ALEXANDRA SHULMAN’S NOTEBOOK: A bitter pill to swallow at my local GP surgery

It was probably too good to be true. After decades of trying several local NHS surgeries, I had found the perfect one. OK, not exactly Shangri-La but the reception staff answered the phone quickly, the waiting room was not overcrowded, medications were prescribed seamlessly and I had a great doctor I knew and could see when I needed.

However, as good things tend to do, this happy relationship ended last week with a text message alerting the surgery’s patients that we would no longer be able to make appointments by phone or by going to the reception desk. Instead, they were switching to a ‘triage’ model accessed online.

Undoubtedly the new system won’t be good news for a great number of elderly patients who may not have access to the internet and surely will be confounded by this process.

It’s certainly not good for me. According to the instructions, patients will need to tick a range of requests, from ‘heavy bleeding’ and ‘crushing chest pain’ to requiring repeat prescriptions.

If I had crushing chest pain, I wouldn’t want to have to fill in an online questionnaire. And what about those times when symptoms don’t indicate a straightforward diagnosis and you need a doctor see you face to face to spot what’s wrong?

No doubt somewhere in NHS England’s bureaucracy the triage system has been decided as the most efficient way for surgeries to operate. But the question is: efficient for who?

As anyone who has watched the heartbreaking ITV drama Breathtaking – about the trauma of an NHS hospital during Covid – will be reminded, our leading health authorities by no means always get it right.

Stop lauding HRT as the Holy Grail

While discussing the new guidance to employers about women going through menopause, the campaigner Kate Muir mentioned ‘good HRT’. This, she implied, could help most women diminish the difficult symptoms.

Yes, it might, but she’s wrong to say there is such a thing as ‘good HRT’. The hormones themselves are not good or bad – they’re not like good or bad wine. It all depends who is taking them. HRT is good for some and not for others.

I’ve written this before but every time I hear HRT being lauded as if it is the Holy Grail, I think about my own breast cancer diagnosis.

There was nothing wrong with my HRT. It was great at the time, but the moments after my scan showed a tumour, I was told to stop HRT immediately. The oestrogen it was feeding my oestrogen-deprived body to help with symptoms could also have been feeding the nasty cancer. Until that tumour was located, there was no way of anyone knowing this in advance.

So while there are many women for whom HRT is the solution for poor sleep, brain fog and hot flushes, the idea that it is in any way a safe catch-all for helping with the menopause is a dangerous belief to be seeding in women’s minds.

Picking the right outfit? It’s an art

Tate Britain’s exhibition about fashion in the age of the late Victorian and Edwardian painter John Singer Sargent is full of splendid portraits of both men and women in the most sumptuous outfits of the day. It’s a great treat, if possibly a little padded out.

In any photographic portraiture, the sitter’s clothes are usually a key consideration. Do they demonstrate something about the wearer and, also, will they photograph well?

At the Tate’s show, it is fascinating to discover that when Sargent, who was closely involved in deciding what all his sitters should wear, there was the same concern. However, his motivation was simply: ‘Will it paint well?’

Children now too scared to be spooked

Matt Smith is the latest actor piling in to criticise the habit of slapping trigger warnings on performances. And rightly so. It’s ridiculous to think we audiences should be warned in advance about emotions we might feel.

At Christmas, I took a ten-year-old to see the National Theatre’s The Witches. He was terrified and wanted to leave in the interval.

The musical based on Roald Dahl’s story was undoubtedly a bit spooky but I was struck that the boy’s way of telling us he was freaked out was that he said it should have had a 12 rating.

Perhaps our children are becoming too used to being forewarned of anything tricky – and they are less resilient as a result.

Marie’s bravery will never be forgotten

It’s 12 years since my great friend, foreign correspondent Marie Colvin, was killed in the Syrian town of Homs.

I had just landed at Milan’s Linate airport when told the news and wept through the whole of the Gucci fashion show I had arrived to see. She wasn’t my first friend to have died, but Marie was the first killed in a war zone.

Though a massive shock, her determination to bring home the story no matter the danger to her personally had made this a horribly likely conclusion to her life.

The Marie Colvin Journalists’ Network was subsequently set up to help Middle Eastern women journalists following in her footsteps.

With the current situation in Gaza and Israel, as well as other hotspots, many of its brave members are on the front line. These women are often not only reporters but many are mothers, too, and have difficult times at home as well as in the field. All funds go to making them more supported are very welcome.

Bafta winners who should know better

Last Sunday’s Bafta awards ceremony was pretty good – star-studded, not too long and helmed by the wonderful actor David Tennant, who looked as if he was dressed by a Strictly stylist on speed.

I realise that a director of sound or even a film editor might like a prompt when on stage, but why did the winning actors need to read their speeches from notes? Aren’t actors meant to be able to remember their lines?