Question: How long does it take to see an eye specialist at the weekend if you live in Worcestershire?
Answer: Nearly a whole working day and x miles of travelling, in my case at least!

[More:]

That's right. I woke up yesterday with a bloodshot watery eye, which hurt when I moved it. I made a quick phonecall to the out of hours GP service, who said normally they'd just send me to the pharmacy but as I was a diabetic, they would see me. Just as well really, as after waiting half an hour at Worcester to see a primary care GP, I was on my way to see the nearest on-call opthamlologist - x miles away at the eye casualty in Birmingham.

No need to say that it's just as well I wasn't relying on public transport and had a willing husband to chauffeur me (there's no way I could have driven!) to City Hospital. Anyway after about four hours wait at the eye casualty there (just as well the grandparents had been able to take the children for us!), I finally saw an opthalmologist who said I had a painful flap of skin on my eye from a cornea scratch that hadn't healed properly. He quickly sorted it out.(For those who like the gory details,he hacked off the piece of skin. Oh ok, hack is a bit of an exagerration, he put in a local anaesthetic and used a cotton bud to reopen the scratch and remove the piece of skin.) He then gave me some cream and I was on my way home.

To me that just about seems to sum up the NHS, some excellent individuals providing good care within a totally disorganised and wasteful system!

And for me the bad news is that though the eye should heal perfectly, I can't use it as an excuse for not having my wisdom teeth out tomorrow and I'm not supposed to swim for two weeks! Bang goes my exrcise/lose weight plan. Doh!