NHS IT will be fixed the day after the first fusion power station goes on-line

[hirez]

In receipt of a(n) SMS earlier in the week, allegedly from m'GP (who have quietly turned into a hopeless shower, which is sad) which went along the lines of 'We are updating our records and wish to know if you smoke. Please reply 'YES, EX or NEVER''

At first I was tempted to reply along the lines of 'Please send me your data-protection documentation and copies of any risk-assessments you may (or may not, most likely) have done, paying particular attention to the notion of wrong numbers, re-used numbers, shared mobile phones, nosy partners, stolen mobiles phones and the actions of News International. Bear in mind I used to hack on surgery-management kit and I don't imagine it's become any less terrible in the intervening years Honestly, what were you useless bastards thinking? Further consider that specific question doesn't usefully break down into the categories you think it does. For instance, I smoked moderately heavily between summer 1993 and ditto 1994. Now to a tiresome rules-lawyer, that makes me an ex-smoker. However, since I don't know what crap probability-of-expense patient-mortality forecasting game you're playing, I'm going to take it that cycling daily and being able to blow your lung-capacity test off its end-stop means I fit in the 'never' box. Christ, it's not like it was even hard to give up like all the adverts allege.'

But that would have been a right faff to prod in on the squitty Android finger-painting pad.

Then I thought to reply 'NEVER'); DROP TABLE Patients;--' but that would probably guarantee that I would be subject to regular and vigorous prostate examinations for the rest of my life.

In the end, I went with boring, nearly true and 'remember this for a piece to livejournal'. So there you go. I would be interested to discover if this is A Thing now.

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

'NEVER'); DROP TABLE Patients;--'

Oh, Bobby....

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Oh and I'm not sure they're trying to work out mortality or anything so complex. It's probably a Governmental box-checking exercise to determine how much funding to give to local smoking cessation services. So actually, lying may be the best policy if your aim is to see more investment in preventative medicine in your area.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

yes, ex or never?? Those are terrible choices. What if you're 48 and smoked as a teenager? Craziness. I don't consider myself an ex-smoker, just a ex-stupid kid.

[reddragdiva]

What is actually happening here: It is the first four months of the year, so every GP surgery is frantically trying to tick all the boxes for Quality Outcomes Framework payments, which have to be in by March 31st.

(These were introduced to turn GP patient management into a box-ticking exercise, with the incentive being buckets of money. They expected 75% payments in the first year of the scheme; it turned out to be over 90%, because the incentives worked. This was when you heard government ministers and senior civil servants making otherwise-incomprehensible statements about "greedy doctors"; what they were saying was "damn, they beat us." The QOF rules are tweaked each year to make it harder for the GP surgeries to collect, and never mind whatever they were supposed to be measuring.)

So in the first bit of the year you'll get your GP bothering you repeatedly to get you to come in and waste your time.

[I should save this for cut'n'paste.]

[hirez.livejournal.com]

:D

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Our lot have paid an external company to produce a survey for our staff - "our digital future" or some such bollocks. I've never seen such a shoddy fluffy vague pile of crap - and not a single solitary question or statement regarding security of information. In fact the entire thing appears to have been guided by senior management just to get us to allow Twitter and iPads. Fucking idiots.

Mind you, the funniest thing is that we're now so understaffed that the office has become very open plan, with temporary reception staff and often very few people in the office - last week I came in to find some lost people wandering about the office where they could have picked up all sorts of documents (because security ends at the printer, obviously).

Grrrr.

And don't get me started on the application "we only write for firefox" developers.