The lunatics are running the asylum

Had a bit of a situation this week. Got a phone call midday on Thursday from Cornwall Primary Care Trust asking us to send in invoices for some washer disinfectors that we were invited to express an interest in 3 months previously. All the paperwork was completed and sent off in good time and we heard nothing until the phone call when we were asked for invoices by Friday at the latest. This gave us less than 48 hours to order the equipment, have it delivered and submit the invoice to the PCT. All this for a possible funding of 30 percent of the cost. Obviously this is impossible to do, but this is the reality of government announcements about 'increased funding for dental practices'. If this didn't happen time and time again it would be almost funny.

When all the lights go out..

Challenging day Thursday. Power cut right in the middle of the afternoon. As I desperately tried to find out if there was a problem inside the building, more and more patients were arriving. One poor woman had had her injection for a wisdom tooth extraction, but it became increasingly clear that we would have to abandon any treatments as it wasn't safe to continue with no power. Generally patients were very good, although one woman was complaining about her taxi fare in and I ended up offering to pay her fare for her! About 5 hours later Western Power got the electricity back on. Still the emergency lighting works..

A load of old cobblers..

Spent the weekend looking for a granite cobble. Generally I suppose that we suffer a very small amount of theft and vandalism compared to other businesses and certainly in other parts of the country. Our front car park however seems to be a destination for skateboarders and invariably our tree feature keeps getting damaged (we've had to replace the tree once). This time the cobbles around the base of the tree have been dislodged and thrown into the bushes. We couldn't find all of them and that's why I've wasted 4 to 5 hours of my weekend to date trying to find a replacement. This low level thoughtlessness and pettiness is probably endemic in our society, but I just find it all a little depressing. I've resisted it but I am finally considering CCTV to start catching these vandals in the act .

Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference..

I was struck today how some businesses consistently seem to get things right and how some seem doomed to struggle. We had arranged for a firm to pick us up and drive us and the car back home after a night out. As time went by eventually we decided to phone them only to be told that they had us down for tomorrow night! As the realisation that we were stranded hit home I took the opportunity to tell the dispatcher what I thought of him! (this was the second time this firm had got the night wrong in us using them only 3 times) Shortly afterwards I was attempting to put up an Aga pan holder only to discover that the wrong size wall fixings had been sent with the screws. Sometimes its just the smallest of human error that can completely spoil the relationship between a client and the business. Please if we ever do this sort of thing for a patient, let us know so that we can learn from our mistake. My mobile number is 07779044321

A Knights tale..

Staff party this week. I always try to do something a bit different and this year we'd hired Carn Brae castle. What a great venue - very atmospheric and reminiscent of an earlier age. The girls had played a trick on Jon and convinced him that it was fancy dress - although he complained loudly about being dressed as a king I think he actually revelled in the extra attention! The maitre'd looked rather unimpressed though - I think he thought Jon was a complete madman...