New booking procedures at Patient Transport part of Scottish Ambulance Service causing needless misery and stress

I have been arranging patient transport for my Mum for some time now. It has been a wonderful service as patients with a medical need can get to the hospital they require. And the actual transportation continues to be so if you are prepared to be a bit patient (pun!) as each ambulance picks up multiple people so you can get a bit of a tour on the way to your destination.

Since October however I have been having dreadful trouble making a booking on my Mums behalf, now made more complex in that I have to accompany her to the hospital as she is becoming a bit vague on occasions.

It seems that a new system has been imposed from on high. This new system is obviously to put people off using patient transport in order to save money, staff and resources. Whilst this is laudable in the planning stage it is proving anything but to me and probably many like me who require to use this service as there is no other way most of the time of getting my Mum to and from hospital for her regular appointments.

I previously was able to phone up for a booking and it would all be complete within a few minutes as the person at the other end of the phone was able to check the records for my Mum and then confirm everything was okay or not as the case may be, the only previous likely problem being there was no available transport available on the requested day.

Now I must go through an assessment procedure on every single occasion making the required call much longer. Because everyone’s call must be longer you now need to wait in a long queue before even speaking to someone. I also am not permitted to make multiple bookings where this previously caused no problem. The assessment procedure is now also more stringent meaning it is painfully long and taxing – who wants to have the repeat everything on every occasion that patient transport is required if you have a regular need for transport?

I have also failed the assessment on one occasion (this occurring this week) meaning I was unsure how I was going to get my Mum to the hospital for an essential appointment for over 24 hours. There is no complaints procedure built in but you can make an appeal but you obviously have to await the outcome.

My Mum is 83, walks with a stick on her best days, has terminal cancer, is a bit vague and therefore requires to be accompanied yet she was assessed on this occasion as being able to get public transport to the hospital in question for an estimated 9 hour appointment at the hospital. This public transport is two buses which do not coincide with one another at the change over point meaning there is a walk required between two stops.

The new patient transport booking system is making an extremely stressful, physically and emotionally taxing period even worse. It seems the Scottish Ambulance Service has been taking lessons from the UK Department of Work and Pensions and their assessment procedure for illness and disablement benefits.

I now dread having to make patient transport bookings and it is yet another difficulty to cope with when I myself am also ill with ME. This new booking system must change perhaps to a system where terminally ill patients are able to bypass this new assessment system. It is grossly unfair as it stands currently.

(sent to Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in the Scottish Government on 08.11.2014)

Dear 'friends' who voted NO

#indyref #Scottish #Embarassed and #Ashamed for #Scotland, also previously known as #Scotlandshire, and now demoted to #NorthBritainshire.

Dear 'friends' who voted NO,

I am unlikely to forgive any of you within the near future, as you have led to your country to being the laughing stock of the world. The NO voters naive condensention and NO campaigners vitriolic hate was noted also during the campaign, from the unprovoked violence to the Nazi salutes, to the spitting, to the egging of windows, and to the intimidation. 

You have selected the side of Orange Order, the neo fascist Britannic Party, the BNP, the nutters who are UKIP along with the spineless wonders known as the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party (real Tories), the back stabbing corrupt establishment in Scotland also known as the Red Tories (Scottish Labour who are only a brand name in Scotland after all) who will sell themselves for a decent pub lunch, and lastly the other quislings the yellow part of the UK CONDEM coalition who are so two faced that their name is not worth a mention.

I hope now you too at some point in the future will require...
1. to use foodbanks because the social security benefits to which you are entitled are sanctioned for no reason.
2. will have to live on £100 per week for which you paid into the corrupt UK system for 20 years, and which is routinely taken away from you because you are assessed as fine but are actually still ill.
3. to avoid going out because you feel so sore and tired, and you do not have enough money to get a taxi or indeed even a bus.
4. when it is cold to choose between at best marginal heating over food.
5. become disabled and then be made homeless because of the bedroom tax.
6. to let your child go hungry because you cannot afford to buy food.
 7. to work overtime on top of a full time job but still not earn enough to actually live on.

I hope you will realise also the following...
1. Ultimately your vote will lead to prescription charges, bridge tolls, and student fees being re-introduced, the council tax freeze ended and council tax benefit for those in need removed. And to all you older people watch as your free bus passes disappear into history.
2. You have decided that useless toxic weapons of mass destruction are more important than your fellow man, and don't really want new hospitals, teachers, child care for a low cost, a fairer social security system, a much better transport system and so so many other positive things.
3. You don't care about the environment as you have decided that it is fine that the fracking of North Britainshire (previously Scotland and Scotlandshire) can be sold off to the highest bidder. You also are really just dieing to have nuclear power plants across North Britainshire (as it is too dangerous to have too many of them down south
4. You have decided that you want the NHS across the whole of the UK privatised. Up until yesterday with a Yes vote you could have decided to stop the privatisation of North Britainshire's NHS but you really don't care about that. 
 5. You have decided really that your votes are useless - indeed I hardly see the point in you going to the polling station in any UK General Election as the outcome of the whole of North Britainshire's votes in the last 100 years has only changed the outcome of a UK General Election twice.
6. You have said that the squandering of Scottish (now North British) resources are fine - you really don't mind that Scotland (now North Britain) could have been the richest country in Europe and you love being poor, even though you are actually the cash cows for the rich London elite and those bankers and billionaires that you obviously just love so much.
7. You have agreed with Johann Lamont the current Scottish Labour 'leader' in that Scots (or the North British) as we are now are not genetically programmed to make political decisions. I didn't agree with her until yesterday. Now I am very tempted to actually say she is quite right.
8. You have shown that you really don't care about the rest of the UK either. A Yes vote would have led to a political and cultural realignment in South and West Britainshire too, and even allowed some of the non Londoner South Britishers to have a say in their own Government.
9. You were on the side of the corrupt British establishment. Anyone for a free duck house on Westminster Parliamentary expenses? Oh I forgot that is only available for our betters and we of course we should condescend to actually ask for enough food. No, no they know best.
10. That you are going to have to get used to what was termed, after the failed referendum in Canada, the Quebec effect. Gone will be the optimism that preceeded this vote, and now we shall no doubt have a North Britainshire recession to boot.

And most importantly do you not realise that for the first time ever yesterday all people of North Britainshire had the sovereignty of their nation (now ex nation) in their hands, and you decided to give it away for nothing.

Thanks NO voters. You have significantly contributed to the further demise of North Britainshire and I do hope you will be happy. Just don't come complaining about any of the above (plus many more things I haven't the energy to mention). After all thanks to your vote any thoughts of a better future for any of us except the rich Westminster and priviledged elite has been destroyed for the near future if not forever.

North Britainshire is not too wee to be independent, and nor is it too poor (although we could have a damn site better off if you had looked beyond your own wee cossetted worlds). However after yesterday I do wonder if we people of North Britainshire are actually too stupid.

I do wonder what your motivation was however. Was it fear? Or was it money (I do indeed wonder if you were paid to vote NO at the polling station) as people went in Yes and smiling, and frequently came out dejected and avoiding eye contact.?

If this is Better Together and the best of both worlds then God help us, as Elaine C Smith said a few weeks ago. Unfortunately my belief in God after yesterday has been extinguished for good. Yesterday was his or her last chance.

The below pictures have the following qualifications since earlier today. The words Scottish Parliament shown in the first poster should be replaced with North Britainshire Regional Parliament. The second one should be changed to Vote NO to stop North Britainshire's people having control over their own region.

I want to sincerely thank all my ‪#‎Yes‬ voting friends

#‎indyref‬ ‪#‎Scottish‬ ‪#‎Embarassed‬ and ‪#‎Ashamed‬ for ‪#‎Scotland‬, also previously known as ‪#‎Scotlandshire‬ and now demoted to being ‪#‎NorthBritainshire‬.


I want to sincerely thank all my ‪#‎Yes‬ voting friends for going out and voting yesterday and those who sent postal votes in. I am extremely proud to have been part of a wonderful ‪#‎YesMovement‬ campaign which we most certainly won. Our campaign was positive, clean, empowering, and was achieved through great feats of endurance all given for the love of the cause from money entirely raised from Scotland (now North Britainshire).

How could anyone vote NO based on no vision, no plan A, no promise of any improvement whatsoever? The ‪#‎BetterTogether‬ activists were largely bought and paid for, and their campaign run by the rich, powerful based in our masters region in the South East i.e Londonshire (the rest of England and Wales being South Britainshire).

I have no regrets. I was on the right side, doing the right thing for the right reasons. And I would strongly argue that a NO meant the exact opposite. Unfortunately we must all now unfairly suffer. So what ever more and worse shit but different day. Everything always gets worse in the Godforsaken country of ours (the country I am referred to is the UK).