Younger than policemen
One of the unexpected difficulties
of coming back to London, speaking perfect English if with a slight
Surrey (surreh) accent, is that no one explains anything.
Even when one explains that one has been away for most of the last 40
years (Surrey-speak, sorry, will switch) you will be greeted by blank
looks. If
you speak English, especially educated English, it is assumed that
you know.
Everything
gets immeasurably more complicated when you get entangled with
England's pride and joy, cynosure of health systems world-wide, the
National Health Service. And it is not because, seemingly, the
majority of its employees are from outside the UK, for they are
all very young and speak good
English.
It
is because the systems imposed on it fall over each other:
random people telephone you offering
hospital appointments but the caller does not know what for;
your General Practioner should
because s/he would have initiated it;
but s/he is not always in and may
not have left notes on the surgery computer system;
sometimes you get a letter
confirming the appointment you have already kept (the Post Office
must be so comforted by the NHS' faith in its service);
and the results of any tests
inflicted on you will be communicated electronically to your doctor's
practice;
you make an appointment to get the
doctor's interpretation of the results but appointments are limited
to 8 minutes...
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| Pride & Joy |
These
systems are obviously designed by Very Clever People, those
who have always known the answers to every examination question. They
are now convinced that they also
know all the questions as well as
how other people should do their jobs.
(It
reminds me strongly of Common Agricultural Policy regulations.)
There
is a 'System' which has a Virtual Life; then there is Reality dealt
with
by the people on the ground, farmers or doctors or policemen. (In
the case of the CAP it is helpful if you have been taught maths in
France.)
Doctors
and others,
the 'health professionals' try to do the job for which they trained
(keeping people alive and well). Are
policemen now 'security' or 'safety' professionals?
But
both
also have to account to the 'System' for which there is no training.
When
I left
London,
around forty years ago, ambulances were white and police cars were
blue.
Now
ambulances are covered in ugly rectangles of yellow and green, with
red stripes on the back. Police cars seem to be any colour as
long as there is a garish
colour (usually red) stripe along the side. And
seldom does one see a real policeman, complete with traditional
helmet, on the street. So I cannot really test my new returnee's theory:
doctors are now younger than policemen.
