NEWSFLASH.Madman in 23 year old VW Scirocco drives 43 miles to Mansfield in snow!

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Durocco.Awesome 4x4 twin engined Scirocco.I want one!.

Yes, this morning, against my better judgement I decided to attempt the 43 mile drive from Sleaford to Mansfield...and ,amazingly!,I made it -).

To be fair it had not really snowed much during the evening in Sleaford, so the car only had a very light "icing sugar" coating this morning. Mansfield though,as I later found out, was a very different story!.

According to conversations that I had with several people at Kings Mill who have been on site overnight, the snow has been coming down in buckets, the result of course is that most area's of the hospital site have perhaps 8-12 inches of snow, and, where the plough has pushed aside material from the roads, it can be found in huge piles over 2 feet in height!

Of course I did not know this as I set of at 7am, and, after making a brief stop at Cranwell service station on the A17,where I ended up helping them to open the pumps, I made my way to work.

The A17 was pretty clearwith only a light "slush" on the road surface,but by the time I got to Newark the depth of extra snowfall since last night was obvious and more of it was now on the carriageway.

The A617 to Mansfield was not that much worse, that was until I got to Bilsthorpe when the road became a little to white for comfort, and the dual sections of the road at the Rainworth bypass and the Mansfield bypass had been reduced to one lane, only used by idiots and people in 4x4's!.This was pretty much the way it remained from that point until I arrived at Kings Mill, but just as I thought that I had cleared all of the obstacles I found a few more in the last few hundred yards.

The slip road from the main carriageway into the rear of the site was very slippery, and as I pulled into the site entrance the incline as I went through the gate appeared to have not been cleared causing the car to scramble for grip.I managed to crawl up the slope eventually, but then when I turned into the compound where my Dept is located I found that the entrance to the Dept car park had been blocked by a huge wall of snow made by the snow plough!. I managed to "abandon" the car in another area, and after wading knee deep up to the entrance to my Dept I finally arrived at 0940...ish!.

More snow is expected today....i think an overnight stop at my folks house in Mansfield Woodhouse could be on the cards !.

A request to (some) 4x4 drivers

Please,please could you stop driving right up against my rear bumper as I try to make my way along some pretty awful roads!. Ok, I know you have a 4x4 and that I may be holding YOU up, but sadly I don't have 4 wheel drive (unlike Anson Clements Durocco!) so I have to be a bit careful. Oh, and to the prat (pr@) in the "60" plate Range Rover who decided it would be fun to spray all of the pedestrians on Berry Hill Road in Mansfield the other day...you are quite simply a total Tw@!

Have a nice day !

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Kings Mill Charity Shop to Close after 22 years of fabulous service.

It has been announced this week that the charity shop that has been a fantastic source of funding for thousands of pounds worth of equipment for Kings Mill Hospital, is to close at the end of August.

Over 22 years the shop has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds,funded the purchase of hundreds of medical devices for various departments and has been a great asset to Kings Mills thriving community.

I have always found the volunteers that work in the shop to be amazing and genuine people, and for that reason alone I, along with many others,will be sad to see them go.

Well done to all of the volunteers past and present who have given their time freely to make such a worthwhile contribution to Kings Mill.

College helping to fight leukaemia

Kind-hearted staff and students from West Nottinghamshire College visited King’s Mill Hospital on Thursday (25th June) at a registration session to join The Anthony Nolan Trust’s bone marrow register.

This is the story that was run in The West Nottinghamshire College magazine relating to the students who attended the Bone Marrow Donor Clinic at my Hospital in June 2009.

To see the full article, please click HERE to go to the College Website.

Who's the handsome chap in the blue shirt I wonder ? :-)

Why are we still so superstitious ?

Walking around the wards at King's Mill Hospital today I noticed that although we have a brand new ward 11,12 and 14, we don't have a ward 13!.It reminded me of the fact that in the RAF whilst based at RAF Cranwell (JPH) I had noted that none of the Jet Provost Aircraft had the "Fleet" number of 13 either.Funny how such sensible and respected organisations such as the RAF and the NHS still fall foul of such mumbo jumbo.........hang on....I'm writing this on the 13th!...maybe I should wait until 2moro to publish it...better safe than sorry :-)

More trivia required?....click HERE.

What!. I am being overcharged for a sandwich ?

Yesterday I popped over to the "Volley Shop" (Voluntary Services if you like!) and purchased a rather nice combo of 4 (quarters!) of Tuna and Red Chutney sandwiches, served up with a selection of veg (Carrot sticks,Celery and Cucumber...very nice!) and a smashing cheese and chive dip. I paid £1.70 for it and to be honest thought it was well worth the cash :-).

Imagine my horror then today, when upon asking for the "same again please", i was asked to cough up £2.50 !.

Now, anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am not one to complain or make a fuss (yeah...really!), but i decided that a price increase of 80 pence in less than 24 hours was a little unfair, and for this reason I did some checking up.....

It appears, dear readers, that (horror!) The volley shop at Kings Mill are charging £2.50, whilst up yonder at the Millbrook unit, the cost of these heavenly morsels is a mere £1.70!.

The reason that i got mine for £1.70 yesterday? Apparently the company that produces these sarnies delivered a "cheapo" to the wrong location, and this has (as you can probably already tell) let the proverbial "cat out of the bag".My investigations will continue...watch this space :-)

King's Mill Hospital.What an Excellent place it is !

I've Just been thinking about how much the hospital that I work at has changed over the last 13 years since I started working here in 1996.

As I type this post the work on the 3rd and final tower of the three towers is well underway, and the 2 towers that have already been completed form an imposing addition to the Sutton Skyline.

Having seen my fair share of hospitals around the UK (well we did visit 35 in 24 hours in 2007!), I can honestly say that the Kings Mill Hospital is now one of the finest,best equipped and most up to date that you could find anywhere in the East Midlands...in fact the UK!

Let us not forget though that without the fantastic staff that keep this service going, from the humble but essential cleaning folk, to the top consultants and the chief exec (your majesty!), this would be little more than an very large warehouse.....with lots of windows and beds.

Keep up the excellent work King's Mill, you are a great hospital,full of great people.

........OK,that should get me a few smartie points...assuming anyone reads this blog that is :-)

http://www.sfh-tr.nhs.uk/

:-)

Had an appointment with my new consultant today!

Yes, today was my fist "official" consultation with Mr Tim Moorby today.I say "official" as i have already met Tim a few months ago, and spoke to him recently when my blood results decided to go on a world tour for 4 months!. Suffice to say,Tim (or should i call him "Mr"as he is a consultant?) ,Anyway,Tim is indeed a very nice fella who told me more about my condition,possible outcomes and predicted treatments in our first 25 min consultation than I managed to get from my previous consultant(s) in the last 3 years!.

The good news is that the CLL appears to be behaving itself for now, with no major change in my white blood cell counts,no enlargement of my spleen or liver, and my Lymph Nodes are not giving me any bother either. Combined with the results of last years blood tests, it seems that (for now!) it is business as usual....hooraahhh :-)

Stick 'em up!....posters that is :-)

What a thoroughly tiring day it was today. Fixing broken beds and blood pressure monitors, putting up 50 posters to tell people about the donor recruitment sessions, checked and inventoried almost 50 sphygnomanometers (BP cuffs!)and then took a ride over to Newark to fix a treadmill!....as if i needed the run :-).
Anyway, i also posted some details about the event on the hospital web intranet, so if you are surfing onto this page from there...hello !.
Just got back from work now, so it's time for tea and a nice relaxing evening...as if!...with 3 feuding children ?......i think a few hours on the ruddy treadmill would be more relaxing !.

P.S if you would like to help us out with this event, click on the menu titled "more" on the advertisement on the post below, then you can print off and distribute them to any places that you think i may have missed...although with the amount of she leather i have burned so far up and down the KTC and the hospital towers, i don't think there are many notice boards left on the site!...but feel free to post them in any locations that you think may encourage folk to join. Thanks :-)

New Donor Recruitment Session at Kings Mill Hospital 25th June 2009

Yet another date for your diary. Thursday June 25th 2009.On this date between the hours of 3pm and 7pm Kings Mill Hospital will be holding an Anthony Nolan Trust bone marrow donor recruitment session.Please, if you are between the ages of 18-40 years old, in fair health and fancy doing something amazing, come along and get signed up to this fantastic cause which is being held in memory of little Joel Picker-Spence from Farndon who sadly died last November after a heroic battle against ALL (Acute Leukaemia).

Thanks :-)

This week I will be mostly sorting out suction units !

Oh bliss.Just spent the whole day repairing,maintaining and moving around suction units and oxygen flow meters for the new hospital move.In fact,today i have serviced around 100 flow meters and 150 suction units! Why ? Well as you can imagine, we can't "nick" the oxygen and suction units from the old wards when the patients are still hooked up to them (the staff/patients would get a little miffed at that!), and we can't supply new equipment to all of the wards in the new building ready for the arrival of the patients after their move.So we have to "recycle" the current equipment from one ward to the next, so that there is a full set of medical equipment at both sides of the journey from old to new, then, when the old ward is closed, we go in and remove the current devices, service them, and reuse them for the next ward move!.All in all a very time consuming but necessary operation. Unfortunately for me, i have been "turning around" a constant flow of both suction units (the yellow and grey devices with a gauge on the top and a filter at the bottom) and flow meters (the clear vertical tubes that they use to meter the amount of oxygen given to a patient).See, read this blog and you will learn all sorts of amazing things!......hang on, can i hear you snoring ? :-)

And so to the Bank Holiday ....thank goodness for that !

So here we are, it's Good Friday and the bank holiday has now officially begun, however i am (yet again!) suffering from an awful head cold, complete with sore throat, runny nose and headache...wonderful!.
Anyway, at least i haven't got to fight my way to work this morning, and as an added bonus i even managed to have something of a lie in also, not getting up until 08:20.....bliss !.
Now, i am lead to believe that Bank Holidays are historically supposed to be a time when folk get down and dirty...doing DIY (Do It Yourself!) repairs and maintenance to their homes and gardens.Me ? Well i am not one for spending my free time doing anything that can be left until another day....like all of the work that is still outstanding in the kitchen,bathroom,living room etc,etc, so i will be actively trying to do now't (or "nothing" for those of you who don't speak Nottinghamshire slang!).

The hospital that i am employed at is currently in the throws of a major move, from the old building which it has occupied for between the last 25 and 60 years (depends upon which dept you are housed in!), to the new, ultra modern £320 million new hospital.
Of course it sounds quite simple doesn't it ? Build a new hospital, move all of the facilities and patients into it...job done.....or maybe not!.
The reality is that unlike most "corporate" relocation's, hospitals have to spend a lot of time "deep cleaning" the "New" building, before they can even consider moving patients and medical services into it. If you have ever had a look around a new building before the cleaners have had a go at it, you will be aware that builders are not really too concerned about the amount of muck that they produce whilst building a new construction, just as long as it is finished on time.Imagine then scaling up this scenario from a 3 bedroom detached home with 16 windows, to a 600 bed hospital with over 3000 of them!, each floor,wall,ceiling and surface must be cleared of dust and paint splashes, and the building has to be "clinically clean" in time for all of the medical paraphernalia and patients to be rehoused in the wards and departments.
This week i was engaged in the task of receiving, unpacking,building,testing and inventorying of 50 new hospital "Acute" medical beds, the ones that are electrically operated and are seen in all modern hospitals.The beds that we have decided to purchase are made by a company called Sidhil Ltd, who are a small/medium sized family business that are based in Halifax UK.The beds are coming in waves of between 20 and 40 at a time each week, and we have (i believe!) ordered approx 200 of them, so i guess that inventorying them will be a large part of my working days for the next few weeks!.
I have taken a few snaps of the work that is going on in the towers at KMH, these are where the new wards will be located, and these are currently the focus of more work and preparation than i guess anyone outside of the hospital could possibly be aware of.So,if you would, please spare a thought for all of the dedicated hospital staff that are engaged in this very intense, very physically demanding, but sometimes overlooked area of hospital life, and, should you ever find yourself in one of the wards of the "New and improved" Kings Mill Hospital, just remember just how much work has gone into making your stay a pleasant one :-).

More news about donor sessions in Nottinghamshire.

Ok, today I had a chat with a lady called Nidia at the Newark Hospital in Newark-upon-Trent in Nottinghamshire. The main gist of the conversation was to confirm that she is more than happy to make available an area within the hospital (at a date yet to be confirmed) to use as location for a donor recruitment session that will be arranged and hosted by the Anthony Nolan Trust.
Anyone who has been following this blog for a while will remember that the little boy Joel Picker-Spence, who sadly died of his ALL Leukaemia last November, was from a small village just outside Newark, and it is for that reason that we will be promoting this event in his memory.
Just got to try to push ahead with similar arrangements that I hope to implement at Kings Mill Hospital sometime in the near future.
A very important part of these sessions will be to make sure that the general public, as well as hospital staff, will be able to participate, and it is to that end that I will (as soon as details are finalised), be engaging the help of the local press,radio and hopefully TV, to spread the word and ensure that as many people as is humanly possible, are given the chance to offer "the gift of life", and perhaps save someones life as a result of registering on one of these sessions.