I regret to say that I have not been behaving especially well.
I have had a Showdown In The Doctor’s Surgery.
This was dramatic and extremely disgruntled. My dudgeon levels were so high they were almost a medical emergency.
It started whilst I was still faffing about with the post-breakfast tiddling about this morning, you know the sort of thing, washing up and hanging up laundry and deciding not to bother to sweep the kitchen floor again, that sort of thing.
The phone rang, and it was Number Two Daughter, in Canada, wondering if I would, in the next day or two, collect some papers that she needed from the doctor’s surgery. These were not especially sensitive, being from the School Educational Psychology Service with details of her dyslexia reports and curious speculation about her general educational adventures, left over from her rebellious youth.
She needs these because she is currently taking exams, and needs some evidence confirming that she is, indeed officially disadvantaged, which she most certainly is, she is even more dyslexic than Mark who sent a text to me this afternoon telling me that his mother was at Charnel services, which I thought was most unlikely.
For some special NHS reason the GP surgery was unable to email the papers, which could only be given out in person over the counter. I agreed that I would collect them, and promptly made several notes to myself to remind me, in the diary and on my telephone and on the computer, because this is exactly the sort of thing I might easily forget, which would then probably deserve the resulting comments about my parental inadequacy.
This turned out to be entirely unnecessary, because ten minutes later the phone rang again, and this time it was the doctor’s surgery, telling me that the papers were ready and I could collect them as long as I was quick, because soon they would be closed for lunch which would last until first thing tomorrow morning.
Rather than risk forgetting tomorrow, when we have already got a funeral to remember, I chucked the dogs in the back of the car and dashed off. This was because the dogs had not yet been emptied, and I thought I could drive to the bottom of the wood at School Knott and salve that portion of my guilty conscience as well.
I went into the waiting room and stood behind the stupid barrier that still keeps you a metre away from the closed glass windows behind which the receptionists shelter in case there is an outbreak of Ebola whilst everybody is waiting for their appointment to be rescheduled again.
I explained what I wanted and the receptionist sniffed. They had decided, she explained, not to give me the papers.
I enquired, in some surprise, why not.
She said that because of data protection they could not give anything of Number Two Daughter’s to me.
I pointed out that Number Two Daughter had asked them to.
They agreed that she had, but not in writing. I said that this was because she was in Canada and perhaps I could ask her to email. They said that the GP surgery can’t send or receive emails, so no. They would happily give me her urgent paperwork, but only on receipt of a written instruction from her, sent through the post from Canada.
The last thing sent from Canada was a Christmas present to us, posted in November which arrived a fortnight ago.
I asked about the emails and she shrugged. We can’t do email, she said, we don’t have that facility at the moment.
I pointed out that they had called me to come across and collect the papers.
She said that they had changed their minds.
This makes me sound very calm and reasonable, but between you and me, and the entire captivated waiting room, I wasn’t. I was very, very cross indeed. I told the receptionist that she was being deliberately obstructive and unhelpful, and she shrugged again.
In the end I telephoned Number Two Daughter, and through the speaker, on the other end of the telephone, she squeaked that we wanted to speak to a manager, who was eventually summoned.
The manager explained some special NHS Policy Of Obstruction to me, and Number Two Daughter bellowed, through the telephone, that she was Asking Right Now For Her Medical Records Which Were Hers By Right to be handed over to her mother, and in the end, after some considerable argument, I might say, faced with a cold fury in front of her and a long-distance rage over the telephone, the manager capitulated. She said that Just This Once she would accept verbal consent, but in future etc etc etc.
I took the papers, which took them a further ten minutes to produce, and escaped.
The dogs were very desperate to be emptied by then and practically exploded the second they got out of the taxi.
Hurrah for the NHS, that’s what I say, let’s give them all a clap.
I shall email it to them.
