.

Bring back the Workhouse, I say.

That should have been "repatriation" not rehabilitation my wife would be livid if she knew I had declared her an addict

Our dentist (does NHS and private) charges for a no-show, and strikes repeat offenders off the list, It has over 3000 people on it's waiting list and if someone reaches the top & does not turn up for the assessment appointment they are deleted & not allowed to re-join the list, I've been with 'em for over sixty years, and have never missed an appointment and I support their T&C's

Over sixty years with the same practice for me too, and it's the same story. They seem happy to retain me as NHS but one missed appointment and you're either private from then on or find somewhere else.

I've had four different dentists in that time so in my lifetime I've had half as many monarchs as dentists but 4 times as many Prime Ministers; although that second ratio has been getting steadily larger. I wondered if I was the practice's longest-standing patient, but then I remembered my 90-year-old mother is still with them too.

Spectacular thread drift this.

I've had the same dentist and the same hairdresser since 1985 when we moved back to England.