Stupid Targets

We had a meeting this morning regarding a government issued questionnaire given to patients having certain operations and their experience before and 6 months after.

This started last April and we were told "It won't have much work involved but ask the patients if they would fill the booklet in, consent and then they would be sent another follow up form in 6 months". Yeah right.

We find out that the Trust has a return rate of 19% for these forms which isn't great but I worked out our returns at about 64% so was reasonably pleased but I'm sure we could do better. We went to the meeting to find the return rate target is 100%.

We have to try and "convince" every patient to complete the booklet. It is not an essential piece of hospital paper, and trust me there are plenty of them, and we have had patients refuse to fill them in.

This means that the 100% target for a reasonable size hospital and the volume of flow through of patients means someone is going to say no. That means we instantly fail. Where is the motivation in that. We have also been told that if a hospital doesn't obtain 100% they are financial penalised. More paper chasing, pen pusher, target driven government failure instead of treating people and valuing their choices they are data to be collected.

Constance Street, New Basford

I have just been delivering some Liberal Democrat leaflets to Constance Street in New Basford.

Last time I was there I noticed a peice of land sold with planning permission to build a 4 bedroom house that had a significant amount of fly-tipping on it. I reported this to the lady at Nottingham City Council investigating this sort of activity to which I received an email saying she had visited the site and follow it up.

She must have got in touch with the land owner and either one of them has done a good job in clearing the rubbish away and replacing the protective fence. The land looks a lot better for all around. Well done whoever did it.

Nottingham City Recycling

I bike to work every morning. Always the same way so I can usually get to work without thinking too much about the bike ride itself.

Unfortunately sometimes this leaves me time to look around at the surroundings. This morning in our area it was household general waste collection (green bin). There are four of us in our house and I'm amazed how heavy the bin is but at least the lid is always closed.

On the way to work this morning I noticed a bin overflowing with a lid almost vertical but what really gets my goat is the fact that one of the bags on top was full of drinks cans. Really annoying. As much as this City doesn't get right there are large parts that do have access to the brown/grey household collection recycling bin. What else was in the bin that could have been recycled?

Cans are perfectly acceptable in the recycle bin and you don't have to take it anywhere other than the street on collection day.

It does tend to make me seeth that this facility is there freely provided by the City Council and a few people have the arrogance not to do just the smallest little bit.

I hoping that the binmen report it to their supervisors so that these people receive the correct education material to help them mend there ways.

Hopefully printed on recycled paper. :-)

Delivering Liberal Democrat Focus Leaflets

I thought today I'd make a start on my batch of Focus leaflets with a spare couple of hours.

Oh my word it was cold. The car temparature monitor said 0 degrees. Mmm chilly.

The batch I did was part of the Sherwood Rise area of Nottingham which I've not really been to in detail before. Having travelled around a few new areas I have noticed how fantastic and interesting some of the old houses in Nottingham are. And how big some of them are when they were probably in there original format of only one house instead of flats.

It would be nice to have seen some of these areas in their original spendour but unfortunately time takes its toll and some of these properties must require significant cash to maintain.


There were even more substantial properties on another cul de sac that don't appear on Google street view which could look wonderful again but needed significant investment to bring them back to their former glory.

Hopefully I'll carry on seeing these marvels around a few of the other areas I'm due to travel.

Christmas Lunch with Work.

Today we went to Zizzi's on King Street in Nottingham at 12 midday. Possible an unusual time for a Christmas Dinner but definitely worth thinking about.

The menu on offer was the restaurant's usual menu instead of, what I feel, is the standard conveyor belt Xmas dinner that places seem to offer. I haven't found one of these in previous years to my satisfaction. A little bit rushed and generally sub-standard considering the cost.

The meal was very nice without a hint of the rush to get you out for the next sitting I think you would probably find at an evening shindig.

I hoping that next year we may consider this time again.

Bit of community work.

I noticed that the bushes from the local school were getting out of hand at a certain section and growing to block the pavement. So I grabbed how of my mum's clippers, pulled her garden waste recycling bin and got to work. Fifteen minutes later the bin was full, the path was clear and I was chuffed.

Having been told by the Head Teacher how much this sort of work costs them to have done it does give me a little bit of self satisfaction to know that I have saved her this amount of money to be spent of something a little more worthwhile.

Goose Fair 2009

Me and the children had annual trip to Goose Fair yesterday. We managed to park about 1/2 mile away which is always a good thing as the area does tend to get snarled up with traffic.

A pleasant walk there and a good walk around with the boys going on a couple of rides later. The dark arrived about an hour after arrival. This is the best time to see Goose Fair lights in all their glory and the masses of people out enjoying themselves.