Cyclizine

That's junior doctors in England walking out again. This time for four days immediately after the Easter weekend. Devastating timing. Steve Barclay seems to have no intention to negotiate in good faith. Junior doctors in Scotland currently being balloted about industrial action and consultants about to be asked if they would consider it prior to being balloted.

Also heard this. Relieved that a club that I have a lot of time for is thankfully not involved. Having heard a little more about the backstory, it does sound like there have been a lot of discussions over a long period of time between Poloc and their landlords, so was not entirely unexpected. A lot of Poloc's income comes from using their facilities as a gym and fitness centre, so losing access to that cuts off a huge amount of income that they'll struggle to make up, hence them considering folding the club.

They must've known about it, I agree to go from being told the lease wasn't being renewed last week to folding the club suggests this has been on the cards for a while. Absolute shame, but I suppose that's the risk of not owning your ground or having a secure lease.

The "dissolution" part is pretty ominous, to announce they're folding after only being given notice last week suggests that this might not be a total surprise to them.

Poloc CC have been given notice to leave Shawholm by their landlords after over 140 years. Allegedly Queen's Park want to build a training ground on the site. Sad times, hopefully they'll find somewhere, but their statement about "dissolution" seems worrying. https://poloc.com/club-statement/

This is what I've been told, anyway. I've no reason to disbelieve my friend (an ex Poloc CC 1st XI player), but apologies in advance if this is slandering QP. Shawholm is a lovely ground, does seem a shame. Hopefully Poloc can find another ground, maybe even the public pitches temporarily.

I think that was prior to the current WoSFL being formed. BSC sent round a horrendously spelled document canvassing support for setting up a WoSFL (under the auspices of the EoSFL). They suggested they would field a reserve side in it.

Given notice to leave their ground of 140+ years because Queen's Park offered more money to the landlords in order to build a training ground.

They've previously applied to the ERJFA as well. Turned down because of a risk of stray golf balls from the adjoining golf course, supposedly, although travel may have been the ulterior motive for the blazers... I went to Home Street a few years ago to see Elgin City in a pre season friendly against Jeanfield Swifts (I think @Marten was there as well). Seemed a decent setup then and supposedly more done to the park since.

Prefacing this with the usual caveats that licencing isn't all about the ground, although clearly, it's the biggest obstacle... If it materialises, BODT's ground at Cloverhill is just going to be like Stoneywood Parkvale's ground and will almost certainly be a poorly-draining pitch surrounded by a chicken-wire fence with no real spectator facilities. I wouldn't be surprised to hear Dyce were looking to be licenced, but I'd be surprised about the others you mention. Stonehaven are always a strange one, on paper, they have huge potential - the town has a decent amateur and youth set-up, with good Astro facilities, but the junior club's facilities are as basic as they come in the north, plus they've previously been on record as being unkeen to consider playing in a league with a bigger geographical footprint. That was several years ago, pre-North pyramid, so maybe things have changed.

This is bollocks, they rejected the idea of a Benelux league last year.

There's me thinking our performance against Hamilton was embarrassing. Thanks Aberdeen for lowering the bar further.

This isn't really true though, although often quoted. Common drugs are mostly purchased on a bulk basis through national procurement so the NHS benefits from economy of scale. The costs involved in setting up manufacturing facilities for the thousands of drugs in use would be prohibitive. Pharmaceutical companies are transnational and produce on a massive scale.

I believe the BUCS team is exclusively students, but the EoSFL team includes non-students.

Medical school intakes are increasing, but if you're increasing the number of medical students, you need to increase the number of postgraduate training posts. There's a huge bottleneck and a huge amount of attrition. We lose a lot of trainees to the Antipodes, but also to locum posts where pay is better and the training (that which exists) is similar. More students means medical schools need more capacity, we are really struggling, we just don't have the ability to place and appropriately supervise all these students, particularly in general practice, as there are limited spaces.

They're using private facilities in England too, I have colleagues down there. There is such a backlog and cases are building up, hospitals are full of acute patients, so it is difficult to admit patients for planned surgery. Easier to do low complexity stuff in a private hospital without worrying about if you've got a bed for them. This paradigm was (and still is) NHS Scotland's long term plan: elective care centres dedicated to routine care, with dedicated staff, so they shouldn't be impacted by emergency work. The problem is there's not enough staff and they're often moved from elective work to emergency work. In terms of agency work, money is one advantage: whilst an ODP might earn ~£16/hr working for NHS, they could easily double this and more, working agency, with the flexibility this entails. Obviously there are disadvantages: sick pay, holiday pay, no job security etc, but for many the remuneration compensates. We're seeing similar with junior doctors. Why work for £15-25/hr in "training" when little training is provided and the job is primarily service provision when you can work as a locum and legitimately just do service provision, but be paid at a rate commensurate to the responsibility.

I'm not really aware of any insourcing in my area (theatres and critical care). We certainly lease private facilities for NHS work and use outsourced teams to treat NHS patients in these facilities (although we also use NHS staff), but also make extensive agency staff in NHS facilities. Big shortage of theatre staff: nurses, ODPs etc and many do agency work in the short and long term. In one area, we outsource theatre staffing to one agency, but provide the surgeons and anaesthetists. In another, an agency fully staffs the theatre.

It's a special health board, along with things like the SNBTS, NES, NHS24 etc. The health service priorities are set centrally, but you need some sort of local accountability and organisation.

So be constructive and explain how you think it should be structured. What does "centrally run" mean?

The situation you describe doesn't really happen though - you're referred to the most appropriate place, which will generally be your local district general hospital, unless you're in need of a specialist service which would be in one of the tertiary centres or one of the national centres if it's super-specialist. There needs to be some form of organisational structure, the Scottish system of regional health boards (similarly used in Wales and NI) allows services to be tailored to local needs, whilst reducing the bureaucracy associated with multiple quasi-independent trusts. What would you suggest would work better?

We haven't had trusts in Scotland since 2004. There are fourteen regional health boards plus several special health boards that provide national services.

I know, I thought she'd stick to Nairn Sainsbury's rather than the big Tesco. I see her as more an Ionic Bar drinker

I had to politely ask Tilda Swinton to move out of the way in the Elgin Tesco fruit and veg aisle so I could get my trolley past.

I suppose the difference there is those clubs would be playing in leagues of a different nation to the cup.

rsssf.org is awesome for this kind of stuff: Minnows in Cup FInals Edit: on a really quick look I could only find third tier winners in Europe: Luxembourg: 1970/71 Jeunesse Hautcharage (3, pr.) 4-1 Jeunesse d'Esch (1) Sweden:: 1948 Råå IF (3, pr.) 6-0 BK Kenty (3) Edit again: in fact, if I'd scrolled down the page, I'd've seen this has already been done and I've missed loads. The following European clubs won domestic cups playing at the third or equivalent level: 1900/01 Tottenham Hotspur England 1917/18 RCH Netherlands 1919/20 CVV Netherlands 1920/21 Schoten Netherlands 1948 Råå IF Sweden 1970/71 Jeunesse Hautcharage Luxembourg 1982/83 Lechia Gdansk Poland 2012/13 FC Pasching Austria 2015/16 CSKA Sofia Bulgaria