I've been thinking about the NHS again, it is hard not to right now what with it being in the news virtually every day. So right at the start I will set my stall out, I still believe that an independent cross party commission is needed to properly sort out the future of the NHS. I said at the start of my NHS blogging that I didn't believe politics alone could sort out the NHS, and recent events have certainly proved that.
What I've also been thinking about is what I want as a patient and what I've got a right to expect. For that I have an analogy.
At my place of work I am, amongst other things, a product manager. As the product manager I have to make a lot of decisions about my product (a piece of software as it happens) and I'll use a couple of areas to try and make my point. My product has customers, and in order for my product to be successful I have to sell my product to both my existing customers and hopefully some brand new ones too. So I have to understand exactly what the want from 'an ideal product' and try and make my product fit that bill as best I can. However, if I ask my customers what they want and they say "I'd like the moon on a stick" please I have some decisions to make. Primarily:
- Can I afford to provide my customers with "the moon on a stick"?
- Am I best placed to be the provider who gives those customers "the moon on a stick"?
Just to flesh that out a bit, the provision of such an enhanced service may cost me a lot of money to provide, maybe it might cost me more to provide than I make in revenue from the product. Also it could be that actually I may not see my product as being a "moon on a stick" kind of product.....it may better fit a different market. So it is with the NHS.
Now. As a patient I may well want "the moon on a stick" but that doesn't mean that the NHS has to provide it, or indeed that doesn't mean the NHS can in any way afford to provide it. The area's I am thinking about are in particular a "7 day NHS" (in a hospital) and being able to see my GP 7 days a week. Don't worry doctors reading this....I'll go onto qualify "7 day NHS"!! In fact I don't remember the government or the NHS asking me what I want at all, because in fact I really don't want to be able to make an appointment with my regular doctor on a Saturday or Sunday (or bank holiday). I am lucky in that my work entails Monday to Friday working and the weekends are my own. But I am also lucky to be in a position to be able to squeeze doctors appointments into my working week because my employer is flexible enough to allow me. I know not everyone will have this view, and maybe for some people a weekend appointment with their GP would be preferable. Whilst I don't want to be ill and ideally don't want to see my doctor, I see this as a 'normal' weekday event, I don't want to be heading down the surgery at the weekend thank you very much. If I am unusually unwell at a weekend, then I can head to my local pharmacy, phone 111 or god forbid I am THAT unwell off to my local A&E.
This part of my analogy may not be a very comfortable read, but it comes into the "am I best placed to provide this service", in particular with reference to it being the 'same' as a weekday appointment. What if the government/NHS decide they are going to provide this 7 day GP service, but what if it wasn't free? Yes, you can see your GP on a Saturday, but it will cost you £10/£20/£30.....there has to be a consequence of providing a service, giving the service absolutely costs money, and we all pay for the NHS through NI contributions....but what if the payment was more in your face? It is one of the reasons that a cross party commission needs to look into EVERY eventuality and what a suitable answer might be. It might not be a wholly palatable answer, but making these kind of decisions helps patients realise that there is a cost and consequence to the NHS providing a service - it may be free at the point of need, but it certainly isn't "free".
Just quickly about that 7 day NHS in a hospital. On June 22nd 2013 as it says in THIS blog I got admitted to hospital. June 22nd was a Saturday. I had problems brewing all week and I was on a collision course with a weekend admission....it was just one of those things. I had become progressively more ill that my wife ended up phoning up the NHS 111 out of hours service in the early hours of Saturday morning. After speaking to a doctor he knew I was sufficiently unwell to need A&E, he booked me into a bed at the MAU and my wife drove me to hospital. I was having an Addisonian Crisis (Adrenal Insufficiency), it is a life threatening condition and I was hooked up to all sorts of IV drugs in the MAU and a week later I was released in a lot better shape that I started. I was in hospital all weekend, guess what, it was full of nurses and doctors and consultants. If you have an urgent medical condition that means you have to be admitted to hospital, you are going to get seen 24/7 - every single day or night of the year, without fail. So yes of course there is a 7 day NHS already.
But in a different scenario, I refer to when my Dad got admitted to hospital, not on a weekend but on a bank holiday - Boxing Day 2014 it was. Again, an emergency ward full of staff to sort dad out who had a double-stroke....although we didn't know that initially. He spent 3 months in hospital and he was well looked after....the problems he faced were two fold....not enough Physiotherapists and none at the weekend and too much time taken for social services to help us find dad a care home, because again they don't work weekends.
It is this element of care that REALLY DOES need to be 7 day. Because we both work, most of the care homes we visited were at the weekend. So when did we most need to speak to social services to ask questions and give feedback as to the suitability of the homes?....the weekend. Dad's stay in hospital was undoubtedly extended by a week or two because of this, it doesn't sound much, but I know well enough how valuable a hospital bed is.
So on weekend emergency care, the NHS delivered for me and it does for everyone. Do I think that I would have liked to have had my pituitary surgery scheduled for a weekend? (the true 7 day NHS the government is on about) I'm not sure, it was urgent but urgent enough it couldn't wait a couple of days? Actually the operation was originally scheduled for a bank holiday, but although my operation got rescheduled to the Tuesday after the B/H Monday, the reason it got rescheduled is because several other urgent patients had to get operated on by the Neurosurgeon....because guess what, the highly paid surgeon works on bank holidays, who'd of thought! So the government have to think is providing me the patient with my surgery on a Saturday or Sunday, is that "moon on a stick" territory or not. Do I want it and can they afford to provide it and is that a service they even want to provide if they could afford it. Evidence that I've seen suggests that they can't afford it, or even staff it right now.
Incidentally something else that occurred to me recently, MRI scans. I've had 4 of them and every single one of them has been at a weekend, 3 in Portsmouth and one in Southampton. Clearly the department wasn't fully staffed, but it was staffed enough to still photocopy a good many humans in great detail. More evidence of 7 day NHS working.
As for GP appointments on a Saturday/Sunday, I don't want them....I honestly don't. Does the general public, probably some do, but I don't know the answer to that one either. Is there enough GP's to provide the service and can the government/NHS afford to provide that service. Again evidence would seem to suggest not.
The government cannot just go around wanting to provide "moon on a stick" level service if it can't back it up with the staffing and the money and some kind of evidence its customers want or need that service. Yes in some areas 7 day services are needed.
I hope I'm making sense here.....it made sense in my head before I typed it out.
Let's get this cross party commission off the ground now. There seems to be some support building for it, so let's hope someone can make it happen.
So as I sit here typing this, I'm wondering exactly which direction this blog will go. I wanted to try and get over how all the NHS news stories look from a patient point of view. The thing is I didn't want this blog post to concentrate on just one area, but in a way that is the whole point. If you listen or watch the news or read the newspapers it will be impossible to miss the stories that are constantly hitting the headlines. When an area gets such constant coverage then you truly know something isn't right.
So I wanted to try and highlight what I mean....
Doctors dispute
Stories like this one:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/22/patients-could-die-junior-doctors-strike-jeremy-hunt
I've come to quite dislike the term "junior" doctors, because it really does do them a disservice. Every organisation has its own way of referring to its staff, but someone who has been doing a job for 10 years is hardly "junior" - but still enough of that.
So the first thing to go into my 'evidence pot' is that the doctors and the government have fallen out big time - this is not good news for people like me, patients. As a patient what I really need is some kind of comfort that the people who will look after me in my time of need will be in a fit state to do so.
NHS - the 7 day service
This area I find particularly annoying. The government say they want a "7 day service", like there isn't one already. I've been in a hospital ward twice during a weekend and there were plently of people on duty to look after me. But I know what the government are getting at, whilst there were doctors and nurses and ancillary staff on duty to look after me, other areas were not, such as physio's, social care, etc. But this is where the story gets muddied
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34150672
The message around what the government actually wants is not clear enough and this has caused patient concern that doctors don't work at the weekend and they won't be cared for if they get ill. This is simply not the case, and the government implying that doctors don't work 7 days is an ill thought out strategy - also part of the cause of the general falling out between the two sides.
Get the message clearer in this area - what the government wants is a full 7 day service, of not just critical care, but all the ancillary services - to be able to book surgery on a Sunday, pop in for an xray or blood test on a weekend etc.
Then comes another area where the experts and government fall out. How will you staff this extra service, when recruitment and retention is already an issue. Throw billions of pounds of public money at a 7 day service by all means, but have some kind of idea how you're going to staff it and also whether that is actually the best way to spend the public money in the first place.
As a patient, has anyone ever asked ME whether I want a 7 day service, and if I did, exactly what would I want from this 7 day service. Right now, I would settle for assurances that the existing services are in safe hands, which seems far from guaranteed....
NHS - "Winter pressures"
As a patient, this is the front line, this is where it really matters. Winter pressures have been in the news every year for the last few years. Inevitably more people get ill during the winter, and this puts pressure on key parts of the NHS. The GP surgeries and in particularly the A&E departments, like this story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34790100
This story links to a wider issue of NHS funding....
NHS funding
This is another area where NHS experts and the government seem to disagree. The government has promised an extra £9billion to the NHS based on this weighty report, the "Five year forward view"
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf
Although as I have already seen pointed out on social media, this 5 year view, is already one year old, and now represents only 4 years. But still, if the experts are to be believed, this £9billion is in fact not nearly enough. It isn't enough to keep the existing NHS going, let along investing in a better NHS and it certainly isn't enough to fund a full 7 day service, this was never even included in the 'forward view'.
Which leads me to this report
http://qmr.kingsfund.org.uk/2015/17/
The above doesn't paint a very rosy picture. There have been widespread reports in the news about underfunded NHS trusts and the prospects of these trusts running out of money during the next year or so. For us patients that isn't something we want to hear.
As well as being a patient, I'm also a tax payer. I want to know and deserve to know whether my money is being spent wisely. It is a huge topic.
...and more
Loads of NHS scare stories just on one page
http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/NHS
- Crisis in residential care
- Whistleblowers
- Record number of patients in hospital too long (cue the horrible term "bed blocking")
- Drugs are too expensive
- the NHS will be privatised
- War of words between 'sides'
As a patient, that little lot can't be good news, can it?
So what does this all mean for patients?
I've pulled a random selection of news stories into the above few paragraphs. You could pull in 100 more - they all tell a worrying story for a patient or potential patient.
- Will I be able to attend my appointment when doctors go on strike?
- If I get to hospital will there be anyone there to care for me?
- Will my doctor be too tired and stressed to care for me properly?
- Will there even be a hospital there when I get ill!
The list could go on....
It's a worry, that's what it is. There seem to be no end of opinions, no-one on the various 'sides' seem to agree with one another. It seems fairly certain that money is very tight and that there are a huge amount of problems to solve. Lots of people with all different views need to sit down and talk to one another, not argue about how the other side is wrong.
Of course being a patient advisor for the NHS Survival campaign means I am bound to be angling at a certain thing. A cross party commission to properly discuss the future of the NHS and set out some clear options on how we are going to keep this wonderful service afloat.
Perhaps it hasn't been clear up until now exactly why this has been important, perhaps up until now you might think there isn't much to worry about, or that things aren't really that bad. But fire up your news service of choice and most days you are going to see an NHS story, and most of them don't make very pleasant reading.
The time is now to start those conversations, or else patient harm is going to happen. None of the sides want that, or course they don't. But some backing down needs to happen, some acceptance that all sides have a general aim and that the only way to align these into a sensible way forward is to get an agreement on what the way forward is.
Please, let's do that soon
Dear everyone
I was inspired to write this blog entry by this letter written by Zoe Norris, read it if you haven't already!
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-zoe-norris/nhs-junior-doctors_b_8208728.html
I read it twice and it almost made me cry and yes I'm a 54 year old bloke.....to clarify:
a) cry actual tears
b) cry out in anger/frustration/fear/anxiety
I have blogged before about how I believe the only thing that will save the NHS, is the NHS. The management, the consultants, the doctors, the nurses, the healthcare workers....everyone. I don't believe a political party can solve the issue, although clearly we are talking about public money, so politics has to be involved somewhere.
I think it is fair to say that politics certainly isn't helping the current situation.
One of the things the NHS has to do is inspire the next generation of medical staff to come and work for the NHS. Seeing what an incredible vocation healthcare workers sign up for is what will make new people come along and want to do the same. But right now, there are doctors on the street protesting, 'signing up' to go abroad and feeling downright fed up. That means morale is very low and the last thing medical staff are wanting to do is say "yeah, this is such a brilliant job, you should do it too". The letter from Zoe above, just proves that point.
Whilst a lot of members of the public may not care much about that, I don't know, they really would care about patient safety. I don't know what it used to be like to work in a GP surgery or hospital (y'know, back in the good old days) but I do know that if in the present the staff morale really is as low as people are saying it is, and staff really are under as much pressure as they say they are, then patients will suffer. Not intentionally of course, just because you can only stretch goodwill and resource so far.
There has to be some good NHS news coming soon, doesn't there? Is there any chance of new ways of working that will benefit patients, is there investment that will benefit patients, is there a way people can start to work together to solve the crisis in the NHS little bit by little bit....and benefit patients? All the arguments in the media and on social media right now are no doubt justified, but they detract from what everyone should really be doing. Fixing the NHS before it becomes unfixable.
So why can't all sides just negotiate, move on, and solve the bigger issue - I don't really buy the "because they want to privatise the NHS" argument because then the government moves from 'just' falling out with consultants/doctors/nurses to falling out with the whole country! But then as you may have guessed, I'm not very good with politics.
So, in summary, I'm a worried patient - I really don't like what I'm seeing. So what am I getting at.....well if you've followed my blogs or me on social media then you can guess what's coming next.
A Royal Commission is what's needed. With so many sides lining up against one another, an impartial wide-ranging view is necessary, urgently necessary. Please, please make it happen soon.
Yours sincerely
Carl, the worried patient
I heard that old phrase dragged up again on Twitter, "bed blocking", a phrase that always annoys me. It always comes across as something someone would do on purpose when in fact hospital is the last place any patient would choose to be if they could avoid it. This train of thought also dovetailed in with some thinking I'd been doing about the proposed 7 day NHS service that the government says it is going to make happen - at the same time many experts in the industry and many clinicians are saying that a full day service (over and above what already happens 7 days now) would mean massive extra investment or even having to stop certain things that are being done now to make that full 7 day service happen.
So as a patient what's my view on this, what has my experience been? Actually it is as a family member of a patient I've realised my main experience lies, when my dad was in hospital earlier this year. He had already been in hospital a couple of times in recent years, he has Parkinsonism & Dementia but was living at home on his own with a care package in place which was working well. That is until Boxing Day 2014 when he had a double-stroke. He then spent 3 months in hospital recovering and he did indeed reach the stage where he was well enough to leave hospital but arrangements were not in place so that he could. The media would of course call this bed blocking, and I'd begin to turn the air blue!
This leads on to the other thing that I've heard a lot of recently, about certain things not being available at the weekends. One thing my dad desperately needed was physiotherapy, he did get some whilst on the stroke rehabilitation ward at the QA Hospital in Portsmouth. But he only got sessions on weekdays, if he had any at the weekend they were very few and far between. He could have also done with community physio service once discharged, but the team told me this would be very unlikely because they were so stretched and only went out to the highest need patients. We did see the same doctor frequently to catch up on exactly how my dad was progressing and we did see that doctor at the weekend sometimes (there was always a doctor around at the weekend). Seeing the same nursing staff frequently didn't seem to be an issue, they seemed to always be there!
When it came to discharge planning, it became clear that my dad could not go back home and would have to be discharged to a care home. The family meeting we went to (very well organised with nursing staff, physio's and social services) said in no uncertain terms that dad could not be discharged back home. So social services gave us a big pack of information on homes available in our area and which ones had vacancies. But the process of us going out to visit these homes, places being available and then those homes coming into hospital to assess dad to check they could provide the care he needed took time and planning. Unfortunately the advice given by the discharge team that dad needed a "care home" proved incorrect, because dads mobility was so variable on his good days he was a "care home" but on his bad days he was a "nursing home". So having gone through the process of finding a care home, we had to start again and find a nursing home. This all took time and although the team we dealt with on the ward did make it clear he was well enough to go home, they never once used the term "bed blocking", in fact quite the opposite - they said they would not expect dad to leave hospital until arrangements were in place that we were all happy with. The pressure they were under was evident, they didn't have to say the words, but I knew they wanted dads bed....it was a kind of unspoken understanding.
The other service that was not 7 days was the social services element, a couple of times we visited a home at a weekend, and we could have done with speaking to social services, but had to wait until Monday. Of all the services we dealt with during my dads time in hospital, this surely should be a 7 day service, I know the person we dealt with visited her patients regularly, spoke to care homes, reviewed cases etc. The whole process would surely benefit from more cover.
What this means of course is that for me as a family member, with no experience of how everything worked, the system is very difficult to navigate and very time consuming. The thing to bear in mind is that the NHS is an inherently compassionate system. If it wasn't then when they needed the bed they would have discharged dad to my care whether I could cope or not....but I don't believe they would ever do that. So with that compassion in the forefront of how the NHS works, it means if they wait until everything is in place before they discharge then there will be periods when that patient is in hospital longer than medically necessary. But what system would you rather have? Of course it would help to have more physio's (both at the weekends and for post hospital care), to have social services available 7 days a week to have more care homes available with more spaces. But where does all this extra money come from (well, not the care home bit because a lot of them are privately run), I'm only looking at a tiny fraction of the spectrum of a wider 7 day service the government are talking about.
The NHS annual budget is what, £115billion? So even if you said a 7 day service would cost another 15% on top, that is £17billion every year. I've no idea, that figure is completely made up, but even small percentages of such a massive figure is soon going to add up. So now it makes more sense why experts get worried by how much these plans could cost. That is even assuming you can find all these additional speciality people you'd need to recruit and train (this element frequently questioned by those in the NHS).
- So, would my dad have benefited from certain things being a full 7 days, yes.
- Under the circumstances, despite him being in hospital longer than he needed to be, was he treated with compassion, yes.
- If everything was in place for a full 7 days, would dad have spent less time in hospital, probably.
- To literally just extend the things it does now over 5 days to a full 7 days, can the NHS afford that, no I don't see how. (not without increasing National Insurance contributions)
Of course efficiencies could be made, things could be stopped to help pay for it.....but how you work out what that is going to be? We need a Royal Commission to work that out, we really do.
Well this is a bit of a turn up for the books - it turns out I've joined a campaign called "NHS Survival" (www.nhssurvival.org). I must be getting old, and although that is of course a fact, I think it is also part of a process we all go through. Some people have opinions and are brave enough to say them out loud, fight for what they believe in and make their voice heard and some of those do it from a really young age....but in my case things took a little longer!
I've never stood up publicly and fought for anything, but the NHS is different, I think the NHS is able to bring out passion in just about anyone, because it is so close to our hearts. Whether those people are employees or patients of the NHS, everyone has a view and everyone I know of speaks of it with a mixture of pride and increasingly concern.
There will always be a campaign about something, that is what makes the human race what it is. We don't always agree on everything and even what we do agree on, we don't necessarily agree on what the answer to any given conundrum might be. Of course these differing opinions are brilliant, the right answer is nearly always in there somewhere. So it is with the fight that is happening involving the NHS right now, the right answer....an answer or series of answers that will help the NHS move forward is there, but it is hidden in a fog of passion, arguments and confusion about the sheer size of the problem in hand.
My theory of the day is that actually the NHS is in a good place. If you had a small company turning over (say) £300,000 a year with a CEO and 6 staff, and the CEO decided they needed to save 10% of their budget because money was tight, their scope to change anything would be limited. There's not many staff, the small size of their company means anything they do will be tricky to accomplish, the 'easy' thing to do to save money quickly might be to make someone redundant. Harsh but clean and simple. With an organisation the size of the NHS, the task is of course made massively more complicated by the size and fragmented nature of the NHS, but the scope of where you can potentially make savings, improve efficiency and improve the service is vast, the opportunity is vast.
Today is now Sunday 6th September, I had begun writing this blog a few days ago. Today the news is full of yet more media stories about '7 day service' and 'mortality is worse for people admitted on a weekend' and I see passionate feelings expressed by the medical profession who don't agree with these stories in one way or the other and I've no doubt those feelings are justified. But I'm not seeing much agreement or much chance of the sides gaining common ground. As a patient this concerns me. This is what the public see day in day out (just a screenshot of a Google search for "NHS news"):
I think the public desperately needs to see some good news soon, I know I do.
On the upside, I wrote to and emailed my MP about the NHS Survival campaign and I have had an email back acknowledging me and promising a reply. I'll wait and see what comes along
I didn't set out to hate fireworks, I hate them on behalf on Louie our first dog....no longer with us sadly....he didn't set out to hate fireworks initially but he ended up hating them due to one scary incident. This is Louie, he was a Tibetan Spaniel, a pretty amazing one.
When I was young, fireworks weren't as 'big' as they are now, I had one fireworks party growing up, but the majority of my fireworks were enjoyed out of the bedroom window looking at other peoples, such as they were. I wasn't that bothered about them growing up.
When we first got a dog, we didn't give fireworks that much thought. Louie wasn't bothered by them and that was that. But that changed one night in mid March, totally not the fireworks season. Louie was in the garden about 10pm, when one of our near-neighbours let off some loud fireworks totally without warning, I never did know what exactly the occasion was. They had a dog themselves.....Anyway, this was the event that changed Louie's view of fireworks forever.
He was mooching around the garden as he always did, he was about 2 years old at the time. I had gone out into the garden to call him in, and just as I walked out of the back door a loud "whoosh" went off followed by several really loud bangs, made me jump. But they made Louie jump even more.....he flew into the house with wide eyes, clearly very shocked. He was panting and very different to how I had seen him before, the fireworks were still going off. From that day forward, that one event changed his view of fireworks from something to be ignored to something to be feared.
Every year, around this time of year, he began to get more and more fearful. We tried various therapies and drugs and even a dog behaviourist all to no avail. Louie had decided that fireworks were going to harm him, and nothing would change his mind. He would dig & scrape into the carpet incessantly, pant, scream in fright and in the end we had to put him into the car and drive out into the countryside where it was quiet. As soon as he was in the car, it was his sanctuary, he calmed down and went to sleep. It became a yearly event, as we charged out of the house with blankets, torches, books to read. We even had a soundtrack to this event, Louie seemed to be soothed by the music of Darren Hayes (of Savage Garden)....I still think of this time of year and Louie every time I hear this music.
By this time we had another Tibetan Spaniel, Nemo. He was thankfully completely nonplussed by fireworks and continues to be to this day. He tried to comfort Louie, but it didn't work.
Louie had an uncontrollable, totally maniacal fear of fireworks. He would not stop panicking no matter what, in his later years when his health was failing he wouldn't have stopped panicking even if it killed him....and to be honest we feared it would.
What really hinders handling the fireworks season is the sporadic randomness of when they go off. From mid-October they start, right the way beyond the 5th November. I don't really understand why we "celebrate" Guy Fawkes night in the first place, but if we are going to celebrate, why do we do so on any other night than the 5th November. We don't celebrate Christmas on the 18th December, just because this night might be more convenient.
I am more and more of the opinion that fireworks should be banned for sale to the public and organised displays should only be on the 5th November, no matter what night it falls on, even if inconveniently it isn't at the weekend.
But this isn't because I am a killjoy, it is because of all the stories I hear from people about how scared their animals are by the fireworks, how they cower and panic at the sound. I wouldn't have believed some of the stories had I not owned a dog who showed such extreme reactions to the noise, you really cannot appreciate it until you have witnessed it. It is totally heartbreaking knowing there is nothing you can do to stop the anguish.
So even though Nemo is fine with fireworks, that didn't stop him being surprised tonight by our neighbour who backs onto our garden letting fireworks off tonight (2nd November). They know we have a dog, he happened to be in the garden when they let them off. They didn't let us know as a courtesy they would be doing it.....although he did scamper in from the garden a bit hyped, he soon calmed down. Luckily at 15 years old, he has enough experience to know if his parents aren't panicking about something, then he can happily curl up and go to sleep....which is what he did.
But that event tonight is what prompted this blog, memories of Louie's experience which was much different.
I suspect that because of that experience with Louie, my attitude to fireworks is forever tainted. Unfortunately the usage of fireworks in our neighbourhood is getting ever more frequent, I think Saturday night (1st November) was every bit as noisy as a 5th November from a few years back. And part of the impact of fireworks now seems to be how loud they can be, rather than how pretty a picture they can make in the sky. Even though the RSPCA have championed 'quieter' fireworks, they haven't been taken up.
So if you are thinking of letting some fireworks off, think of the animals. Whilst some of them couldn't care less, some are scared, some of them literally scared to death.
Like many people, I have a fondness for music....in fact that is an understatement, I couldn't live life without music in it. I love rock, metal, pop, blues...pretty much all-sorts. But although I don't consider myself to have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), when it comes to organising my digital music, I most certainly do.
When I first started putting music files on my PC, I didn't understand what I was doing. I fired up the software that was installed - Windows Media Player (WMP) - put in a CD and hit the 'rip' button. It was brilliant, music to listen to on the computer whenever I wanted it. What I hadn't realised was that WMP had kindly ripped my music in the proprietary 'Windows' format of Windows Media Audio (WMA). But this wasn't apparent for some time.
I've owned various early MP3 players, but one of them mysteriously wouldn't play the files I put on it.....eventually I figured out it was because it would only play .MP3 files. Of course it was at this point I realised that I hadn't been ripping to MP3 format. Then my wife bought me an iPod Touch and along came iTunes and its default .M4A Apple format. This time I was much wiser though, and made sure it's default ripping setting was set to .MP3 before it started. However, what I hadn't bargained for when it imported all my music, was it creating a .M4A version of every .WMA file as it went along. Brilliant, now I had two copies of loads of my music taking up valuable hard drive space. Yes, I know I could have read the manual before I started, but honestly, who does that :-)
So time ticked by and my music collection grew and grew and got more and more disorganised. So I decided to take decisive action, and convert all my .WMA tracks into MP3. It took blooming ages, but over the course of quite a few weeks I did it. At the same time, I discovered that my tracks didn't all have the correct album art, artist name or album name. So I went about creating the correct ID3 tags for all my files in both WMP and iTunes. It took time, but it was all worth it in the end, if only for viewing Cover Flow on the iPod Touch.
So coming bang up to date, the latest project is to sort out all those M4A copies of the WMA tracks iTunes created all those years ago. This could be as easy as just deleting the iTunes music folder on my computer, but my OCD wouldn't let me do this....just as well as it turns out. Over the late May bank holiday weekend, I started the process and found all sorts of anomalies but I'm getting there. In a couple of weeks I hope to have a library of just MP3 tracks that both WMP and iTunes libraries point to and can play seamlessly. The other advantage is that any player I use will play any file I have, for instance I have a memory stick full of music in the car which will only play MP3 files, a Sony Walkman MP3 player which I don't think plays WMA files etc. etc.
Then there a couple of other niggles. The memory stick I use in the car, is immediately wiped by WMP if I try to use it to sync files, I've had two frustrating sessions of time-wasting with it and the only reliable piece of software that seems to work with the memory stick is Winamp. So I have 3 music libraries to keep up to date, WMP for the Sony, Winamp for the car and iTunes for the iPod. I'm a fool to myself, there must be an easier way!
Then of course there is the bit-rate argument, what is the best. I don't know a definitive answer to that, but I use 192kbps. That seems to give the best balance between file size and decent sound quality. However the audiophile's amongst you will be shouting "lossless" but I'm afraid I haven't got either the hard drive/MP3 player/memory stick space for it or the pain of re-ripping my entire music CD collection. If I ever do buy a music streaming device for my house (I'd love a Sonos system) then 192 it will have to be.
Then, as if that weren't enough there is the project to convert all my Vinyl to MP3. That project has stalled somewhat because it takes so long. I am pretty pleased with the Ion USB record deck I bought off eBay to do the work, but it is going to take ages. Never mind, the vinyl isn't going anywhere.....
So that is my digital music musings for the moment, a high workload, but I really enjoy trawling through it all and it helps me to rediscover music that otherwise would get forgotten about.
Cheers for now, Carl
