‘Protect the NHS’ is all very well, but when will the NHS protect us?

After refusing to issue my HRT without a blood pressure test, the GP surgery rang to offer me an appointment.

‘I can come any time,’ I said, trying to be accommodating. Having complained about this particular practice before, I felt guilty. They have been very good at issuing me with repeat prescriptions through their online service during lockdown.

When a polite, cheerful receptionist said I could not have my HRT without an appointment this time, because my annual blood pressure test was due, I saw that as a good thing, a sign they were doing their job properly.

I made a mental note to write about how nice and efficient they were being in this case. Then the receptionist said: ‘I can offer you a telephone appointment next Wednesday.’

‘Telephone appointment?’ I said. ‘But I thought you said I needed my blood pressure testing.’

‘Yes, you do,’ she said, ‘but the nurse who does the blood pressure testing is now working from home. So…’

And her voice trailed off, but its echo kicked around in the land of Covid lunacy, bouncing off the walls of that hollow, terrifying place.

I had to prompt her. ‘Er, how is the nurse going to take my blood pressure over the phone?’

She reacted as if she had never been asked this before. ‘Oh!’ she said, sounding surprised. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how they do it, actually. I suppose she will ask you some questions.’

‘I’m fascinated to find out,’ I said, and I started imagining the possible methods. The only thing I could come up with was that the nurse was going to ask me some leading questions about my lifestyle and family medical history and if I answered them in a particular way, I would be told to go out and buy a blood pressure monitoring device, take my own blood pressure and ring back with the reading, or possibly go online and wrestle with some hideously bureaucratic interactive blood pressure monitoring website.