Helen Chown

Slightly Ballroom is back at JAPS on Tuesday September 6th. Make friends and move! You can even plan a wedding dance. All you need to know is on www.slightlyballroom.co.uk.

Thanks!

Several beginners have moved up to the improvers' session, so there are plenty of spaces on the beginners' Slightly Ballroom floor. See www.slightlyballroom.co.uk for full details, come and dance, and go to bed with warm feet on these cold nights.

SCOre, our very own East Dulwich chamber orchestra, is straying across the border into SE21 for a spectacular evening at All Saints Rosendale Road with the Maidstone Singers on May 21st. www.southcircularorchestra.co.uk

Thanks Tabbycat! Very good to see some positive feedback, and I agree that the staff work very hard for us. An apology for last week's mistake with the surveys will be coming soon, I am assured, though the surveys have not been modified as far as I know. Helen Chown, PPG.

We are still tripping the light fantastic over at JAGs, dear dancers. Easter closure just on April 22nd, back on Tuesday 29th. www.slightlballroom.co.uk

DMC sent out its patient survey erroneously under my name, for which no doubt it is very sorry. It did not come from me or the Patient Participation Group. As chair of the PPG I am busting a gut trying to help them provide a better service on diminishing resources, so I was happy to add an encouraging note which has, I see, been edited. I added some questions to the survey which have been formulated so badly that the answers will be almost useless. Practices are all supposed to send out an annual survey like this. Results are available nationally and are supposed to help service planning. Ha! DMC has demonstrated that this survey software is not foolproof! As my email address was included in the mailing, I am doing my best to answer all your replies. Yes, there are 12,000 patients. Practices are not allowed to close their lists. DMC CPR receives only 0.9 of the possible allowance per patient as East Dulwich is not seen as medically needy. We are assured that there is a full complement of both clinical and admin staff for 12,000 patients. Patient feedback indicates that the doctors are almost always excellent but it is hard to get an appointment, leading to frustration, anger and often real distress. There are some very good administrators. The pharmacists are excellent. The nurses are too busy. District Nurses now come from Guy's and St Thomas's and don't always fit our visits in. There will soon be a Community Psychiatric Nurse appointed. I hope the CPN will keep a few sessions available to overstretched staff.... The PPG is giving itself a year to September to see if we can do anything useful. If we can't we shall disband and allow DMC to carry on without us. It is possibly useful that we have averted the start of Telephone Triage, where GPs assess our needs on the phone, until practice telephone monitoring demonstrates conclusively that this is a reliable means of communication. GPs seem to feel that they are mostly likely, after phoning patients, to end up asking to see them anyway, so their workload could increase rather than lessening. If you read the attachment, you will see that we are trying. Some of us are very trying. Helen Chown.

About ten years ago I interruptedted a conversation in a then trendy furniture shop in North Cross Road. A woman wanted an oak dressing-table stool seat re-caned. I said I could do it but not yet. She brought me the stool and I did the job in due course but lost her details. She has never contacted me. Do you know who this woman might be? I can't bring myself to get rid of the stool while she may want it back. Helen.

Find out more about Tango South London on www.tangosouthlondon.co.uk, and Slightly Ballroom (ambirnt age <30) at www.slightlyballroom.co.uk, both of which operate on Tuesdays at St Thomas More Hall(s), 116a Lordship Lane, by the bus stop opposite the posh fish shop, on Tuesday evenings, and elsewhere. It's good to go to bed with warm feet after dancing in the winter.

Damzel, Ambient Slightly Ballroom class age around 30. 'Mature punters' fear we are not taking it all seriously enough. New beginners start Tues Sept. 4th 7.30, improvers 8.30, practice to 10.30. www.slightlyballroom.co.uk. Helen.