Then I decided to use the MyEnergi eddi device to control the hot water tank.

PV feeding an immersion made financial sense when exports were "deemed" (e.g. 50% of generated under the old FIT arrangement), but now I think many people are on an smart export guarantee tariff, so every unit not exported means a reduction in income - it effect it costs about 15p/kWh to heat water that way (compared with maybe 6p ish to do it by gas (depending on boiler efficiency etc)). Environmentally it's swings and roundabouts of course, but quite likely your kWh might be better spend displacing a kWh of gas fired electricity generation (at perhaps 60% efficiency)  than gas fired local hot water generation (at perhaps 90% efficiency). Depends on your gas boiler of course - if yours still has a pilot light, I guess it's not in the efficient condensing category...

Another approach (which I've got) - is to have solar thermal panels in tandem with PVs (if you've got the roof space of course) - simple thermal panels get many more kW out of a sq m of roof than PVs, even if it's only "low grade" energy as warm water, it's perfectly useful for heating (even pre-heating) a stored hot water system. In my case it feeds a thermal store that provides space heating as well as domestic hot water - so the thermal panels make a contribution to the underfloor heating in winter too.

   - Andy.

Simon Barker said:

For all practical purposes, the nurses are prescribing medicines now.

Very highly (and appropriately) qualified Nurse Practitioners, though?

Chris Pearson said:

One of the other problems is that being a full-time partner in (NHS) general practice is no longer attractive, so there may be more doctors who work a total of fewer hours.

My former GP is a similar age to me, and retired about 5 years ago (under age of 50) to move on because of unnecessary issues and pressures in the profession at the current time. There are a multiplicity of issues for those in the profession.

gkenyon said:

Very highly (and appropriately) qualified Nurse Practitioners, though?

I'm sure they are.

Sound like your former GP was "Burned out" due to early COVID.

Did you hear that all those British "kludge" ventilators were never used and I think had now been trashed. 

Talking about COVID, the US had decided to have another  round of vaccine shots (against a later strain ) for everyone, late this year.

Peter  Brooks

Palm Bay 

We also have them trained for Cardiology.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay 

Peter Brooks said:

Sound like your former GP was "Burned out" due to early COVID.

She retired about 6-8 months before first reports of COVID abroad (which if memory serves was about 3 months before the pandemic hit the UK)? However, burned out because of the work conditions even at that time ... perhaps?

Peter Brooks said:

Did you hear that all those British "kludge" ventilators were never used and I think had now been trashed. 

Along with a load of other stuff purchased in the "panic".

Peter Brooks said:

Talking about COVID, the US had decided to have another  round of vaccine shots (against a later strain ) for everyone, late this year.

That's interesting. Some groups were offered them last year in the UK ... I would have had one, but I booked an appointment and got COVID before the day. The period you need to leave it between having COVID and having the vaccine meant I never got one (or didn't need one) last year !

One of the possible options is a combined COVID and Flu shot.

I learned a long time ago never mix shots.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay   

Peter Brooks said:

For men that includes a PSA test.

That is a real can of worms!

If you get a very high result, you may well have Ca prostate, so probably worthwhile.

If you get a very low result, happy days!

The problem is when you get a middling result. The further investigations (e.g. prostate biopsy via you-know-where) may do more harm than good.

I once worked with a medical statistician who had Ca prostate and he reckoned that serial tests were more useful. If the result goes up in a linear fashion, your prostate is just growing with age, but if it goes up exponentially, you have either developed cancer, or existing control measures are failing.

Peter Brooks said:

Sound like your former GP was "Burned out" due to early COVID.

Wonderful thread drift going on here!

Not if he retired 5 years ago.

Peter Brooks said:

Talking about COVID, the US had decided to have another  round of vaccine shots (against a later strain ) for everyone, late this year.

The UK may be doing better than USA.

I get them yearly; my wife gets them twice yearly. The only problem is that she brought it home (from Italy) a couple of months ago. :-(

mapj1 said:

Looking at the same thing another way, what is a reasonable  MTTF of a UK GP ?

Difficult to reduce the starting age. These are the minimum ages: university at 18, pre-registration years at 23, GP training at 25, completion at 28. However, perhaps have a gap year, traditional medical sciences BA, another year or two getting some extra speciality experience and we are up to 30 years.

When the NHS pension schemes were final salary-based, it was easy, but now it is very complicated. So a doctor who started in 1984 would have expected to work until this year to get ½ pay. (Bear in mind that students are not paid, save for the clinical phase in the Armed Forces).

Now then, I am still working (part-time) at 65. There is no real reason why a GP should not do so and indeed I once knew a doctor who retired after his son (he made President Biden look youthful).

So the real issue is to keep GPs longer, which is to say make their working lives better.

mapj1 said:

Looking at the same thing another way, what is a reasonable  MTTF of a UK GP ?

Difficult to reduce the starting age. These are the minimum ages: university at 18, pre-registration years at 23, GP training at 25, completion at 28. However, perhaps have a gap year, traditional medical sciences BA, another year or two getting some extra speciality experience and we are up to 30 years.

When the NHS pension schemes were final salary-based, it was easy, but now it is very complicated. So a doctor who started in 1984 would have expected to work until this year to get ½ pay. (Bear in mind that students are not paid, save for the clinical phase in the Armed Forces).

Now then, I am still working (part-time) at 65. There is no real reason why a GP should not do so and indeed I once knew a doctor who retired after his son (he made President Biden look youthful).

So the real issue is to keep GPs longer, which is to say make their working lives better.

Chris Pearson said:

I am still working (part-time) at 65

It's interesting that you should post that. When I were a lad it would have seemed an odd thing to say, just because the assumption was that (if you were male) of course you would work until you were 65 (if you made it that far). It seems that we're now in the position where, while the state pension age has gone up to 67, there's an assumption that if you have a "good job" you should be able to retire by...55? 50? 40??? 

My suspicion (although I'm by no means an expert in economics) is that this is a blip though and we're going to see more people having to work longer. While being told by 25 year old Executive Recruitment Consultants that they're "past it" once they're over 40...

Andy (due to retire when I'm 66.5)

Andy Millar said:

It's interesting that you should post that. When I were a lad it would have seemed an odd thing to say, just because the assumption was that (if you were male) of course you would work until you were 65 (if you made it that far).

Not would work, but had to work! State pension did not start until 65, and if you had an occupational pension, ditto. In 1948, the life expectancy at birth was 68 years, so 3 years of pension on average.

That said, somebody born in 1948 is now 76 and can expect to live until 87. Of course the average figure is ssignificantly lower because of all the people who have already died.

Incidentally, one of my grandfathers worked part-time until 80. I do not fancy that because I am too busy!

Chris Pearson said:

Incidentally, one of my grandfathers worked part-time until 80. I do not fancy that because I am too busy!

There are significant numbers of professional people who have retired with good occupational pensions (many index linked) who retire at a relatively early age (55, 60) who continue to work in a voluntary capacity, still working but just not getting paid, many well into their 80's and choosing how busy they want to be.  From my point of view the best of both worlds.

Peter Brooks said:

We also have them trained for Cardiology.

My experience of the NHS (at least our local hospital trust) is that it is patchy, some things are very good, many are mediocre.  My wife has access by telephone to specialist trained Arrhythmia Nurses, that she can ring if she needs advice and can get access to Consultant advice, or if necessary fast track access to A&E.  On the other hand, I have been waiting for 18 months for an operation on a near useless thumb joint.  I am told "possibly September"

David

How would you like to see a continuous (never ending) line of sick people every 20 minutes, over your whole work day?

That could be a real mental downer.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay 

The new US mortality tables show that 70 is the new 60!

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay 

A women typically lives 5 more years that a man!

Remember I am not a doctor BUT regarding your wife's problem did they ever check her thyroid TSH?

For you thumb is it trigger fingers? If so surgery will fix it.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay 

20 minutes!!!

10 minutes is the norm in UK.