So that’s OK then….or is it really excellent?

An excellent post from Mike Denham at the Burning our Money blog

The boxes are ticked, the targets are hit, so all is well.

GPs are incentivised to keep sick people away from hospitals, Junior hospital doctors are short of experience. Elderly patients are suffering from malnutrition or hospital acquired infections because there’s no one to look after them.

The de-skilling & dumbing-down continues, yet dentists who are brave enough to take the step away from the NHS regulations in order to provide the very best that they can are castigated by people who have been told repeated lies about the quality of NHS care by governments.

Copying from one person is plagiarism, copying from more than one is research. I must admit to re-writing a lot of this from NHS Blog Doctor.

 

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer: but not in the UK – apparently

Interesting piece on doctors’ and dentists’ incomes from defaqto investment and business news here

 

The Monday Morning Quote #12

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!”

– Henry Ford

Another man with West Cork connections. Take a look here

& here’s a pub named in his honour in his grandfather’s village.

The Weekend Read: 9. Raving Fans!

Ken Blanchard has probably done more to raise awareness of the way people behave in business than any other author. His long list of books started with “The One Minute Manager” which was published more than a quarter of a century ago.

Most, if not all, of his books are brief enough to read in a weekend, his writing makes his messages clear to understand and few people will fail to glean some useful nuggets from each of them.

This is a book which will help you improve your customer service over and over again. It’s full of ideas that will make you say “we could do that, why don’t we?”.

Why not read it and then pass it on to each and every member of your team?

To purchase the book from my on line store click here.

“Too many check-ups” – 1

That’s what I keep hearing dentists say. Yet often they’re also the same dentists who say that they haven’t got any challenging work to do and they’re bored. They are unwilling to charge appropriately for “check-ups” so they lose out on their hoped for hourly rate.

Start by changing what you call the routine examinations. Frequently the phrase check-up is prefaced by the words “just a”, well it may be “just” another check up for the dentist and their team but it’s a once (or twice) a year big deal for the patient. “What are they going to say this time?” “I had a twinge last week, should I tell them” “Oh heck they want X-rays, what’s that about”. It’s not just a check up.

Change the words, emphasise the Health element. What’s wrong with Dental Health Review?

How many other professionals have the opportunity to introduce their clients to the benefits of new ideas to educate and raise their awareness of what is available?

I had a conversation recently with a solicitor about the reason why, when his storage areas were bursting with client files, he had decided to join forces with another firm. It turns out that the files are one offs, that people don’t uses a solicitor regularly. It’s only when they made contact with him does he get (or make?) the opportunity to offer them more. In many cases he’s just waiting for them to die so he can get an income from probate.

Take the chances that are presented to you, have a regular ‘fact finding’ review as a conscientious IFA would so that both you & the patient have an idea where they are headed, what they might want in the future. With uncertainty around pensions & health there is no point in waiting for somone aged 55 to retire befor hitting them with the ‘ideal’ treatment plan, they could have afforded it at 55 but not when they are dependent upon a fixed income.

An alternative to wall-to-wall doom and gloom.

I have to admit to being an avid radio listener but over the past few weeks I have become jaded with wall to wall and ear to ear bad news. Jeremy Vine is my particular hate, there doesn’t seem to be anything that he can’t appear to make sound worse than it is. Chicken Licken meets the Daily Mail.

He reminds me of a patient of mine who was a retired RAF officer with far too much time on his hands. One day he complained at the checkout of the local supermarket that there should be some cardboard boxes available so that he wouldn’t have to carry lots of plastic bags in his arthritic hands. The management took notice and acted.

At his next visit he loudly pointed out to the staff that all those cardboard boxes adjacent to the check outs were a fire hazard!

For a balanced view, with great insight, on the current economic situation take a look at Robert Peston’s blog from the BBC website.

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/rss.xml

The Monday Morning Quote #11

—-but not until Tuesday due to the events of the weekend.

The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world is that in the modern world, the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

(Bertrand Russell)

Education is that process by which we move from cocksure certainty to thoughtful uncertainty.

(Unknown)

“You’ve had a bloody lucky escape mate…”

I missed posting “the weekend read” & Monday Morning Quote” over the past few days. This was due to a rapid visit to West Cork for the memorial service for my friend Geoffrey Bannister who passed away, or “promoted” as Johnnie Walker puts it, earlier this year.

It seemed a good chance to move one of my ageing & battered cars to the house at Fahouragh in West Cork. I had the car MOTd, Serviced, Insured & Taxed and set off from home at 10.30pm on Thursday, destination Pembroke Dock to catch the 2.45am Rosslare ferry.

The car seemed OK except for some funny noises that I couldn’t identify and attributed to age (the car’s that is). Six miles short of Carmarthen on the A48, the luck ran out. At first I though I had blown a tyre and wrestled the Laguna to the road side, as luck would have it there was little other traffic so there had been no chance of a collision. Thankfully there were street lights so I was able to see that the near side front wheel was at a strange angle and felt loose.

Lonely RoadI called the RAC who were as usual calm and reassuring. I then reconciled myself to a tow home and no trip to Ireland. After 20 minutes or so a police car drove past on the other carriage way, did a U-turn and came to investigate. Police officer left the car, gave the injured wheel a shake and declared that he heard a wheel bolt fall into the hub cap. His diagnosis from my history of having had new tyres fitted a few days earlier was that the wheel bolts hadn’t been tightened, his verdict, “You’ve had a bloody lucky escape mate.” RAC arrived and their man worked very hard and quickly to get spare wheel on securely and me on my way with as little delay as possible.

StuckThe happy ending would be that I caught my Irish Ferries boat in the nick of time, sadly I missed it by a Desperate Dan sized whisker. I was resolutely cheerful to the check-in staff, who were all very apologetic – after all what’s the point of shooting the messenger? The Travelodge was full so I grabbed 5 hours of surprisingly comfortable sleep in the car before breakfasting well at Tesco! I dozed and read during the day and finally caught the 2.30pm ferry and kipping through a force 8 gale. A gentle drive listening to RTE describe Munster scrape home against Monteban in the opening encounter of this season’s Heineken cup. I was in Casey’s Bar in Glandore by 10.45pm for a well deserved couple of pints of Murphy’s.

I kept thinking about what the policeman had said though…

Can you believe that this is real?

This was sent to me this evening by a client who prides himself (quite rightly) on the language of his practice literature, the sincerity of his approach and the quality of the experience when a patient visits him.

The featured person in the link is in a nearby town and my client wonders why he (my client that is) has such a good name and ready supply of new patients and referrals.

Can you believe that someone pays to get advice to produce this? www.addictive-marketing.com/implementers/ChrisCastlePark/ 

I am reminded of the line that says: “Just concentrate on sincerity because once you can fake that you can fake anything.”

Time for a change?

From the excellent John Naughton’s blog, as a fellow proud Irish citizen these are my sentiments entirely.