So the previous post is a part of a piece of fiction that I occasionally type stuff into. It’s about a world where a new and contagious form of dementia ‘CLBD-7’ has changed the world in unusual ways. It’s a first person piece (mostly) written by a journalist writing a retrospective since it was discovered.

If you click on the ‘fiction’ category you can scroll back and see how it started.

This is a first draft, which is what they will all be, and I’m not entirely sure why I’m posting it up, it really should go through at least one editing process, but I think it’ll force me to write more of it and maybe even get it finished.

It’s meant, in part, to be a metaphor for how the NHS is collapsing, and while I started writing it in 2009, I really need to get it out before the NHS actually collapses in a pile of flaming Brexit disaster underfunding.

Anyway – no-one really reads blogs anymore, so who is going to notice.

In my time as a journalist I’ve been to countless Start-ups all across Europe and the US and, no matter how ‘fresh’ or ‘disruptive’ or ‘innovative’ they are, they all have one thing in common. They all look like a toddler’s day centre.

Anton, the CTO leads me through the white walled offices to a meeting room and my heart sinks when I see that the seating is beanbags. I fucking hate beanbags ever since I threw a vertebral disc covering the riots of ’20 and if I sit in one I’m going to need a forklift to get me back out. I think I’m going to have to rely on Judith for assistance later. If I can get her to stop staring at the back of Anton’s head like she thinks it’ll explode.

Anton fiddles with his watch and a projector screen descends from the ceiling in front of me and the usual corporate branded background fills the screen. In a stunning lack or originality it’s a navy blue with a single white wavy line going from left to right. In the lower right corner it announces that ‘Keywave Diagnostics works closely with the...

Continues, Read More...

The Independant have an interesting story where, due to the shortage of ambulances the plan is to send community nurses first for patients over the age of 65 who have had a fall.

This is a bad idea.

But first, as a quick update on my career, I went from nursing into the ambulance service, and then returned to nursing. At the moment community nursing. So I’ve done both of the roles that the article is talking about.

The ambulance role is very much different from community nursing. When a community nurse sees a patient, it is not in an emergency situation. If you have a leg ulcer, or cancer, or a surgical wound that’s not healing as it should, then the community nurse is ideally placed to see to your needs. However if you have fallen and either can’t get up by yourself, or have broken your hip, then what you need is an ambulance.
This isn’t to say that comunity nurses don’t already keep people from going into hospital. Community Treatment Teams (CTTs as they are known in my patch, your acronym may vary) work hard to stop people with...

Continues, Read More...

I took a look at my blog the other day. ‘Last post Jan 18 2016’, so nearly a year spent noodling around on Twitter rather than actually writing anything. I’d started a new job and that needed a fair bit of my attention, then there were games to play and food to eat and things to build. Then before you know it you’ve stopped writing and replaced it with reusing other people’s writing by ‘retweeting’ it.

Urgh.

No one reads blogs anymore, or so goes the common consensus, but when I use twitter I’m often redirected to a website, a blog or a whatever you call a Tumblr thing.

I also wasn’t angry. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. I first started writing because I was angry about things and writing about it got it off my chest. I’m still angry but I came to realise that not many people cared about the things I cared about, and so my writing didn’t exactly save the NHS, fix the planet or stop tech people from doing really dumb things.

But, maybe I do have it in me to write again. There are more and more stupid things happening, and while...

Continues, Read More...

In my last post I was asked in a comment why I don’t fear death, what brought me to that attitude towards it.

I would guess that due to the amount of death, ‘near death’, and ‘about to die’ that I have seen due to my work it has driven me to think about it a bit more than a ‘normal’ person would.

The two things that influence my thoughts about death would be my atheism, and my grasp, tenuous as it may be at some times, of logic.

Firstly, my atheism, means that I have no fear of a Heaven, or Hell, no Limbo (and sadly no Valhalla). So I don’t think that there is anything after death. You die, and you stop. Stop thinking, stop feeling, stop worrying about work, or family, or why the cat keeps scratching your sofa.

And if I stop thinking, then there is no consciousness, and therefore no experiencing of anything, including time.

So when I am dead, that’s it – I won’t feel anything because I won’t exist anymore. When I sleep I have no experience of time, no feelings of pain, no nothing. I don’t worry about if I am going to wake up because my conscious...

Continues, Read More...

I’m not massively scared of anything. In part because I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff, in part because once you are not scared of dying a lot of fear goes away.

So when my brain wants to try and scare me with a nightmare it has to get a bit ‘creative’.

So it tries to frustrate me – Last night I dreamt that there was an older Star Wars ‘sequel’, it made no plot sense, the lightsabers were plastic toys doused in lighter fuel, and David Cameron had a guest role.
Bad enough, but my dream went further, the creators of the film had managed to hijack IMDB, so when I looked up the film (in order to avoid any other films the director had made) it loaded malware onto my computer.
And then every time I tried to delete it, it would reinstall.

Nightmare.

Normally I don’t care for New Year resolutions, in my view one day is much like another. This is something that is also reinforced by shift work – I barely had any idea what day it was, let alone the date. Heck sometimes I didn’t know my own name.
So, one day is very much the same as another one, so why wait for a special date to make a change in your life.
However, this year feels different, in part I think it’s because I’m not in work (I am technically,but it’s… ‘complicated’), so it seems to make sense to mark a certain date, especially with things that have been whirling around my head for quite some time.

Also, if I write them down I’m sort of honour bound to follow them. I may well explain some of them in more detail at a later date.

1) Blog more – As in blog at all. I used to love blogging, then I sort of fell out of the habit of it. Partly because of the reason for resolution 2. Planning on writing something a few times a week, luckily hardly anyone will see it as my days of being a world famous sexy internet ambulance god are far...

Continues, Read More...

Taps mike
Is this thing on?

As some of you may know, as well as being ambulance staff, I'm also a registered nurse. For that privilege I pay the NMC a sum of money every year to be on the professional register. If I am not on that register then I cannot practice as a nurse.

Should I ever have to leave the ambulance service nursing would allow me to pay the rent.

The NMC have the power to strike me off the register, meaning that I would no longer be able to work as a nurse.

Which is why this blog should come to an end.

No longer can I be safe to tell you all about the terrible conditions in some of the nursing homes that I go to. I can't tell you about the problems that occur in A&E and I can't shout about the atrocious state of home/social care.

It's just not safe because to whistleblow like this can result in you being struck off the register.

What this decision means is that all bloggers that have a professional registration are now skating on thin ice. Nurse bloggers, Doctor bloggers, Paramedic bloggers – all these are on a professional register and all end up writing...

Continues, Read More...

What a Difference a day makes.

On the anniversary of the 7/7 bombings,

In the Commons, MPs paid tribute to the actions of NHS workers and members of the emergency services in the wake of the bombings.
Speaking during health questions in the chamber, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham described the actions of NHS staff on the day as “heroic”.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt praised the “extraordinary bravery” of the emergency services.

And then one day later

Public sector workers, including civil servants, teachers, nurses, police officers and members of the armed forces, face another four-year pay freeze as a result of today’s budget.