Mike Packwood

NHS111: 24 hours to get a Doctor to visit a 93 year old partially deaf and blind man who had internally bleeding. Over the course of this weekend our family has received the most appalling service from NHS111. I’ve made a formal complaint on the telephone and am awaiting the results. I’m typing this today because the GP (who eventually came) told me  too, on the basis that if you don’t complain no one will know and nothing will get better and also because by the end of it, I may well have calmed down and put it to the back of my mind, because frankly I’m still seething. My dad is 93. He recently lost his wife, my mum, to cancer and now lives alone in Hereford in his apartment. He’s old, he’s frail, he’s almost deaf and registered blind. He never bothers anyone. He’s had  his fair share of medical problems over the years, but by and large, he never complains and doesn’t ask for much. So when I arrived at his place on Saturday morning and the first thing he said was that he n

The fabulous Mounts swimming pool where I did my mile - picture from the Architectural Review I was just reading about the ‘new’ bus station in Northampton being demolished and it reminded me that I lived in Northampton when it was built in the first place, having moved from its original location in Derngate. Similarly I remember the Chronicle and Echo building moving from the corner of the market square to its new location on the Mounts and now that's gone too along with the Chron itself which has sadly turned from a daily into a very poor weekly newspaper. This post is just a bit of a trip down memory lane for me about the time that I grew up in Northampton- during its transition from sleepy market town to 'Third Tier New town' in the late 60's and early 1970’s. To me during my childhood, Northampton meant the Mounts. The fire station where my dad took me on open days, the pool where I did most of my swimming certificates and much later on the police statio