‘Do not go to the NHS walk-in centre, it will only upset you.’ This was the advice from a friend last week as I drove around Tooting with earache searching in vain for St George’s Hospital. How a building with 1,000 beds and 6,000 staff is undetectable to the naked eye is a wonder to me. But it really is the case that this place exists in a Bermuda triangle. Not one sign indicates its presence. My friend explained: ‘They don’t signpost it because they don’t want you to find it by car. They want you to take public transport.’
They? Who are ‘They’? And why do They care if I travel to hospital by car? This was clearly ridiculous, and yet now I thought about it my local GP surgery had virtually ordered me to attend the hospital by London Underground. I had rung them in the grip of aural agony to be told, as usual, that the doctor could only see me in three days’ time.
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