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)

SOUTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL continues to do nothing about illegally erected fence on public land

Planning Services

South Ayrshire Council

Burns House

Burns Statue Square

AYR

KA7 1UT

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

FENCE: between 21 and 34 LADY MARGARET DRIVE, TROON, AYRSHIRE

On 3^rd July 2006 I visited Troon in Ayrshire where my Mum still stays and where my friend’s family were visiting for a short holiday. I re-attended the site on 2nd September 2013 and within the last fortnight and found it as it was in 2006. 

At the end of Lady Margaret Drive the entrance to Fullarton Woods is blocked by a metal fence, and the path behind is overgrown through lack of use. I was rather confused since the woodland behind the fence is a public space and the road in front of the fence is also a public space. 

This is the house at 21 Lady Margaret Drive, Troon, Ayrshire. Its appearance does not indicate that the owner or owners of this property are in any way responsible for the erection of the illegal fence between this property and 34 Lady Margaret Drive, Troon, Ayrshire (the mentioning of this property also not conveying any responsibility).

 
I discovered by calling South Ayrshire Council in 2006 that the fence had not been erected by South Ayrshire Council and indeed had been placed there illegally by the owner of the adjacent property. Several steps in the past had been taken to have it removed but this had not been followed up recently as no complaints had been received about the lack of a ‘right of way’ at the place in the recent past.
I wish to make a complaint about this fence and ask what steps you intend to take to have it removed. I also wish to complain that although this fence has been erected there illegally you have time and time again ignored pleas to have something done about it.

Thanks for your help and I continue to look forward to a speedy and satisfactory resolution to this matter.

Yours sincerely

 

Christopher Crawford 

NB: An update regarding this will follow shortly once I am able to do some additional research, having received a response from South Ayrshire Council

More NO voting yobs!!!

#‎indyref‬

#Glasgow 19th September 2014

At about 4pm on the above day opposite my house in #Dennistoun a group of people gathered with Union flags. They were rowdy and very loud.

I noted that they were there and started to become worried when they started chanting obsenities aimed at Yes voters, and started to sing Rule Britannia and similar songs.

The ‪#‎NO‬ voting yobs then started throwing rocks at my window (turned out to be a uncooked potatoes, where is a potato famine when you need one?). What a great country the ‪#‎UK‬ is. The window is not broken (the UK is) but what a thump! I wonder if it was some of those Nazi ones from ‪#‎GeorgeSquare‬ the other day. Then again perhaps it was just a normal common or garden Labour party member.

I was shaking before hand because of my ME and not sleeping at all last night, and was extremely sore because of doing far too much for Yes. I suppose I phoned the police although I really didn't want to.

Thinking about it now on the 20th, they must have been congregating for their triumphant riot that occured mainly in George Square later on, when they burned Scottish flags, and beat up Yes protestors with no provocation.

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).

After an amazing week in Scotland, I have today had my Yes windaes egged,

Glasgow's Buchanan Street, Saturday 13th September 2014

I can't quite believe this week in Scotland.

On Saturday in the central belt we had a thousand strong Yes Flash Mob take over Buchanan Street. This was reported on the BBC but only in passing and with pictures of a few YES people with signs from another place. This is what passes for honest broadcasting at BBC Scotland these days.

Edinburgh's Meadows, Sunday 14th September 2014

Also on Saturday we had the Orange Order march to preserve the Union in Edinburgh. The BBC reported this as if it were part of the grassroots of the Better Together campaign and gave it much greater prominence missing the fact that the OO is a sectarian organisation. Come to think of it I have never seen any Better Together grassroots in real life apart from yobs or the Orange Order so perhaps it wasn't far from the truth.

'A Night For Scotland' concert in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh. Sunday 14th September 2014

On Sunday we had the massive Yes March and rally in the Meadows in Edinburgh. This was followed by the 'A Night for Scotland' Yes concert in the Usher Hall in Lothian Road. Afterwards there were a few examples of violence towards Yes supporters, but when it was mentioned on BBC News the removed the bit about them being from Yes.

George Square, BBC Bias Protest, Sunday 14th September 2014

On the other side of the country in Glasgow we had the fifth BBC bias march that was much better attended than had been expected because of BBC News' Nick Robinson's blatant example of bias last week as is shown in the photographs. The first march that they have had started in George Square and finished at the BBC Scotland headquarters on Pacific Quay by the River Clyde.

I also did an internet trawl and discovered pictures which showed someone had climbed the Edinburgh Castle rock to put a Yes sign on it. It transpired that the person who had done it is extremely ill and wanted to protest about Gordon Brown's lies regarding treatment in the NHS in England should Scotland become independent, and therefore was wanting to encourage people to vote YES.

The Wallace Monument with its 'Saor Alba' sign, Sunday 14th September 2014

I discovered that the Wallace Monument has gone YES. This towers over the countryside that surrounds the fair city of Stirling.

I discovered Sannox Beach has gone YES.

And this evening I discovered that Glasgow's squinty Bridge has gone AYE! It becoming partisan follows the Duke of Wellington's statue in Royal Exchange Square going Yes in August.

Sannox Beach, Arran goes YES, Sunday 14th September 2014

However today I have had a second visit from the NO yobs. As I put a lock on my garden gate after the last visit, they would have had to climb over the fence to get in so didn't bother this time. My flat's front windows have become in one respect like Jim Murphy - they have been egged no doubt from the pavement outside the fence. But I don't think my windows will be like Jim Murphy and get blanket coverage from the BBC and other broadcasting media for days on end, do you?

Glasgow's Squinty Bridge over the Clyde goes AYE! Monday 15th September 2014

Just got home from seeing my Mum who is unwell and needs some assistance at the moment, to discover someone has stuck Naw stickers on my front windows.

Just got home from seeing my Mum who is unwell and needs some assistance at the moment, to discover someone has stuck Naw stickers on my front windows. The person who did this was obviously trying to balance the somewhat larger Yes posters on the windows. The former were however easily removed.

If I was a Better Together activist perhaps I could claim assault and get quoted on the BBC, perhaps even making the headlines!

As it is I put it on Facebook as yet another example of the petty minded vandalism being targeted at people displaying Yes posters in their windows and who have Yes Flags in their gardens. It seems that NO activists (the few of them there are in Scotland, many being bussed in from down south and paid for the joy of visiting their northern outpost) seem to dislike the democratic process that is going on in Scotland at the moment.

A YES vote is about social justice, normalism, self determination, internationalism, the future, and the settled belief that we have a very good chance of being able to do things better (as we certainly have all the resources to do so – as the YES and the NO campaigns agree, or at least say they do).

We are one of the most unequal countries in the western world; we have 1 in 3 children born in Glasgow living in poverty; we have one of the lowest life expectancies; we have increasing numbers of people relying on food banks just to feed themselves from week to week, we have western Europe’s biggest nuclear weapons arsenal situated about 30 miles for our largest city, and for 27 of the first 65 years of the post WW2 years we have been ruled by Westminster Governments Scotland didn’t vote for. But we have best of both worlds they say.

All I’d say is if you’re planning to vote No and you’re NOT a billionaire businessman, a UK government minister or a Scottish Labour MP (who doesn't really give a **** about his constituents), it might be worth wondering why that is.

#indyref #scotland #freescotland #yesscot #yesscotland #voteyes #yes2014 #bettertogether #nothanks #saoralba #buchoir