JRJ

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Following the phone call from their rheumatology > department, when I told them I'd already had the > jab at St Thomas's, I've just now had a text from > Kings, saying they are inviting "specified > patients" to have the jab there, and to ignore the > text if an appointment is already booked with my > GP or another hospital. > > They then give an email address to which you have > to respond with your details - which include your > KCH hospital number (if known) but not your NHS > number. > > This all seems like a terrible waste of admin > resources. Surely there must be/should be a > central database? No? > > I'm waiting for a call from my GP now ... > 🙄 Hi Sue, Unfortunately joined-up admin has been sacrificed (rightly imo) in order to vaccinate people ASAP. I work for a team at KCH that has many, many CEV patients. We know that primary care roll out is patchy - not GPs? fault, just uneven distribution. But we want to get our vulnerable patients done to try and keep them safe. We have given a list of our CEV patients to the hospital so many are booked into the dental unit that way. But many miss that call, or are unsure and want to discuss with us (their specialist team), or find it difficult to get to the hospital, so we are also doing some specific small sessions in the community just for our patients. The screening questions for all the vaccines include asking if you have had one previously, or indeed any other vaccine in the last week, so we hope multiple vaccinations don?t happen. But getting multiple contacts is better than some people missing out, we think. Agree it isn?t ideal, but hopefully helps a few more people get done.

Thank you. I took your advice and contacted Lewisham, and they were extremely helpful. In case anyone else is interested they do not require the documentation from out of borough applicants.

Hi Does anyone know enough to confirm that you don't need to provide proof of address or parental responsibility at this initial stage of primary school applications in Southwark? The website and guide don't seem to mention it, but application pages from other boroughs (including Lewisham) say that you definitely do need to do it now. Our top 2 schools are actually in Lewisham as we live close to the border. I don't know if that makes any difference, but it would be very tedious if we missed out on a place due to misunderstanding admin requirements. I have phoned Southwark admissions line but they were not able to confidently answer, and suggested that I email instead. Which I did, but the answer won't come for 5 days and the deadline is in 2. Thank you

We really like it and our kids have been very happy there. Friendly staff and great outdoor space. A new manager started this month but the deputy manager and room leaders have stayed the same so we are confident that there won't be a major change.

Hi jessmc the distances for the council run schools are published on the relevant council websites. I have found that other schools seem happy enough to tell me their distances for last year when asked directly. hope that helps JRJ

Thank you Renata

Thank you Bonaome, that is useful. We have a very well regarded school pretty much at the far end of our road, and the only older kids we know on our road go there, but it looks like the catchment for it has shrunk and shrunk and we would have been some 100+m outside it last year. Another one that we like the look of is a little further away but we would have scraped within the distance figures in the last couple of years, although someone in the office there told us that the furthest distance figure quoted (and it is a council one) included siblings. I am hoping that they were mistaken! I appreciate your taking the time to answer.

I would be helpful if anyone could help me interpret the published last offer distances for schools please? We are looking at Sep 2020 primary entry and trying to get a feel of where we may or may not be likely to get a place by looking at the catchments for previous years. When the council list the furthest distance for an offer, does that include sibling offers too? One school I contacted suggested that it did, in which case it isn't very helpful at all... Thanks J (I appreciate the importance of including some nearby bankers in our 6 choices so as not to end up at the other side of the borough. And that including a couple of unlikely ones won't harm our chances with others on the list. But just not sure how many more aspirational options it is worth going to visit)

Hi We have 2 at the Bright Horizons (eldest started in 2016), and are very happy with it. Please pm if you would like any more details

Just in case anyone else is interested, the OP has confirmed to me that they are talking about the Bright Horizons in Dulwich, not the one by Peckham Rye.

Hi, Please would you be able to clarify which Bright Horizons nursery you mean? There are a couple in the area. Thank you

Hi Please could you give me some more details? What do you mean by 'major gas leak'? Where / when etc? Via pm if you prefer. Thank you

Hi TE44, I'm sure you know this but in case anyone was just skim reading the links and didn't get the gist, the crux of the case that you are referring to is not about the MMR being risky, but about particular batches of MMR vaccinations produced by a single supplier many years ago allegedly being less effective at protecting against mumps than the manufacturer claimed. Someone whistleblew. No legal case has ever been won. I am not an uncritical fan of Big Pharma, and have no idea of the truth of this case. But it is definitely fair to highlight that even if it were proven it wouldn't undermine the case for MMR vaccination, but just reiterate how important that the right disease strains are selected, and that Merck shouldn't lie. You can get non-Merck MMRs in the UK if you are that concerned about it.

Hi JL Dulwich It isn't entirely true that you have to be 16 to legally consent to treatment. At 16 capacity to consent becomes presumed, unless there is good reason to doubt it. And below 16 I don't think children can refuse treatment that is felt (by doctors and parents) to be in their best interests. However, children below that can consent for things (even if parents disagree) if they are jusdged to be 'Gillick competent'. This stems from a case where an underage girl sought contraception, and essentially it involves a healthcare professional making a decision on whether the individual child is competent to make judge for themselves whether they want to consent to a specific thing or not. It is dependent on the child and the medication / procedure / whatever, and a much higher bar of understanding benefits v risks would be required for something invasive (e.g. a procedure or medication) compared to something for observation (e.g. having blood pressure taken). I also can't quite believe the MMR debate is ongoing. Andrew Wakefield has been entirely discredited. Measles kills. Mumps causes male infertility. Rubella causes congenital abnormalities. None of them are nice.

Hi TE44, Your Cochrane review says: cumulative evidence from studies shows that the vaccine is good for children 2+, and there isn't much data about those under 2. Here is a more recent review of LAIV (as you requested) in school-fed children: also good. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14760584.2015.1078732 Plenty more by searching on Pubmed (abstracts available without journal subscriptions).