Tony’s ABC of great healthcare: Agency, Being, (with others, and being a nurse) and Compassion

A lot of things happened or didn’t last week. Northern Rail left me stranded at Manchester Piccadilly Station last Sunday evening. No buses home. A wet and windy night. A distraught J coming to pick me up, a 3 hour round trip. But they are giving me £11.00 compensation. Whoopie!  

Then there was our laser-focused, grammatically fixated (cares more about commas than comas) new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and her back of a cigar packet plan for saving the NHS. As a plan, ‘Our Plan for Patients’, doesn’t actually tell us anything new, and is unlikely to fix anything in the here and now, and feels pretty pointless. I feel very frustrated that once again the suggestion is that the very people who were there for the rest of us during the last 3 challenging years are being blamed for the difficulties facing the NHS today. She is the 5th Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the last 12 years of the Conservative government, and I can’t help but wonder if the finger of blame should be pointed elsewhere and not at patients or health care professionals.  

And although I try and steer clear of politics in this blog, here is a word of warning to the wary. Therese has her new ABCD team at the Department. It includes Neil O’Brien, who earlier this year declared that the 6,000 new GPs promised by his government would not materialise by the 2024 deadline. As an alternative, he thought we should lure retired GPs off the golf course by paying them lots of money. Shades of Aneurin Bevan perhaps. Robert Jenrick joins this dream team. He, at least, has some previous health and social care experience. But just how have we reached a position where appointing the ‘twice lock-down restrictions-breaking’ disgraced former Housing Minister, is seen as a good thing.

For different reasons, I also decided perhaps one can have too much of a good thing. Last week I read one of those fascinating BBC long reads on the subject of supermarkets (now I bet you weren’t expecting that). Did you know that on average we make 221 trips to the supermarket each year? I didn’t. Too much of a good thing? How many of us have just popped into the supermarket for a pint of milk and come out with a carrier bag full of stuff. I have. So, I have changed my habits. I walk to the local supermarket, with just 1 bag. I only buy what I can carry back in that bag. It makes for some interesting choices. Do I buy 1 or 2 bottles of wine and forgo something else because of the weight? It also means I’m more careful with what I buy, so I waste much less. There is a health benefit too, as I now need to walk there more than once a week, so I accrue even more steps towards my #NHS1000miles target.

Somehow this approach feels less frenetic and more slowed down. It was something I enjoyed on my recent trip to Portugal. Way up in the mountains, the nearest shops were to be found in a delightful village called Coja. Whilst there is no Tesco, Sainsbury or even an Aldi, they did have a little supermarket that reminded me of my youth and the early supermarkets we had on the high street. I even found a bottle of wine that was just right for writing blog notes. It was a village where people paused at the Boutique da Tuxa, a bijou pavement café, to take a coffee, eat a simple cheese roll, relax with good conversation and just watch the world go slowly by. Of course, we don’t all live in a mountain village, but we can all pause and take 10 minutes to just sit and practise some mindfulness.

There were goats there too. After chickens they are one of my favourite animals. I have kept many over the years, and even today we have 2 pygmy goats in our ever-expanding menagerie. They are both girls, and although they are called Hansel and Gretel, luckily, they’re not into pronouns. Where I stayed in the mountains, one morning, I was woken up by the sound of goat bells tinkling outside. Getting up I was amazed to see a lady leading a few goats up the street and on to the terraced pastures. We exchanged smiles and I like to think we shared that moment of tranquillity together.

So, I was delighted last week to read of a positive health story that involved goats. Well strictly speaking goats and people. It was the story of Streetgoat. They are a group of folk living in and around Bristol who, across 4 sites around the city, keep goats for milk and meat. They have been doing so for over 7 years. It’s a membership organisation made up of 30 households. Each household pays an annual fee of £70, and everyone has to promise to milk the goats once a week.

The activities of the Streetgoat group addresses many of the important determinants that impact on an individual’s health and wellbeing. They don’t have to rely on supermarkets for milk and meat, and even taking the £70 into consideration, it will be cheaper than having to do that too. Given that the amount of milk each goat gives varies at different times of the year, some of the milk can get turned into fresh soft goat’s cheese, and fresh goat’s cheese is absolutely delicious. Goat-keeping gives folk a purpose, provides company and connection with others. There is always something new to learn, appreciate and gain a sense of achievement. Some of the time, taking the goats to feed, you will be outside, interacting with nature.

Goats are gentle, sensitive creatures and all have a distinct personality. Being around them and caring for them is also great for one’s mental health and wellbeing. Best of all, there is nothing like getting down to milking on a cold morning, and snuggling into the side of goat, feeling its warmth and contentment and enjoying the rhythm of milking. It’s magical. Of course, just like Therese’s plan, keeping goats for therapeutic reasons won’t solve all the challenges and problems facing the NHS, but the story reminded me there is so much more we can do to prevent folk from becoming ill in the first place.