Decent doctor surgeries.

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
I actually found it much easier just sitting in the car until beckoned rather than taking a "folding camping chair/umbrella/shooting stick" and setting them up in the surgery car park !
Well there you are then. Your problem is solved already. Why all the fuss? Oh yes, it's because your a massive wind up merchant, to put it very politely.

Back to the original topic of this thread, if I was choosing a surgery in that area of town I'd go for SHWC because I know a couple of the doctors there and know the standards they set for the practice.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Well there you are then. Your problem is solved already. Why all the fuss? Oh yes, it's because your a massive wind up merchant, to put it very politely.

Back to the original topic of this thread, if I was choosing a surgery in that area of town I'd go for SHWC because I know a couple of the doctors there and know the standards they set for the practice.
I'm not a "merchant" of any description.
"The fuss" was about NO SEATING and NO SHELTER for those - not myself because I can drive - who might need it.
And, yes, we should get back to the original topic of this thread,
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Me, a Stafford resident, using a "doctors in Eccleshall" is ever more ridiculous than your earlier suggestions.
When I registered with the Lloyd Street surgery in 1973 it didn't occur to me that many years later I might be slightly inconvenienced by it moving a mile further out of town.
I usually walk to and from Holmcroft Surgery. On 5th June I drove because of the weather but I couldn't help thinking of those less fortunate than myself who are unable to drive.
You mentioned the Eccleshall bus, so I assumed you were from Eccleshall as there are buses to holmcroft from town much more regularly and buses up the stone road about every 15 minutes.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
You mentioned the Eccleshall bus, so I assumed you were from Eccleshall as there are buses to holmcroft from town much more regularly and buses up the stone road about every 15 minutes.
I rarely use buses and wasn't aware that "there are buses to holmcroft from town" still.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
I don't use them either, but one frequently comes past the end of my street and I'm told it originates from the train station.
Okay, thanks.
It's over forty years since I've been on a bus in Stafford and I'm not sure if my bus pass from next April will tempt me onto them.
 

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
I don't use them either, but one frequently comes past the end of my street and I'm told it originates from the train station.

The number 8 runs up the Stone Road and starts from Gaol Square. It is every 15 minutes during the day and the last one is 18.38.

There's also the 101 that starts at the station and runs through town. They're about every 30 minutes during the day and the last one is 21.10 at the moment.

There's plenty of space on the buses at the moment so taking a folding camping chair, a garden umbrella, sandals, bbq and a patio heater shouldn't be a problem.

I think the Eccleshall bus is about every hour and run by D&G and you can catch it from Chell Road but best check to make sure.
 

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
Procedures will already be in place for sanitising chairs and everything else inside the building and such a safe system of working could easily cope with a couple of chairs being the other side of the front door. That it would "become a full time job for someone" is ridiculous.

If people aren't allowed to use the chairs in the surgery why would they need to sanitise them?

The staff in the surgery are there for medical roles not to go around sanitising furniture that isn't supposed to be in use?
 

littleme

250,000th poster!
I most certainly did NOT vote for it.
But it isn't just about money. It wouldn't have cost anything for one of the dozen or more people working there to put a couple of chairs outside at the start of the day and take them back in before locking up and for one of them to bring a parasol from their garden shed to work. I thought it's things like that that a Practice Manager is appointed for
Well you've changed the original message so I can't reply to that claptrap, but it was along the lines of people who don't drive having to wait outside, we'll heres the news, people who don't drive are already used to waiting around or trudging around in the rain, sleet, snow, wind or heat, take it from someone who did it for years before I learnt to drive. If you are too ill to attend a Dr's appointment under the current rules then you should possibly be at the hospital!

However, moving on, putting 2 chairs outside will encourage people to sit next to each other, the 2 meter rule is still in place after all, and who would be responsible for sanitising them in between patients? Not the normal staff, its not their job, they are already at heightened risk. Even in my place of work we now have a 'sanitiser', her only job being to keep everything that can be touched sanitised.

Are you living in the real world at all?
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
If people aren't allowed to use the chairs in the surgery why would they need to sanitise them?

The staff in the surgery are there for medical roles not to go around sanitising furniture that isn't supposed to be in use?
But at my appointment in April I was sat on a chair, the nurse taking a blood sample was sat on a chair and those weren't the only two chairs in use.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
The number 8 runs up the Stone Road and starts from Gaol Square. It is every 15 minutes during the day and the last one is 18.38.

There's also the 101 that starts at the station and runs through town. They're about every 30 minutes during the day and the last one is 21.10 at the moment.

There's plenty of space on the buses at the moment so taking a folding camping chair, a garden umbrella, sandals, bbq and a patio heater shouldn't be a problem.

I think the Eccleshall bus is about every hour and run by D&G and you can catch it from Chell Road but best check to make sure.
The deciding factor will be that D&G will be the cheapest option in this case, I'm sure.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Well you've changed the original message so I can't reply to that claptrap, but it was along the lines of people who don't drive having to wait outside, we'll heres the news, people who don't drive are already used to waiting around or trudging around in the rain, sleet, snow, wind or heat, take it from someone who did it for years before I learnt to drive. If you are too ill to attend a Dr's appointment under the current rules then you should possibly be at the hospital!

However, moving on, putting 2 chairs outside will encourage people to sit next to each other, the 2 meter rule is still in place after all, and who would be responsible for sanitising them in between patients? Not the normal staff, its not their job, they are already at heightened risk. Even in my place of work we now have a 'sanitiser', her only job being to keep everything that can be touched sanitised.

Are you living in the real world at all?
"Claptrap" or not, I haven't changed my original message, the one at 8.10pm yesterday, in which I stated "On turning up there's an instruction on the door to wait in your car or wait outside, and outside means with NO SEATING for those of us no longer much good on our feet and NO SHELTER such that in a howling gale we might catch our death of cold".
Yes, "people who don't drive are already used to waiting around or trudging around in the rain, sleet, snow, wind or heat" but anyone providing a service, whether doctor's surgery, bus company or public house, has a duty to properly look after their patients, passengers or customers.
Many people are well enough to attend a doctor's appointment but not well enough to wait standing outside braving the elements.
The hospital would actually have been more convenient for me.
Two chairs outside the surgery's front door would be properly distanced if one was either side of it.
With reading some of the comments on here I am indeed doubting if I'm living in the real world.
Now can we please get back to comparing and recommending various surgeries ?
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I have today successfully reestablished the hearing in my left ear - after a fortnight.

When I first arrived in Stafford, in the mid-70s, I registered at Weeping Cross, when it was still in the garden on Stockton Lane.

Eventually, they opened the Beaconside surgery and noticed my more northerly location, moving me there - this suited me at the time, as Weeping Cross had become rather less patient-friendly, I felt.

For the first few years, Beaconside was great - very efficient - but then it seemed to get less so on each of my rare visits.

I only attend about every five years and 80% of those are for this ear situation. It has been taking longer and longer to get the necessary prescription each time, and has been close to an A&E situation a couple of times.

When I investigated Beaconside's current appointments situation, I was initially very happy to see that they now like to resolve as many treatments as possible via a telephone consultation. This sounded great, it's all I've ever really needed, but the inevitable wait to go through the following face-to-face conversation has been getting longer and longer each time.

My ear's infected and blocked.
Is it the same as last time?
Yes.
Did the treatment last time work OK?
Yes.
Shall we do that again?
Yes.
Tap, tap, tap - click.

Unfortunately, my happiness was short-lived. As, in order to get as far as a telephone consultation, you have to be lucky enough to win the daily phone lottery. If you fail to win, you get another chance the next day - ad infinitum...

I assume they rely on you adopting a Plan B scenario, and eventually dumping the situation on some innocent person in A&E.

However, as this has been brewing for years, I have a Plan C. Some time ago, I obtained a stash of the necessary medication, prescription only in the UK, from another jurisdiction, where it is not subject to the closed-shop arrangements we have here. Infection quashed quickly and I've successfully removed most of the accumulated debris over the last few days.

I found a few "reviews" online and I am not alone, it seems.

I don't really have a GP.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Oh dear, this COVID-19 business must be such a dreadful inconvenience for you. There, there.

The problem is, that if the surgery puts out a couple of chairs for your convenience then the chairs have to be sanitised after each person has sat on them in order to help prevent the spread of this virus. That requires someone to do that and because many and varied people will sit in the chairs throughout the day for varying amounts of time, a close eye will have to be kept and it will basically become a full time job for someone paid to do something else.

I do however have a couple of serious solutions for you to this problem.

1. Volunteer to be the chair cleaner for the surgery, therebye making the whole thing financially viable.

2. More realistically, take your own folding camping chair and umbrella giving you the convenience you want or need.

Simples.
Proactive,
The point I was making was echoed in a letter published in this week's Stafford Newsletter.
Barbara Cashmore of great Bridgeford writes "if you arrive by taxi or are are within walking distance and you have no car to sit in there is no provision of an awning should it rain and no chairs to sit on for the very elderly, disabled or mothers with babies"
 

rudie111

Well-Known Forumite
Proactive,
The point I was making was echoed in a letter published in this week's Stafford Newsletter.
Barbara Cashmore of great Bridgeford writes "if you arrive by taxi or are are within walking distance and you have no car to sit in there is no provision of an awning should it rain and no chairs to sit on for the very elderly, disabled or mothers with babies"

There is no such thing as bad weather....
 
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