Natasha

GP, OOH, NHS Tayside, Scotland. Interested in all things #Scottish, #medical, #politics, #crafts, and life in general! Note my profile picture is of a door I painted in my room as a teenager.

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Last Notes

2026-03-16 10:31:54 UTC

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The more Israel get away with on the world stage, the more they will do whatever they want locally. Time for major sanctions.

2026-03-04 15:14:13 UTC

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Glad it’s not just me that thinks that. I hope students already here can finish their studies, there are female medical students in Scotland who have been specifically sponsored to come here as they are unable to study in Afghanistan. But sending them back to be unable to use their skills also seems ridiculous.

2026-02-26 22:21:49 UTC

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It says a lot too that Jeremy Corbyn was suggesting people should back the Greens, which is what you would do to stop fascism.

2026-01-28 16:38:02 UTC

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Of course raising the state pension age actually has the potential to push more people into disability/sickness benefit through not being fit to do manual work in their 60s, if not before.

2026-01-07 17:58:04 UTC

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Even with wheelchair access many consulting rooms do not have beds which go up and down. I distinctly remember having to hunt out a room with a usable couch to do a smear for a woman in a wheelchair in my last practice, while all the beds went up and down in my previous ones (and where I work now in out of hours). Simple things that make a big difference.

2025-09-18 08:03:08 UTC

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Practices don’t have enough money to pay for extra GPs, inspite of increased workload. So all the new GPs who have been trained find no jobs to go to. Use of locums to cover holidays and sickness has also reduced significantly. Expenses have risen dramatically due to rise in NI and inflation, so money per GP is squeezed. Partnership as a business is tough when total income is static while expenses rise.

2025-08-29 10:14:28 UTC

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Quite, but I don’t get why the world isn’t shouting more about this. So much double standards in the west.

2025-08-29 09:46:49 UTC

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How do they expect people who are starving and have no fuel to actually move anywhere?

2025-08-20 20:01:17 UTC

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You always felt she was in it and struggling with everyone else, and I think that gave trust. Like she didn’t want to have to make the decisions, but knew it needed done to save people’s lives. And that she actually cared about the people she wanted to live.

2025-08-20 19:56:14 UTC

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Have lived in a few holiday lets with a longer six month lease over winter, but then it does mean finding somewhere else in the summer. The original idea of AirBNB of course was house swapping, or letting out a room in your home, not what it is now.

2025-08-20 13:07:32 UTC

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True, but maybe employers of such temporary staff would keep accommodation for this, or there would still be a small number of holiday lets in some areas.

2025-08-20 12:59:21 UTC

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If there was enough social housing, would it not remove the need for private landlords? Except potentially in the most remote places, but then could it not be social enterprise or community owned housing supplied to teachers/doctors/nurses etc that the community needs? (Which actually is how it used to be many years ago).

2025-08-20 12:36:42 UTC

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Lucky to get a local veg box, as the quality and variety from supermarkets is dire as well as pricy. £1.20 currently for a cauliflower…

2025-08-20 12:30:28 UTC

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It’s food. I shop for our main weekly shop online and every week prices go up. I reckon spending about half as much extra a week as a couple of years ago, ie £100 worth now costing £150. Granted we do still eat meat, although mostly chicken, even mince having more than doubled in price. Even basics like a tin of beans, lentils, rice has gone up dramatically.

2025-07-21 18:36:41 UTC

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So essentially you die while working if you can’t afford to pay into a pension, while those that have plenty of cash might manage 10-20 years after retiring. But saving in pensions is likely to increase sickness benefit needs as many not saving are likely to be too unwell to work in their 60s (even now not many continue in their 50s in the most deprived areas of Scotland).

2025-07-11 13:11:07 UTC

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Child benefit isn’t paid for every child, only those where the highest earning parent earns under £60,000. So if one of you earns £60,001 you don’t get it, although if both parents earn £59,999 you do. Not sure why this was never based on household income, I didn’t qualify for my son as my income was over the then threshold, yet my sister-in-law did although their household income was higher (my husband was our childcare and had minimal/no income).

2025-07-10 12:09:59 UTC

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It’s so sad to see the demise of Royal Mail. It used to be a real lifeline service in rural areas, with the postie often delivering newspapers, milk, bread etc and often the only person people would see. And there are still a handful of post buses which still exist on the Isles (or there were relatively recently).

2025-07-10 07:25:44 UTC

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This is a BIG issue for NHS appointments which are usually sent out second class. They are now even less likely to arrive on time. Increased cost to the NHS perhaps?

2025-07-02 11:00:47 UTC

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If you look at what happened after the last Tory government turned to Labour, waiting lists improved through widespread investment in the NHS. Investment in social determinants of health is also vital to improve the nations health and hence pressure on the health service, invest in actually affordable housing, invest in children, invest in the future. Tax those that can afford it to boost incomes of those that can’t afford decent food or a place to stay.

2025-06-22 09:05:07 UTC

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Clearly they don’t care about the country they live in, just their money, while asylum seekers are often desperate to give something back to the country that supports them to survive. Yet we lionise the one that would contribute, not the other.

2025-06-20 09:46:20 UTC

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Which is how it was when I went in the 80s! My best friend did not go to university but after A levels went straight into bank manager training and has now done that for the last 30+ years. Someone else in my year at school went straight into game design at 17. Degrees weren’t essential then. And most people I know with degrees, from then at least, do something completely different to what they studied anyway unless it was vocational like myself.

2025-06-16 12:01:03 UTC

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Agreed, GP funding has barely risen while expected to do much of what used to be the remit of secondary care. And this has got worse as secondary care waiting lists increase so patients go back to their GP time and time again until seen.

2025-05-15 09:42:10 UTC

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The forecast was showing rain for a week on Friday but no longer shows anything but cloud. I am beginning to forget what rain is…did it actually rain last in April? I remember a spot of drizzle which came to nothing some time within the last three weeks, but the last real rain must have been March here.

2024-12-28 11:30:20 UTC

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Israel are completely out of control and their government appear not to care for anyone but themselves.

2024-12-22 08:56:03 UTC

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That’s so sad. Racism sadly is pervasive and often through ignorance.

2024-12-22 08:54:12 UTC

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Have never used Instagram either, don’t like it and don’t see the point to it. But then no one I know uses it either apart from my husband.

2024-12-21 11:42:18 UTC

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Mixed down with some Irn Bru it probably would work if it stays down…

2024-12-16 18:29:55 UTC

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I didn’t realise there were so many different kinds of councils in England. In Scotland it’s pretty straightforward, there aren’t that many council areas and generally also align with Health Board areas, which is why it’s so much easier to integrate social care and health. Hence also the recent news about Highland council wanting to split up into smaller areas as it covers almost half of Scotland geographically.

2024-12-15 13:15:53 UTC

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The polio vaccine one of the biggest success stories ever (except of course the smallpox one which completely eradicated smallpox, not quite there yet with polio). A live three dose vaccine no longer needed to give enough immunity, but instead an inactivated form. I remember those foul sugar cubes! No one surely would want polio to return.

2024-12-10 20:08:31 UTC

Someone on here had mentioned DuckDuckGo- have downloaded and am very impressed so far!

2024-12-10 15:58:25 UTC

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Also I think labelling in general is unhelpful. Being “on the spectrum” is one of the more annoying off the cuff comments too - we are all on a spectrum by definition of what a spectrum is. People will develop their own skills in their own time and their own way, they just need the right support and environment to develop.

2024-12-10 15:30:51 UTC

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Depends how you define gifted? You can be a talented musician, or painter, from innate skills. You can have a level of intelligence, regardless of how it is then nurtured. I don’t agree that kids pushed by their parents to become maths whizzes at a young age are gifted, just pushed. I was classed as “gifted” as a young child, but realistically just intelligent with good reading skills, and ultimately maths etc. Not related to schooling, as it was before I got to primary.

2024-12-10 12:48:25 UTC

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It would be nice to have the option to do searches NOT powered by AI, or switch off that function on some websites where I have seen it creep in recently.

2024-12-09 18:21:59 UTC

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Or privatisation by stealth?

2024-12-09 09:41:12 UTC

#ArtAdventCalendar #day9 Todays picture is a sketch of a lily of the valley in memory of my mum. Every year I would buy her a little something at Christmas with this scent. I still miss her a lot even 8 years on.
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/113/622/196/247/421/905/original/8d220fedc77875c5.png

2024-12-06 21:19:39 UTC

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was an amazing place to live and work but there are so many abandoned crofts.

2024-12-06 20:45:56 UTC

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I know both the people behind this, amazing work. I may also have been in some of these houses at some stage.

2024-12-05 10:41:32 UTC

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I’m sure I read somewhere that around 80% capacity in hospitals was optimum? Would have been studies from some time ago since that’s not been the case for a long time.

2024-12-05 10:31:24 UTC

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I’d imagine it’s probably even worse on the west coast. Or for most of Scotland’s rail network outside the central belt. Husband got a new 5G phone recently and was most impressed it worked in Aberdeen, while we barely get 4G.

2024-12-03 13:54:22 UTC

#ArtAdventCalendar And finally for today a painting of the view from my wondow done in 2017. The trees have now grown bigger!
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/113/589/218/320/814/715/original/9dbfec8a282a5b7b.png

2024-12-03 13:44:09 UTC

#ArtAdventCalendar Forgot I was going to give this a go. Here is some little paintings for the 1st which I did in March 2015.
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/113/589/174/427/491/989/original/fb05b1fd870b9690.png

2024-11-28 17:15:21 UTC

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Inveraray in Argyll.

2024-11-23 11:45:43 UTC

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It’s a perfect storm. PAs were intended as doctor support, to be trained to do routine procedures, history taking etc. But they are unable to prescribe or order x-rays etc and need to be overseen. The NHS decided to use them to plug rota gaps and overextended their role while they have no regulation. Nurses, pharmacists, physios etc are all regulated and will not overstep for fear of losing registration. Not the PAs fault but being asked to do what they are not trained for.

2024-11-17 09:51:19 UTC

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Very aware that my son is in a fortunate position in that regard. While tuition fees are paid for, he currently lives at home and goes to university. If he lived in halls, we would have had to cover some of the cost. Not everyone can do this, which is why so many students also now have a part-time job to cover their costs. University is not the same now as no time/money to socialise for the majority.

2024-11-14 20:37:29 UTC

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Reading a very interesting book at the minute on philosophy “How the World Thinks”. Have only read part one so far, but half the world it seems base knowledge on reason and rational thought, half on how it actually is. And the Americans are essentially pragmatists so reality is what you make it (not quite but that’s kind of how I read it), and have the highest number of religious followers in the west. And a huge amount of self belief.

2024-11-01 17:55:34 UTC

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Interesting, I did not know wild ones were so rare now. I knew you could still get them for use on wounds though.

2024-10-26 10:19:16 UTC

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It’s often the layers of management and the issue is good clinicians don’t always make good managers, but without having been a clinician it’s is difficult to get any insight into the issues. And then at management level you have to manage a budget, which inevitably runs over what you are given, so you have to cutback somewhere. Staff is the biggest cost, but you also need staff to provide care, so it’s hard to balance the books while keeping services going.

2024-10-26 09:15:11 UTC

Reading the news about how the government are planning to increase employers NI my thought is how will this affect the public sector? This money to go back to the treasury will also have to come out of public sector which may just recirculate some, but also hits local council budgets, GP practices etc. Will they increase this funding to cover the increased cost? #NIincrease #ukbudget

2024-10-24 17:07:37 UTC

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Not sure how that compares with Scotland where there are no tuition fees? (Although funding for living expenses is still not covered even by max student loans in many areas).

2024-10-22 16:32:28 UTC

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I suspect a huge number of women just never report any sexual crime. It’s better than it was, but there is still a lot of blame sent the woman’s way.

2024-10-22 16:26:41 UTC

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I was one of the last generation to get free university education (although student loans for living costs were brought in then) and the real aspiration of owning one’s own home, a decent pension at the end of a working life. What do we offer today’s youth? Debt for the rest of their lives, shared accommodation, living month by month, and then we wonder why there is a mental health crisis

2024-10-22 16:22:58 UTC

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That makes sense as to why it happened when it did, I was a teenager then and didn’t quite follow the rationale. The government sold nearly everything off that it “owned” to make a fast buck to please their voters by reducing taxes. And sold off council houses of course to make a generation of home owners. Then my generation and the one just above pulled up the ladder leaving today’s mess

2024-10-22 12:48:51 UTC

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I really don’t get the concept of getting profit from basics like water supply and electricity. I understand they require investment in infrastructure etc but surely then any profit should just give back what is paid in? Selling off all these parts essential to life never made any sense to me.

2024-10-21 17:42:57 UTC

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Saving now is only to provide a cushion later given interest on short term savings remains low. I suspect people are just putting back the money they have had to spend on essentials the last year or two as food and energy prices have spiralled. And to buy anything large eg new car, kitchen equipment, etc still requires more than most people can afford. Those little savings might just about get a trip to the cinema or a meal out, or some nice food from the shop.

2024-10-21 12:09:34 UTC

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Ironically, more GPs have been trained in England, but are now facing a lack of jobs as the funding has been squeezed to pay for them. And the worse it gets, the more we are training GPs who then either change path or emigrate. Nurses, pharmacists, physios, etc. on the other hand are in very high demand and short supply and just get moved around rather than anyone new. Proper workforce planning would help.

2024-10-21 10:42:16 UTC

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Personally I hate it. Suddenly it’s dark before 5pm so you go from couple of hours of daylight to permanent darkness outside working hours overnight. Still have to get up in the dark so no benefit at the morning end.

2024-10-21 10:36:44 UTC

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Simple, fund community services from community nursing, social care, primary care, work on prevention via good public health including reducing poverty, update necessary infrastructure ie buildings, IT, equipment, and make it fit for purpose. It’s going to take a lot of money to get it right, which they don’t seem to want to give. The quickest fix? Sort out social care. Fund primary care to have more GPs.

2024-10-20 12:03:38 UTC

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And I think our personal opinion changes according to what we witness and will differ even as a diagnosis of terminal illness happens to us as a person. I can only think how I might feel if it was me, but at the time my decision could be different depending on how many symptoms can be palliated etc. The key is to ensure no one feels compelled to act in a given way for others benefit not their own.

2024-10-20 08:53:50 UTC

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It’s disgraceful the way most hospices are only part NHS funded and mostly rely on charitable donations as does support for palliative care at home. Community nurses do a fantastic job but are less available overnight. We need to do palliative care much better and cover all people dying not just those with an expected trajectory from end stage cancer.

2024-10-19 12:14:02 UTC

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Even if those people left are fit to move, the chance of dying anywhere else in Gaza is just as high so why leave whatever you have left to die on the road or in a tent? To see such suffering on such a large scale, you have to admire the medical people working in such conditions, but also hope they eventually get the support they need to have lived through such awful times. I can’t imagine the sheer horror day in day out, and the long term impact of that.

2024-10-15 12:38:46 UTC

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That makes perfect sense and I’m sure is absolutely true. The presence of UN peacekeepers stops them occupying that land. And I suspect too that is precisely why the UN does not want to budge.

2024-10-13 09:24:47 UTC

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I would agree with that. There is a distinct difference between being anti-Jew and anti-Israel, which seems to get blurred constantly. Israel may be a largely Jewish state but that does not mean all Jews support current events even within Israel itself. It is possible to be vehemently opposed to the action of the Israel state/government and the support with arms provided by the US to kill innocent people, but not be anti-Semitic.

2024-09-15 16:59:36 UTC

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That’s really interesting because the one thing planning permission currently takes no account of is provision of medical services, specifically GPs. Schools etc have to be taken into account, and often permission tied into additional funding for these kind of services, even shops etc. A lot of practices suddenly find themselves with an extra 2,000 patients with no room for expansion.

2024-09-15 11:52:56 UTC

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Years and years ago back in the days of British Rail there always used to be a bike carriage on the train, at least the ones to Cambridge anyway!

2024-09-13 19:47:26 UTC

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The Molecules of Emotion is an interesting read. Neurotransmitters are very much the link between mind and body.

2024-09-13 15:03:53 UTC

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Quite a few care workers are also doing it as a temporary post, often while a medical student or prior to going into nursing etc. Conditions now are dreadful, have to clock in and out with each patient, limited time, often not paid for travel time, some employers better than others. It used to be better when directly council employed but now all subcontracted.

2024-08-25 10:15:15 UTC

I despair of this world. Climate change is making places burn, which in turn will accelerate global warming. Meanwhile wars are happening all across the world with people being starved to death or massacred while we all turn a blind eye to it all. And what’s newsworthy? A yacht sinking. And the Labour Party telling everyone life is going to get worse. Not sure how it can get much worse TBH, I am one of the lucky ones but I fear for the youngsters living now.

2024-08-08 08:38:36 UTC

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And now evidence that a large number of them rioting already have a criminal record. Rent a mob aimed at violence.

2024-08-06 11:47:48 UTC

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Terrorism too. Lots of non-white people in fear for their lives just going to work and going about their daily business. Raising concerns, peaceful protests is not the same as violent rioting, burning, and destroying everything in your path.