The best tonic for our NHS? A drop of old-fashioned respect
Back in the dark ages, — when men smoked pipes and Boy Scouts would wash your austin allegro for a few pence during Bob-a-Job week — doctors and nurses didn’t expect to be loved.
They were respected, which is something more.
Going to see the GP could be as daunting as a visit to the bank manager: the local doctor might be kindly, but he was still a figure of considerable authority.
No patient would dream of missing an appointment, or turning up late and demanding loudly and rudely at the reception desk to be seen. But in surgeries across the country last year, nearly 20million people failed to keep a booking to see a GP or nurse — that’s one in 20 appointments wasted, at an estimated cost to the NHS of £216 million.
and those figures fail to take into account the modern trend for rolling up at hospital a&E departments with any ailment, however slight, because it’s quicker than waiting to see a GP.
During the pandemic we have seen a tidal wave of affection and gratitude for NHS staff, who have put their lives on the line to protect the country from coronavirus. The public has woken up to how much the health service matters.
But it’s a sign of how complacent and entitled our society has become, that we forgot in the first place. When doctors commanded automatic respect, they didn’t need anyone to stand on a doorstep applauding and banging a saucepan.
Dear NHS Superstars (BBc1) saw a parade of celebs telling personal stories that revealed the vital role surgeons, nurses and carers have played in their lives.
There’s no doubting their sincerity. It’s just a little odd that everyone wants to treat their consultant as their best mate.
Victoria Derbyshire, who survived breast cancer five years ago, video called her radiologist, Demetrious, to tell him that she loved him. She talked with affecting emotion of the day he called her to reveal her results were clear and the cancer hadn’t spread — a reprieve that saved her life. Still, he looked slightly embarrassed to be bombarded with so much adoration.
Tanni Grey-Thompson, who was born with spina bifida and grew up to become a world-beating para-athlete, had a more measured assessment of what she owed the NHS. childhood operations were crucial, but it was the free wheelchair that gave her mobility and changed her life. In other words, the system worked.
For that to keep happening, there’s no need for overblown outpourings of thanks. We just need to respect what we’ve got.
No greater respect could be shown than the reverence displayed for a Melton Mowbray pork pie by Stephen Hallam, who was named the world’s Supreme Pie champion in 2017.
Pork pies, Stephen told us in hushed tones on Inside Britain’s Food Factories (ITV), must always be eaten cold. Heating one up in the microwave is worse than sacrilege — it is a desecration of all that is noble in England’s heritage.
a voice behind the camera wondered what punishment could possibly be incurred by eating a hot pork pie. Stephen frowned. The heavens darken, he said, the clouds part and a thunderbolt strikes the sinner dead. There’s no half measures in Melton Mowbray.
Despite the ‘factories’ in the title, this was a glimpse of a craftsman at work. Each pastry casing was moulded by hand around a wooden ‘dolly’, and the jelly was poured in with a jug.
It’s a living tradition. Nice to know that some things haven’t changed since those Bob-a-Job days.