Reckon they’d still take us to extra time though.
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The health service in this country.
My brother, who lives in the US, and his American wife and kids have been staying with us for a few days. Last Thursday evening one of the kids, aged 13, explains that an infection they had last summer seems to have recurred. Antibiotics nailed it last year so my sister-in-law asks how we might go about getting some. We dial 111. They connect us to a doctor who establishes that nothing is life-threatening or rapidly worsening and advises Ibuprofen and a trip to the doctors first thing in the morning. We pitch up at my GP’s at 08:45. The receptionist efficiently logs the kid in as a visitor and assigns us the 09:20 appointment with the duty doctor. We ask how much things might cost. She says that for a short consultation about a child the doctor ‘probably won’t charge’. The doctor is pleasant, efficient and reassuringly competent. She writes a prescription for the antibiotics but says that a recurrence of the infection shouldn’t be happening. So she takes a sample which she sends away for tests. She tells my sister-in-law to phone through for the results later this week. We leave. There is no charge for any of this. At the pharmacy they fill the prescription in 15 minutes and charge £6.11 for a three-day course of the pills. Over the last three days these, along with drinking a lot of water, seem to have worked.
My sister-in-law is impressed.
VB
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High praise for a fantastic institution. 
I take it that she will remember this when the orange one next asks for a X. I suspect she will!
She hates him much more than we do. I e-mailed her the day after the election and said “That didn’t go well then”. She replied “The kids woke up screaming”. When she found out that they would be flying home the day he was flying in she said she hoped she would get close enough to him at the airport to kick him.
VB
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I was going to credit the NHS, but technically speaking I think that at the margin the GPs will have absorbed the costs of the consultation and writing the scrip. Of course the fact that there is a GP practice just up the street and that it has enough resource to absorb the odd anomaly is due in no small part to NHS funding.
VB
But. But. But, it’s because of foreigners bleeding the NHS dry that got it into financial trouble.
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It’s certainly because of somebody bleeding it dry.
VB
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Beardy Branson’s mob would be one place to start looking…
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And Virgin Care’s contract as a proportion of the overall health spend is what now?
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a fan of private companies leeching off the simple procedures to make money and destabilise the finances of NHS providers, but there are much bigger and devious players who could be described as bleeding the NHS dry. Try the drug companies for starters…
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4 more boys rescued today. Brilliant effort by the rescue team. Hopefully the remaining kids and their coach will be rescued tomorrow.
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They have been promised seats at the WC Final. I hope they are well enough to go.
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All that diving may give them nightmares though.
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Neymar has gone home Chris.
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I think the doctors have blocked that. They have to stay in hospital for 7 days.
(Radio 4 Today programme)
All 12 boys & their coach out of the cave. An incredible achievement.
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Fantastic news - Monumental team effort.
Wonderful news.
I wonder if the film script has been written yet, staring The Donald leading his brave team of American divers.
The only team of divers he’d lead would have Neymar in it
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Being coached through it over the phone by his mentor Putin.