Did not arrive (no reason)

A typical doctor's surgery in the East End in London. Autumn has come early, there is some chill in the air, so ca 2 million Londoners start coughing like one, and like one will make an appointment with their doctor's surgery to rule out that they might have a sudden pneumonia, tuberculosis, or just get a couple of days off work for an easy viral upper respiratory tract infection, so the days appointments are quickly filled with those seeking health, solace, a sicknote or maybe just a couple of days off.

The doctors and nurses arrive in the morning, man their offices, switch on the computers and prepare themselves for the bugs, stories and smells of about fifty patients over the next 10 hours.

Then they wait.

And Wait.

And the morning surgery is over.

From 20 booked patients, maybe 12 have arrived (mostly late). The rest of the time, those professionals have been twiddling their thumbs, doing some emailing, drinking coffee and boring themselves to death and putting DNA (Did not arrive, no - reason) in their notes.

Those 20 appointments that were lost that typical London morning could have been given to patients who actually needed them and now have to wait days or weeks. Just in one small surgery, up to 500 appointments are lost that way per month. Extrapolating that to the East End, that's ca 30.000 lost appointments per month, not mention the daily loss to the whole of the NHS.

The nice thing about the NHS is that it is free as in beer. Ok, you pay a pittance per month on National Insurance, but apart from that, that's it. The mindset of those defaulters is obviously that what's freely available can't be much worth. How wrong they are: Just think of the combined wages of three doctors, nurses and receptionists that will be wasted that morning, extrapolated on the bloody country! Bloody Millions!

So, Noders, if you book an appointment with your health professional and then feel better,

Bloody well cancel it!

I thank you