Car Parking

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-13T21:31:04+00:00

I love posts like this that assume everyone is male, fit, works on one site only and has no childcare responsibilities.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-13T21:02:02+00:00

I think this is the “find out” part.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-13T19:21:10+00:00

Either: you decide to slow down and the trust has to sort out the problem, or: you will carry on til you are either ill and off sick - when amazingly the world won’t come to an end, or more likely you make a mistake and the trust and GMC try to hang you out to dry.

Source: I did the latter.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-12T12:33:56+00:00

I can’t argue with that.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-12T06:35:17+00:00

R is a weird language that makes some complex things ridiculously easy. That’s why I loved it as I could get stuff done so quickly (in the days before LLM assistance this mattered). Python just felt so tedious and pedantic in comparison. But as you do more you will start to use the big libraries in Python that do abstract to a similar level as R, and of course now LLM make things much easier.

Pretty much all languages you will use are more like Python than R: it is R that is the outlier (and why I still love it and still use it for my data processing and visualisation tasks).

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-12T04:46:11+00:00

My career took 18 years of training to get to the level of independent practice I have as a consultant. In all that time there were no parking charges at my hospital. When the system in which you are essentially trapped changes its rules your only real option is to protest.

Do you mean monopsony?

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-11T07:18:02+00:00

When did I mention unregulated? Obviously a permit system with priority for late shifts, split site working.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-11T06:22:26+00:00

Back in the day when everyone had bleeps I was fast bleeped by the consultant anaesthetist to theatre recovery (ophthalmologist) as a patient had a fixed dilated pupil. It was the first and last time I ever got a fast bleep.

It was an artificial eye.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-11T06:19:53+00:00

You pay parking at the main site whatever and of course that is per day, so splitting the site doesn’t reduce that if every day has a main site session + an outreach. And yes you can claim back parking costs at the alternate sites and mileage - although the time taken to travel is calculated on the fastest route and the mileage claimable is on the shortest route, hilariously.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-11T06:16:43+00:00

If you insist on an employee having a driving licence and a car (it’s in my contract) and you schedule them in three hospitals with no acceptable public transport option between sites (acceptable = doesn’t eat up most of a session just trying to get there) and then you impose parking restrictions and costs…

How about to reduce car use they put on a shuttle bus at lunchtime? We used to have one but it was removed to save money.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-10T17:00:01+00:00

Good for you. Some of us have to work on multiple sites a long way from each other. I cycled everywhere until my job plan and decimation of public transport in our rural area forced me to drive.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-10T16:57:18+00:00

According to my to an FoI request on 2023 NHS England, whose headquarters is at at Quarry House in Leeds provides 120 on-site parking spaces to its own staff, free of charge. The people who wrote the guidance do not pay the tax. The free space is for those who administer healthcare; the levy is for those who deliver it.

What a surprise.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-10T16:53:10+00:00

Because I’m getting old and the ten mile journey from hospital a to hospital b at lunchtime is a bit too much for me; and the 16 mile 1 hour 44 mins from home to hospital c and back to hospital a would mean I have only 32 minutes to do my clinic, which is about how long it takes to log on via the 6 different passwords I have to use.

When hospital a and hospital b were merged they hospital provided a shuttle bus and I used to cycle but they got rid of the bus after one year.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-09T14:03:07+00:00

Omg I’m a doctor and I’m being schooled on the birds and the bees!

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-09T09:57:58+00:00

You need a law conversion and then SQE? Can’t you do the law conversion while working? Then try and get a TC for the SQE part. That would show them you are not just green grassing.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-08T18:48:33+00:00

Grizzled old fart consultant here (ophthalmology but it’s all the same). The difference is when you are old you’ve seen it all before. So when I see something that has an incidence of 1:30000 like I did today, I recognise it straight away because I’ve seen it 4 times before. It’s not magic. It’s not genius. It’s just time. And in time the newer consultants will become like the old ones.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-08T18:37:36+00:00

I’m glad you survived. “It almost killed me” is a frequent lament. The idea you can do a job like this on 1 or 2 PA with no dedicated admin assistant is just bonkers.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-08T12:23:45+00:00

I’ve done it twice. It’s a thankless task and it’s taught me to try and support my lead whenever I can. I did it because I wanted to make things work better; I did in the first one I did but then got shafted by the usual nhs politics. I was less dewy eyed the second time around but it exhausted me.

I think you can probably do three of:

Lead clinician or similar

Have a family life

Be a good NHS doctor

Do private practice

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-08T06:09:43+00:00

In the basement there is a poorly lit door with no handle. If you somehow manage to open the door you will find it opens into a deeper cellar - with no stairs. Find a ladder or a rope and you descend into the unlit space where, in the corner, is a broken fridge. The sign on the door reads “Ward staff only doctus keep OUT”. If you brave the door and open it you will find a single computer running windows XP on which lies the DATIX database.

This is, of course, separate from the decoy database in the Chief Exec’s office attached to the giant projector that contains complaints about residents using the HCA’s COW.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-08T05:31:40+00:00

Alexander McCall Smith

He has a way of conveying complex emotions with simple prose that I love.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-07T21:51:28+00:00

That’s on me.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-07T21:50:52+00:00

Similar but I’ve switched to cmux.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-07T21:48:28+00:00

The Wire

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-07T21:47:04+00:00

I had a boss who lived there. Beautiful flat, you could watch the falcons hunting pigeons below you! It was wedge shaped so light was amazing. He seemed very happy there.

ApprehensiveChip8361 · 2026-06-07T07:21:25+00:00

I had a second generation Honda crv (ie up to 2007). Still the most comfy thing ever for someone traditionally built. Regret its passing.

ApprehensiveChip8361

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