Establishment wakes up to the impact of NHS Walk-In Centre Closures

A report on the BBC News website reports concerns the health care regulator Monitor that closing Walk-In Centres risks sending more people to A&E departments in local hospitals.

Oops we shouldn't have closed the NHS Walk-In Centres

After Andrew Lansley's campaign to close the NHS Walk-In Centres we now see David Cameron promising a scheme where people will get out-of-hours access to GP Surgeries. One of the features of the Nurse led NHS Walk-In Centres was they were available from 0700 to 2200 364 days a year, however the GPs (mostly private practitioners) thought the funding of this service was a waste of money and led Lansley by the nose into closing down or reducing the hours of the WICs.

No more holidays in Spain?

Given Spain's obstruction of the people of Gibraltar I would be of the opinion that Spain is not a place for any British person to spend a holiday. I was fascinated to see the Spanish Director General of Foreign Affairs declaration that Gibraltar's action of placing concrete block to form a reef disrupted fishing in a special conservation area.

I say "Vote with your wallet" and stay away from Spain.

Spain still has colonies on Moroccan land namely Ceuta and  Melilla and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera just across the Straits of Gibraltar. When they return the land to Morocco, maybe just maybe Spain can talk to Britain about Gibraltar.

Spain has constructed many artificial reefs to protect habitat against illegal fishing! The picture below is an extract from an International Maritime Organisation report.

Country life

Long time no post: I've moved to Derbyshire away from the City. Though at the moment I commute to London (2 hour trip eachway).I now get to see the countryside and the seasons from the train window.

This morning before I set off to the station, at 5:30 am, I spent 5 minutes watching a Peregrine Falcon being mobbed by 3 crows high in the air above my house. No contest really.

Mis-sold Swaps to cost UK banks billions

Over the past decade banks have been boosting their profits by selling Interest Rate Swap deal to SME businesses. The idea was that for a fee the business would be protected from interest rate increases on their bank loans. It is similar, but not the same as insurance. The flip side is that if the interest rate goes down the business has to pay the difference via the bank to the other party in the interest rate swap. 

Back in the 1990s there was a big fuss about IRS deal wrongly sold to Local Authorities. Much activity was focussed on unwinding the deals and paying compensation to the local authorities.  There is no way that the banks didn't know that IRS deals can be very bad news for SME organisations, but the banks gave in to greed again.

They fully deserve a big compensation bill.