Off-loading

Another cloudy day, warmer not as windy. I went to Thompson's Park to check on the moorhen chicks, and was surprised to see that one of the parents was in the throes of nest building out in the pond where three pipes protrude from the water close to each other, relics of a fountain that I've never seen working. The bird uses these as a sort of scaffold around which to weave a raft of floating twigs together to make the base of a nest. Another such raft has been started in the water closer to the shore as well. On the far side of the pond the chicks were walking around pecking in the mud at the water's edge. Fascinating behaviour, one parent child minding, the other home making. No idea which gender adopts which role.

I cooked a seafood paella for lunch and straight after I went to Cafe Castan to meet Rufus who'd brought his wife Daria with him. It was great to see them both, it's several years since I last saw Daria, so it was good to catch up with her. Life is very busy for Rufus, as development plans for his role as Port Chaplain and organiser are bearing fruit. Then I went for a walk around the streets, and through Thompson's Park again on my way back.

At Tuesday's encounter with Linda and her phone I learned that she used an old touch screen Chromebook using only its virtual keyboard because its physical keyboard had died. I decided to give her my little ASUS touchscreen Chromebook which has served me well and its near the end of its supported life. My ACER Chromebook serves me well, and is in use for entertainment and work eighty per cent of the time. It's still in good condition, and will continue to work in any case, but without security updates. As she rarely surfs, mainly using it to write occasional emails and Zoom calls, the risk of it getting compromised is low. Better that she should have it to use, I thought. It's now been returned to factory settings ready to collect.

Much to my surprise I was called from the UHW eye surgery unit at tea time by a nurse charged with doing initial pre-op interviews over the phone. I believe this is part of the speed-up process for people in the queue for cataract surgery. Previously I've been summoned by letter for pre-op interviews, obliged to fill in a comprehensive health enquiry form with a couple of dozen questions on it. Having done this, an interview followed with a nurse who double checked everything I'd written down. What happened to the form then I don't know. I don't know if the content was scanned into an image to be added to my digital medical file, or the information extracted and added as separate pieces of information to a database within the file. 

Either is possible if money has been invested in the system. UHW still keeps that thick paper file embodying my medical history still kept along with more recent digitised info. When waiting to be seen before an examination, you often see trolleys of thick files being wheeled from archives into reception areas. The trouble is that the existing system is still error prone, updates don't always make it through a network to the server, crashes and malicious hacks happen. Some bits of the hospital network are new and fast, but others are old, legacy software and hardware in need of a huge expensive overhaul. It's no wonder waiting lists are long if queue processing is inefficient and maybe haphazard.

Having an experienced nurse call patients and interview them is a simple but effective measure. It was admittedly a cold call, not that it's a concern when the caller quickly establishes legitimate credentials. No initial appointment letter needs to be mailed, with the risk that it'll fail to reach the patient. Each question answered is entered straight into the patient's database and double checked, a saving of personnel time. I will now receive an appointment letter from the eye surgery team for a detailed physical check before a cataract replacement op is booked and then a letter with an appointment date after that. Two letters instead of three. It doesn't sound like a lot but scaled up for hundreds of patients it can save time and resources. More than enough to make use of an experienced nurse interested in doing something different which will make a difference. I just wonder how long management argued about cost effectiveness and the effort of all the changes necessary to off-load a less efficient bureaucratic procedure?

After supper I watched a story in series two of the Danish 'Sommerdahl Murders', beautiful people in a beautiful setting. Half of the story is about the marriage breakdown of two key crime investigators, and the other half is about the crime itself. I'm surprised that it's merited a second series. The personal relationship side of things is dull and lack lustre, and that rubs off the accompanying tragedy under investigation.