The NHS and Argos

I took a day off work today to deal with a cold. It's mostly asthma-related, and somewhat self-induced. On my return from Australia, I discovered that my inhaler had run out. At first I thought I'd be fine. But by Tuesday the cold air was taking its toll. That's when the bastardry of the NHS (National Health Service) started to wreak it's usual havoc on a sick person's life. In the UK you can't just rock up to any doctor's surgery like in Australia. You must register at a surgery in the immediate vicinity of where you live, and that is the only surgery you can visit under normal circumstances (ie not travelling around the country). You can't even register at a second surgery near your workplace. To make matters worse, my surgery only has one doctor on staff, as I was rather rudely informed on Tuesday when I called to make an appointment. That meant the earliest I could get in was Friday afternoon, and not anytime sooner. I shouldn't be so harsh on the NHS, after all, it's completely free to see a doctor. (I can almost remember when it used to be like that in Australia). Better yet, the NHS only require a co-payment of £6.50 per script, and that might even give you two months supply. Drugs are cheap in the UK. And once the surgery has issued a script, it's possible to simply request a repeat from the surgery nurse, without enduring the trial of making an appointment.

But none of that was going to help me deal with my asthma. The only solution was a night-time visit to the St Thomas A&E department. In the mythic film world of London, this is the hospital that places the start of the action in 28 Days Later (although only exteriors were filmed here). I thought of that film's dystopic alternate-reality as I wheezed in my present dystopic-reality in the waiting lounge. Apart from giving me the ability to breathe freely once again, the next best-thing about my visit was to see the hospital's uber-cool robotic medicine dispenser. Rather than having to trundle through aisles of medications, the clerk selects the medication by computer, which sends an instruction to the robotic arm to find the right box. The medications are organised in the shelves according to physical size to maximise storage space, rather than by name, category, or manufacturer.

The UK is home to a rather-unique retailer, Argos, that organises their stock in exactly the same way, and for the same reason. Despite having 650 stores, Argos' peculiarity is that they do not have display stock. Customers pore over a catalogue of 1000+ pages, or select items from their website, to find what they're looking for. Each Argos store is the size of an Australian bank branch, with a set of tills where you pay for the item, and a service desk where you wait to collect your purchase. The same process applies regardless of whether you're buying a pack of CD writeables, or an office chair. Apparently, each store has an extensive warehouse where items are stored by box size, a not-so-obvious benefit of not needing display space, as shoppers shop by product category, not box size! And without display stock, stock theft is negligible to that found in normal high-street retailers. The quality of merchandise varies from crap to okay, but Argos' low prices, and the store's novelty-value, can't be ignored. It's easy to understand how it's become a national institution in it's short 33 year life.