EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

milann

As Beanie says I think the NHS is great in an emergency but the general care has suffered and not just since the arrival of covid…..it was struggling beforehand. I can’t complain though as I’ve had more than my monies worth from them….and would have been totally in the poop without. It’s the basics…..that can be sadly lacking. There was an old lady in when I was in and her hearing aid batteries had gone….there were no visitors allowed at the time…..they’d told her all day they’d find her some - nothing. The following day the staff were saying the same things - I ended up loosing my temper on her behalf. It was a hospital with an audiology department…..how hard could it be to get a Porter or send a junior staff member down to pick some up for her. Nobody seems to have thought of doing this until I suggested it for her. I’d offered her some of mine but they were a different size. Plus she couldn’t feed herself and meals were left untouched…It’s quite an eye opener being a patient sometimes….for the good things and the things needing improvement. It’s good your dad was more alert…..a sad time for you.

EssexHebridean

Thanks all - we're still waiting to see whether the email gains a response but the feedback from a nurse on the ward to Mum yesterday was that they "aren't worried that he's not eating" - to which I think Mum's reaction was pretty much "well you bl00dy well should be!" Very unimpressed. Mum's suspicion is that they've now come round to the fact that he's nearing end of life so feel that their attention is better turned to other patients who might actually make a recovery - it's felt for a while now as though they're seeing his failure to "get better" in any significant way as a failure on their part. My view is that if you are in a healthcare role your own ego needs to be left at the door...

I'll do a second post with the MSE related round-up for the day.

EssexHebridean

Had a little flurry of Prolific stuff the last couple of days so have just cashed out there again - another £11.78 gone to the gym neutral fund and signature on here updated to reflect that. 
Also on the survey front, I've done a handful of OnePoll surveys this morning, and a couple of YouGov ones too adding another 100 points to the total there - I reckon just cracking on with that now in a bid to get to the cashout level is the way to go - but realistically the only thing that would encourage me to stick with them past this next payout will be if they reduce the thresholds for claiming. 
I need to check ipsos in a bit and see what might be there for me too - I do still find the screen-outs a bit annoying but it does mount up relatively fast at least, and it's a decent way of keeping my iTunes topped up,. If I can amass enough credit there that it will pay my Flickr & Strava subscriptions outright when they come up for renewal I'll be pleased with that, too. 

My website needed renewal at the weekend - currently it's still pretty much the same price through 123-reg it's always been but I found myself wondering how much longer it will stay at that level so opted for a 3 year renewal rather than the 2 year I'd done on previous occasions. I couldn't quite justify the spend for anything much longer, tempting though it was! That was a £43.16 spend which I have transferred over from my "budget" account as I have a surplus there - I've not actually transferred spends across to the other account this month - although that money is sitting there if needed.  

Grocery spending for last month ended up at £148.43 which I'm pretty delighted with especially in the circumstances. There was no farmers market visit last month, but there was also a couple of more expensive shops than we'd usually have had because of having to make the best of it while we were "amongst the infected"! I am opting to join the grocery challenge on OldStyle for this month so I'll see if that focuses my mind even more! 

Yesterday wasn't a NSD as I popped into the Land of Pounds for some notebooks for our voluntary role - theoretically we can claim it back but in practise we probably won't unless anything else comes up that we need to claim for in the near future. it was £4.50 for three of them, so not going to break the bank! I did have to smile though - I think we should start calling that particular shop OnePoundFiftyland from now on as that seemed to be what the majority of stuff was priced at!  I can't think of any reason why today won't be a NSD though - not that I'm aiming at any particular number of those for this month anyway! 

MrEH is going to pop to the rugby club to assist with others who are training tonight, but has decided it's not a good idea for him to be running about too much while he's still got the cough. It means a night off the voluntary role stuff for me, I'll get some more photos done, watch some TV and hopefully get another few rows of my crochet done, I think. I'm planning to head to the gym after work but it will be another shortened/reduced load session. I've started pushing it a little more on the cycling front again - and today was the first time I'd noticed a definite drop in heart rate back towards pre-covid levels which suggests my body really has made a jump forwards in shaking it off. It's fascinating having the details there of things like that to look at - and definitely gives you a better understanding of how your body deals with things. 

beanielou

Jeez. Words fail me.
Ego most definatly needs to be left at the door.

beanielou

I have given up on You Gov.
As you say payment threshold needs to reduce.

milann

Definitely not a good attitude from the hospital staff 

savingholmes

Hope things improve for your dad soon

jokono

I hope your mum's email makes a difference in the care your father receives  ♥

I had several miscarriages and had to go to the specialist unit in my local hospital back in London, not sure what it was called but I'm pretty sure it was mainly for patients with my circumstances. Everyone was very nice to me but I remember one time there was a very young girl at the reception and the nurse was being so rude to her. I still regret not saying anything or making a complaint after. If the girl was feeling as vulnerable as I was than it must've been really horrible for her. That was the only bad experience I had in this country. In the country I come from healthcare is free but EVERYONE is expecting gifts 💰 and they are extremely rude and uncaring if they don't get any. 

EssexHebridean

Jokono it's the mention of things like that expectation of gifts in your home country that reminds us how fortunate we are in the NHS for the most part I think - let me guess, the better the gift, the better the care? I'm sorry to hear you've had to go through the experiences you have as well - and glad that you've always been handled sensitively. The way that girl was handled was definitely unpleasant wasn't it - try not to beat yourself up about not making a complaint though - it's always tricky to know what we should, and shouldn't do in a situation where we might expect to be told "it's none of our business" like that.  Beanie, Milann, SH - we're hoping the email gets some attention - as well as the food/eating issue it's things like a cannula being left unchanged for anything up to 10 days - it's a basic thing, should be flagged up on regular reviews, and it's not acceptable in any circumstances! 

Well, as though the stress around my Dad isn't enough, my poor Mum had a car accident last night. She's fine - as is the dog (who was in the car with her - side note here is if you carry a dog in your car  and it's not suitable to use the boot for carrying it PLEASE make sure you have a shock-absorbing seat-belt attachment harness for it - the one their dog was wearing meant she didn't impact the front seat at all, and wasn't even so much as shaken up by the whole thing!) which is absolutely the main thing - the car is a write-off but the crumple zone absolutely did its thing thank goodness. So yesterday evening was spent going to collect Mum from where the Police had taken her (they were excellent - managed getting the car off the road, and took her to a place of safety she was happy to wait in) then back via her car (ouch, poor car!) to leave the key for the insurance company recovery to collect it later, then taking her home and making sure she was OK. Got home just before 8pm, cooked dinner and didn't achieve much else, unsurprisingly! I confess it's all starting to feel a bit "much" at the moment - I need to prioritise a bit of self-care I think as there's only so much of me to go around! 

MrEH has been told by his department head that he doesn't need to be back in the office all 5 days of each week which is ace - and means a massive saving cost-wise as he'll now return to WFH on Fridays - so no tube cost OR car commute, and will probably do one other day initially as well saving the tube fares. I can't recall exactly how much his tube fares are daily now but it's in the region of £8 a day I think, and the fuel in the car is around £6 a trip, so that's a decent weekly saving right there! here is also a quality of life advantage too as it means that the second day he's wfh I can head straight home rather than having to kill anything up to half an hour waiting for him to get back to the car. We'll be able to return to our Friday morning walks, too! (The flipside is that I quite enjoy my solo Fridays sometimes!) 

Managed to stick to the meal plan last night as the planned couscous, veggies, halloumi combination was pretty quick to throw together, the chicken will now get dealt with tonight, I can pick the carcass while also getting the risotto sorted at the same time so that will work OK. 

Banks checked this morning - and I also cleared the CC back to zero. The joint account is a little lower than this time last month but that's partly due to filling MrEH's car last night - £72...where's that fainting emoji when you need it? He also topped his Oyster up again yesterday although it would have gone an extra day by the sound of it - and of course what he put on will now last a bit longer too with increased wfh. I swept the stray oddments in both of my current accounts over to the VSP's. In other good news the C0v3ntry emailed this morning to say that the rates on both our accounts are going up - typical just after we've transplanted a load of money from there across to M@rcus! Hopefully they will follow suit and we won't feel we need to change it back again! I must say credit where it's due - I'm impressed at C0v changing their regular saver account rates too - they could easily have adpoted the "tough, that was the rate you signed up to" approach in fairness. 

Surveys trotting along - 
Prolific now £1.80 paid/£1.67 pending
onePoll now 1887 points
Ipsos now 302 points.

jokono

Oh no EH, so sorry to hear that! I'm glad your mum and the dog are ok, but it does sound quite traumatic, especially if the car is a write off. Do make sure you take care of yourself ♥