The Seed Is Planted

It's 13 Feb just around 5 pm and the phone buzzes to indicate that a message has arrived. Whitewater Health had sent out an SMS advertising a Veterans Health Information evening, to take place at The Hook surgery on 26 Feb.  The message promised a short talk on the support that the practice can offer along with local services and a guest speaker from Basingstoke Veterans Club.  The inclusion of a Basingstoke Veterans Club speaker should have been enough of a clue but I failed to realise that, upon accepting the invitation, it would eventually become a challenge that could not be refused.

26 Feb arrived and I trundled along to the surgery, along with probably 30 to 40 other veterans, not really knowing what to expect.  Dr Mould started the briefing by explaining what it meant to the surgery when a veteran required treatment, and how being veteran sometimes opens up other avenues for treatment that would not normally be available to non-veterans.  A run through the e-consult system; how to complete it, some hints & tips on how to get any urgency across to the triage staff and how once completed the submittal was assessed and assigned a priority and to the correct Doctor, Physio etc.  All good and easy to understand so far, then the challenge started to materialise.

The Basingstoke Veterans were asked to briefly explain what they were, what their aims were and how they were going about achieving them.  So followed probably around 20 mins from Bertie Taylor (Chair), Ian Williams (Sec) and John Swanston ("The Doc").  We learnt about The Basingstoke Veterans Club just as we were promised, cue to sit on my hands and have a talk with myself, and as they finished their brief Dr Mould said, in an almost throw away manner, "Wouldn't it be good if there was something like this in Hook".