Patient Foster went to Gloucester!

Andy Burnham has come up with a good wheeze. Patient choice. That is he wants us all to have the ability to choose the doctor's surgery that we want. So do the Tories, who are keen to tell us they thought of it first. Sounds good in principle but there's bound to be a catch. I can think of three to start with. First, some doctors are just better at the bedside manner than others. Grouchy types may find patients have left en masse. Now that may be an incentive for all to become more patient friendly, but a bedside manner is not the first requirement in patient care.

The second is what happens on referral to consultants. If you've decided to travel 60 miles to see a doctor because that particular doctor is the best you think you know, where will you be referred if you need an operation. And thirdly, for children and those who work away from home the choice is not about one doctor but the chance to register with two, which is not allowed at present.

As with a lot of things it sounds good on first hearing. Chat about it a bit more and you find it's not so simple. I'm reminded of a family holiday to a boarding house in the wilds of western Scotland in the Sixties. A Yorkshireman and his wife were in the same establishment. He had decided he was unhappy with the food on offer - basically what you saw is what you got. One evening he leant over from his table and whispered, knowingly, to my father, "I've been down t'other 'otel 'an they've got menya cards!" Needless to say it caused a stir in the dining room and the proprietress was at a loss as to know why.

I'd suggest that Andy Burnham makes sure his menu cards don't have too much choice on them otherwise we could all get an unhealthy dose of indigestion!

Another attack on God's handiwork!

Quite rightly some of the US medical fraternity are being called "obsessed" with their desire to mutilate baby boys in the name of supposed hygiene and disease control. Americans have been fed the line that circumcision is good for their newborns. The very fact that the notion was introduced to Victorian society by a medic of dubious qualities goes by the board. John Harvey Kellogg gave us cornflakes and his beliefs in circumcision. Like a lot of stiff-necked sorts he had a penchant for meddling in other peoples' lives.

He reckoned there were "excesses" in sexual behaviour, so taking a knife to a newborn's genitals was his way of stopping the "insanity of masturbation" in later life. The logic of this devilment is lost on me. Pity the man is not around to do a survey on circumcised masturbators! Of course, the whole thing is utter hogwash.

Now the quackery of the US medical establishment is rearing its ugly head again. Dr Judith Wasserheit of University of Washington demures and says, "All providers who care for pregnant women and infants have a responsibility to assure that mothers and fathers know that circumcision could help protect their sons". And provide a lucrative source of income to the scalpel weilders!

What this medical meddler does not say is that promiscuity causes sexually transmitted diseases. And if you told her that she and her pro-cutting friends could make not a dime from the operation, she'd shut up like a clam!