At 7.30am after dropping son off, I drove through dense fog punctuated by glimpses of daffodils and magnolias to visit an elderly housebound gentleman, cared for by his wife. A lot of my non-urgent home visits are pre-8.30am, as it’s the best time to catch people in the correct attire, in bed and be able to arrange home blood tests, admissions etc before things get busier for us, the ambulances and secondary care. I hate sending people, and in particular the elderly, into hospital in the evenings, often very late as the ambulance times are longer then.
The visit took half an hour, and there was a very kind compliment for our surgery on how it operates, which was an unexpected bonus. Then it was off to collect post sent by a hospital trust to a former branch surgery in spite of assurances just last week that the trust database had been updated, a quick whizz round staff to make sure there are no problems, instructions to administrator to log which specialties are sending post to the wrong address, two chocolate digestives and coffee for breakfast. Now I’m about to start Doctor First triage.
