Keep on checking

Made a good intervention yesterday. A lady had just been prescribed some sibutramine so out I went to tell her all about it.

On checking that she was going to go for regular BP checks she said the GP hadn’t mentioned anything like that. So I advised her to make an appointment with the practice nurse to start getting the necessary checks.

I also rang the practice to get this added to the patient’s notes to ensure that it will be done.

And then we dad one of ‘those’ scripts – you know, the out of town ones for a benzodiazepine where there looks to be an alteration on the script.

We didn’t have the item in stock and so sent the patient away which gave us the time to sort it out.

It was from our local CAHMS team and we got passed from pillar to post until we finally got to speak to the consultant who wrote the script.

‘Yes, I thought that might look a bit dodgy’ he admitted.

So at least we got it sorted out for the patient, but it would have made our life a lot easier if he’d altered it correctly in the first place.

A long wait...

Hello again. I suppose it is rich irony that my last blog was titled "Urgent, but out of date..." and that was some considerable time ago. I'm sorry there has been a bit of a gap - and while on the subject of waiting, I’ve had a really busy day today. You know one of those days when you can hardly see the shop floor for people waiting for their scripts.

Just to top it all off nicely I had shouted a patient’s name and this lovely old man who was sitting down gave me a big smile and slowly got out of his chair. I stood patiently while he slowly walked over to me. ‘Mr Smith?’ I asked. ‘Oh no love’ he said, ‘I was stretching my legs while I’m waiting.'