Average Reading Age in the UK - 9 years!

Time and again, I see articles in UK newspapers about how the average "reading age" of the UK population is in decline. The last one estimated this to be equivalent to that expected of a nine year old. Prior to getting work experience in the retail pharmacy sector, I never would have believed that - but I'm now convinced this is true, or possibly even an overestimate! You'd be amazed at how many of my customers have trouble completing simple (prescription) forms with appropriate/required details.

On an unrelated (or related, depending how you look at it) note, people (customers, other health professionals) sometimes say the stupidest things to me when I'm at work. I had a phone call from someone seeking medical advice today. The caller had a case of diarrhoea, and wanted to know what to do about it. Amongst other things, I suggested using loperamide ("Imodium") to stop diarrhoea. "Oh no, that will make it worse, won't it?", the caller exclaimed. Absolute rubbish, something which I attempted to explain to him, alas to no avail. And he went on to claim that a doctor had advised him to that effect. Either he was lying, or there's some incompetent doctor around out there.

In the UK, the Government has set up nurse-staffed Walk-In Centres and a national health helpline called NHS Direct. Sometimes, I wonder very much about the pharmaceutical competence of some of the nurses staffing these services. Nurses don't get very much in the way of pharmaceutical/pharmacological training in their degree (I've seen their syllabus and exam questions), and those that staff NHS Direct get 6 weeks of "training". In theory, said nurses follow protocols on the computers that have been designed by doctors. How is it possible then that I get customers coming into my pharmacy with opposing recommendations, depending on which nurse they spoke to? For example, one weekend, one nurse on duty was recommending a product called "Piriton" to patients, endorsing it as the best thing since sliced bread. Another was telling other patients that the same product was useless. And for some reason, despite my being a qualified pharmacist, patients prefer to stick with the recommendations of those nurses rather than accept my explanation of why said recommendations weren't the best options and go with my more appropriate product suggestions instead. Oh well, more fool them - no one can say I didn't try.

I've lots more tales of idiotic recommendations made by Walk-in Centre and NHS Direct staff, but it'd take too long to tell them all. And recounting all those farcical episodes in one go would probably be detrimental to my blood pressure. So maybe some other time...