Who owns the conversation? #10minsGPguide

Last night I noticed a tweet from @StuartBerry1. It had been retweeted by @amcunningham – if you are in any way interested in health or medicine, and you’re not already following Anne Marie on twitter then stop now and go follow her (if you’re not already on twitter then you’re really missing out).

Anyhow, Stuart was collating ideas for hints and tips of how to get the most out of a 10 minute GP consult. It’s years since I’ve seen a GP but I have attended numerous doctor or hospital appointments with my parents since my Dad was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) five years ago. This blog is full of my version/experience of my Dad’s illness, it’s not his experience or views, just mine so it’s already once removed, and it is obviously heavily influenced by who I am, my world view and my experience. That said, I contributed a few ideas to the GP conversation and there has been a healthy amount of discussion about one of my ideas since.

I shared that on two occasions I’ve used my phone to record conversations with Dad’s medics. I thought twice about whether to share that information, and felt it was a little risky to do so, because I knew some people wouldn’t necessarily agree with my course of action, or approve of it. If I’m honest I’m not exactly confident of my own actions because on one occasion I didn’t seek permission to record it.

The first occasion was in A&E (a couple years ago now) and I asked the doctor if they minded me recording what they were saying so I could have it as a record and to share with family members. They had no problem whatsoever, seemed almost indifferent. I just recorded what they told us, listened to it a couple times after and I no longer have it as I’ve changed my phone since then.

More recently I recorded one of my Dad’s oncology consults. On this occasion I didn’t ask permission, the appointment was already 90 minutes late, I didn’t think of it, and it was only once the consultant started explaining something complex and I could see my Mum struggling to take notes, that I thought I’d just record it on my phone again. I can’t tell you how many times my Mum, Dad and I have all sat through the same conversation, with the same person, at the same time and yet come away with different understandings or memories of what was said.

Certainly my experience of Dad’s current situation is that it is extremely complex, and extremely complicated. It doesn’t really fit with my mental stereotyped image of clinical science. In fact i’d go as far as to say it doesn’t feel like science, and thats no bad thing, its much more human than that. My Dad has (with a few minor exceptions) received outstanding care over the past five years, he has defied all odds, and its not much short of a miracle that he is still here. None of that would have been possible without the phenomenal skill, compassion and knowledge of the many medical professionals he has come into contact with. At this stage though, as Dad is receiving palliative treatment (blood transfusions to counteract bleeding tumour, chemo, scores of drugs) it seems that it is more art than science. Everyone who comes into contact with Dad seems to have a different interpretation of what the best course of action is, or they don’t know – sometimes that honesty is refreshing, sometimes it’s just plain scary.

What I have learnt over the past five years is that there is probably no such thing as a textbook case, certainly if there is my Dad isn’t it. Consequently so much of Dad’s care is very personalised and tailored, things change quickly, we’re aware he is in a very precarious situation. I consider the best thing I can do is support him and Mum, and my siblings who live away, so we are all as aware as possible (or as aware as we want to be) about what the current status quo is, for as long as that lasts. To that end I don’t regret recording his consultation, even though I feel a residual guilt that I didn’t ask for explicit permission (it upsets the ethical researcher that runs through my core), it felt like the best course of action at that time.

I’ve listened to the recording twice since, with my Mum. No-one else has heard it, it’s something that is quite precious to me. On the one hand it serves as a factual record for when we start doubting ourselves and on another it is a recording of my Dad discussing critically important decisions with the man who has in my opinion (along with his surgeon/previous consultant) done the most to sustain his life. I can’t imagine anyone outside my own family ever hearing that recording, unless I figure out how to save it elsewhere I could lose it at any time, but I like the idea at the moment that one day my 2yr old niece may be interested in knowing more about her Grandad and she could hear for herself how brave he was, how he faced what I would have considered impossible conversations a few years ago, head on. It’s evidence of his spirit, and my fantastically brave and spirited Mum’s attempts to do the absolute best for him.

I appreciate the ethics are dubious, but I’m glad I did record it. I also think there could be a really useful application of this simple technology in everyday consultations. Lots of patients have smart phones that enable recording nowadays, I’d like to think that there is a GP out there who would embrace the idea – how about actively encouraging recording, even if it wasn’t a verbatim record that people wanted, I think most doctors surgeries could help people to get more out of their allocated slot if they encouraged people to think of the questions they wanted to ask before seeing the doctor.

Some of the obvious concerns are around litigation, but really, really in our enlightened world of empowered patients is this an acceptable argument? OK, so I’m playing devils advocate but really look at how much information is collected from the patient by the doctor in an average consultation. No patient I know of has ever been asked if they mind if the doctor takes notes. How about taking a leap of faith and embracing the opportunity of supporting patients and their families. Who wouldn’t want to?

A game of odds #cancer

A week ago I wrote a post explaining Dad’s latest situation with #cholangiocarcinoma Don’t give up the ship, fight her till she sinks. At the time we’d just seen his oncologist and heard the news that Dad’s one remaining option was to have chemotherapy in an attempt to stem the tumour in his stomach bleeding, which in turn is causing him to become severely anaemic and requiring regular blood transfusions.

On Monday Dad went to the unit where he receives the chemotherapy to have his prep session and bloods taken. Less than a week since his last transfusion and he’s anaemic again and his haemoglobin level was down to 7. The fantastic staff did all that they could and managed to fit him in on Tuesday for another blood transfusion, in order for him to start chemo today as they’d originally planned. All of this organised at the drop of a hat, with Dad’s specialist nurse doing what he seemingly does best, twisting arms and calling in favours. So today was his second day at the unit, ten hours at a time, so far so good. The chemo is very risky for Dad, but its a game of odds and the balance of probabilities suggests that doing nothing is even riskier.

Possible side effects include all the usual things (anaemia, hair loss, constipation, wind, loss of feeling, impaired immune system), a major bleed (not surprising given the amount of blood he is losing anyway) and neutropenic sepsis.

Dad has had sepsis on a couple of occasions, including the last time he was on chemo, they’ve warned us that the most dangerous time will be this weekend. Anyone who has ever been taken ill on a weekend, never mind a Bank Holiday, never mind Easter…will know that you don’t want to end up in A&E then. That said, I’m really impressed with the fact that they have raised the issue and reassured Mum that we have to be explicit that we need attention, and it’s also good to know that the hospice palliative care team are aware too. Unless you’ve had to do it I don’t think you can necessarily appreciate how hard it is to request attention once you’ve been admitted into hospital, especially in a busy A&E Department where you’re surrounded by other poorly people. This leaflet, and it’s explicit time bound permission statement to go back and insist on action, is really powerful stuff. Very impressive. This flimsy piece of A4 paper could make the difference on whether someone like Dad survives, I know that with this piece of paper in her hand my Mum would go and ask for further attention, without it there’s a slim but outside chance she might speak up but evidence so far suggests she’d rather not make a fuss/appear ungrateful/nag/push in etc etc etc. Never underestimate the power of a piece of paper for a generation who were brought up to respect authority!

The other possible side effect of one of the many drugs Dad is on is that it could alter your mood. I’m staying at my folks house tonight for moral support and I can honestly say that this drug has altered Dad’s mood….he was treating his sick bowl as a fashion accessory. My Dad has always been a little off the wall, in fact his party trick when I was a kid was to drive the car with his knees and no hands, but I’ve not seen him in a playful mood in ages. Obviously having the chemo and taking some step to fight it is a good thing, for now.

I was slightly wired all day today, I was up in London for a meeting, and I felt so far away if anything had gone wrong. That said it was a good meeting and nothing did go wrong and Dad is insistent that I don’t put my life on hold for him. Having been home for most of March, unfortunately I have stacks of travel planned in April. If I’m truly honest I’m absolutely dreading what the next few days and weeks hold. That said everyone who has dealt with Dad over the past few weeks has done so with such kindness, that it makes me feel reassured and humbled, and a little more daunted (because my suspicious mind assumes that this is a sure fire indication that this really is coming to an end now). I’ve also been blown away by the number of you who have left blog comments, sent tweets or DMs and those of you who text me when I was silent to check how things were going. Thank you all so much. I know it’s hard to know what to say or do in this situation, I know that some people would just rather not think about it, and I know that I am a walking, talking, ball of emotion at the moment and I’m not the easiest person to deal with at the best of time. Thank you all for your patience, virtual hugs and moral support, it’s really appreciated. I’ll leave you all with the man himself modelling an NHS sick bowl!

Why I’ll raise your parking fine with some feedback!

I spent last weekend in Wales and had a great time….all except the small matter of dragging myself out of bed on Saturday morning to pay for on-street parking in Cardiff, before then receiving a parking ticket for parking #arrrrrgh as apparently they couldn’t see my ticket.

I can’t begin to tell you how annoying that was, or the fact that if I’d known the fine for not buying a ticket was £50 (with 50% discount bringing it down to £25 if paid in 2 weeks) given how knackered I was I might have actually paid that £25 for a lie in, rather than get out of bed before 8am and still pay £4 and now have to write a letter and buy a stamp. I have written to Cardiff Council Parking Services to challenge the fine I received, and to provide feedback…detailed below.

I’ll let you know how I get on, but I was just wondering if anyone knows what your legal rights are if I have the ticket and believe it could be seen, but they claim they can not see it? Any thoughts very welcome.

Dear Cardiff Council Parking Services

Ref: QC11033190

I received a PCN while parked in Newport Road Lane, Adamsdown on 21 January 2012. I am writing to challenge this PCN as I had purchased a ticket on this date at 8am and it was visible on my dashboard. I have enclosed the original ticket and PCN.

I also wish to provide three pieces of feedback, in the spirit of making this a useful exercise for us both!

1)    It may be easier for your Civil Enforcement Officers to notice tickets if they had adhesive on them so that they could be stuck to windscreens rather than placed on the dashboard

2)    It would be easier for customers to pay, and for your CEOs to check payment, if you moved to a text based/technology enhanced payment service

3)    It would be a far better service experience if you were able to pay the previous night for early morning parking. I arrived in Cardiff at 8pm, but the machine would not allow me to pay for the next morning’s parking (despite the chargeable period for Friday having passed), therefore I had to get out of bed to buy my ticket – only then to receive a PCN.

I look forward to hearing from you in relation to my PCN being nullified, and I hope that my feedback is helpful.

When it’s good it’s very very good #NHS

This is my Gran, the photo was taken a few months ago on my Dad’s birthday. She is sat in her chair, in the house her and Grandad live in, next door to my Mum and Dad. I’ve not really looked at this photo much before today, but I really quite like it! Gran was talking, in fact she was regaling a story about some old fella at the time, chuckling away to herself. The irony of her worrying about the old fella’s shouldn’t be overlooked, she’ll be 93 next month.

The last few days Gran hasn’t been very well, I spent an hour with her and Grandad yesterday evening and she was perky, but not herself. Grandad spent the whole time just looking at her, wistfully, worrying but like he was drinking her in with his eyes. They’ve been together since they were children and celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last summer, I’m really not sure how one will exist without the other, they’re a complete and utter team.

Early this morning my Auntie and Mum decided that Gran needed to go to hospital, the ambulance was called and a rapid response unit was dispatched. They live down the bottom of a very steep hill (too steep for the ambulance to get down) so Gran was wheeled out of the house, up the hill and into the waiting ambulance on a trolley, and whisked away to A&E. Mum was blown away by the care that Gran (and she) got – Polly and Tom who took her in, the nurses who settled her into a room and cleaned her up, the consultant and doctor who examined her. She had a full MOT, a couple of ECGs, blood tests, x-rays, examinations and was put on a drip. I’ve just been up to see her tonight, she has been admitted onto a ward now, in a side room (the same one that Dad was in a couple years ago), and she looks exhausted but restful. With a bit of luck she’ll be sent home in the next day or two, she hates hospitals and hasn’t been into one except as a visitor since giving birth over sixty years ago! I hope that she makes it home, Mum was telling me that Grandad was distraught when they took her away this morning, sat in his chair crying (I’ve never seen him cry, he’s not of a generation that seems that comfortable with expressing emotion) and I hope for his sake, and her’s, that she get’s home. They’re realistic about their age, they know they won’t last forever, but I really hope she gets home to Grandad just once more.

The point of this post was to say thanks though. I’ve had one bad experience in our local A&E and it’s always at the front of my mind when I hear someone has gone in there. If nothing else the treatment Gran has received today has gone some way to making up for that experience. The staff were really kind to my Gran, looked after her and treated her with respect and dignity. I’m conscious that lots of people complain about the NHS (myself included when needs be) but my family have received more than our fair share of treatment in the last few years and it never ceases to amaze me how awesome a machine the NHS is, when it’s well oiled.

I suspect I couldn’t work in a hospital environment, I couldn’t handle the smells, the stress, the confusion, the desperation, especially in care for older people. I also know I wouldn’t be able to work on an ambulance, never knowing what you’ll turn up for, wishing away the final call of the night shift because you know it’ll eat into your sleep or day off. I am so grateful to each and every NHS worker who chooses to look out for other people, you really do make a massive difference to people’s lives. Thank you.

Payment correction due to an operational issue

A couple weeks ago I received an email from TFL (Transport for London) about a payment correction. It read as follows:

Fantastic, or so I thought, TFL are taking responsibility for some problem (which to be honest I’m not sure I’m even aware of) but I suspect it was something to do with some of the tube lines being out of sync or out of action that day. Except today I received another email from TFL, this time letting me know I’ve not collected the refund they authorised and telling me how to re-arrange collection. So, in theory this is good news, but I wasn’t aware there was a time limit on the first email, I’m not sure whether there is a time limit on the second, more importantly I don’t see why TFL can’t just apply the credit to my account without me needing to ‘collect’ it.

They should have enough data about my travel habits to spot that I don’t live in London, or to at least realise that I don’t regularly use the tube, even if I frequently do. They have enough data to know I’d only visited that actual tube station twice in the last year, they should know the station I visit most regularly is Paddington, and I would have thought that all of this is irrelevant and they could apply it remotely.

Anyhow, I’m just interested if anyone knows more about what they can or can’t do and/or what they choose to do and/or whether these corrections expire at all? As someone who doesn’t live in London but has been regularly using the tube for years, the idea of a refund is so novel I don’t want to waste it! Any ideas?

If only canteen food always tasted this good

This weekend I headed to River Cafe Canteen at Axminster. I’ve been a couple of times now and keep coming back – so something must be good. I thought I’d blog this time, mostly because I’ve got some piccies of the food that I thought you might enjoy.

First up the actual canteen space. I love it, the perfect mix between a proper nasty old school canteen, and a fabulous nice cafe; blackboards, bunting, wooden tables, can’t go wrong.

Next up starters, we had one Pork and Bacon Terrine:

Cornish Blue and Roast Butternut Squash:

River Cafe Ham and Shredded Red Cabbage:

and one Crab on Toast:

In a party of six, we had four people tempted by the Sausage, Lentils and Salsa Verde:

Mussels cooked with Bacon and Cider:

Cottage Pie with Greens:

with a side order of Chips:

The two desserts that proved popular were, Apple Crumble with Vanilla Custard:

and Chocolate Mousse with Brandy Cream:

All of this was accompanied by a couple drinks and coffee and a trip to buy some coronary clogging delicious cheese and bread on the way home. So, what’s the verdict, well I’ve been to the canteen three times and will definitely be back again. That said I thought they were understaffed in the canteen, which meant that service wasn’t as attentive as it could be. For example, I really don’t mind standing in a queue, but when I get to the front of it I’d like to be acknowledged and told how long I will be waiting for a table. Again, there was gorgeous looking bread up near the counter, we weren’t offered any (maybe we should have asked) but if our waitress had a little more time I can’t help but think she’d have offered some or explained whether bread was or wasn’t included. So, the food was fantastic, the atmosphere was great, the wait was bearable (and well worth it), the service was good but it felt like they could have done with another pair of hands on the canteen floor.

That said, I’d definitely recommend a trip if you’ve not already been – you can judge for yourself then.

4square pizza – ideas please

I’ve blogged once or twice about the Pizza Cafe in Newton Abbot – they’re the absolute best place to get pizza for miles around. In fact I’ve had people visit from all over and I don’t think anyone has ever been disappointed, their pizzas are amazing.

The Pizza Cafe is small and independent, they have one restaurant and also offer a delivery service. They also have a dedicated fan base with over 3000 admirers on their facebook page and a thousand people interacting with them on twitter. They have yet to dive into foursquare and in a twitter discussion the other week I agreed to have a think about how they could use it and put some ideas together. The first three of these ideas are included below but I’d really appreciate other people’s thoughts and suggestions, so please do share and comment.

What is foursquare?

Foursquare is a social networking tool that allows it’s users to connect with each other, with locations, services and products through check-ins on the web. As of last month (stats from foursquare Sept 2011) there were over 10 million people in the community worldwide, over a billion check-ins and over 500,000 businesses using the merchant platform to connect with their business.

How does it work?

There is no point me trying to explain this when the following site from the foursquare site does it so much better. It’s only two minutes long:

How could Pizza Cafe Newton (or any other business) use it?

Idea 1 – reward for the mayor. The mayor is the person who has the most check-ins over the preceding 60 days. Some businesses offer rewards to their mayor, maybe a free pizza each month or a free side order for the mayor whenever they come into the restaurant. The Pizza Cafe already offer one free pizza to their facebook/twitter fans each month – drawn randomly, which is a nice way of keeping everyone engaged, this reward would be more focused on customers who actually visit the restaurant.

Idea 2 – special offer for anyone who checks-in on a *insert your day*, let’s go for Wednesday. This would allow those who come to the restaurant and check-in via foursquare a reward, they would need to check-in to get the special but the reward would be available for anyone searching foursquare to view. So if I was visiting Newton Abbot on a Wednesday and didn’t know where to go eat, it might encourage me to visit the Pizza Cafe.

Idea 3 – special offer Monday – the Pizza Cafe already have a great offer on a Monday between 6-9pm. Two courses, for two people for £19.95. Now that is already a complete bargain and they already offer free drinks to those who mention facebook or twitter when they book their table. They could have a similar offer for foursquare customers – some of whom don’t use twitter or facebook so wouldn’t know about the deal otherwise.

What to do next?

Step 1 – Claim your venue. In the case of the Pizza Cafe they already have a page here, so they just need to visit the merchant site to claim the page

Step 2 – Create a special to reward loyal or new customers

Step 3 – Visit the merchant dashboard to monitor statistics about how many people are checking in, total over time, most frequent visitors, gender breakdown, time of day most popular with foursquare users etc. I have a feeling that I might feature in this data! I’ve not seen the dashboard but I’m confident it could give useful data for any business.

Step 4 – Celebrate extending your social media reach with a pizza Sit back and let your customers do the rest.

The secret ingredient is love

I’ve spent this weekend at a wedding in Suffolk and had the chance to watch a craftswoman at work! Betty had offered to make her cousin and his wife their wedding cake as their wedding gift. They were delighted to accept and had a particular idea about what they wanted – three tiers of chocolate cake covered in white chocolate cigarellos and white roses. You can see the end result below:

How much do you think that cake is worth? Go on, what you reckon? £100? £200? £300? £400? Annoyingly I’m not going to give you the answer – mostly because I don’t know. Depending on where you live, and the quality of ingredients you’d like used, that cake could easily cost you anything between £200-500.

A few years ago I made my little sister’s wedding cake – she’s got modest tastes (not) and wanted four tiers. The bottom tier was fruit cake, followed by double chocolate cake, victoria sandwich and topped with lemon drizzle cake. Her husband is in the Army and she met him at Army Cadet Summer Camp (she was an adult instructor – nothing dodgy) hence the camouflage ribbon and little hearts. You can see it here:

What I can tell you is that the ingredients alone cost over £150 – I’m not a professional and don’t have access to suppliers for the things you need, so the ingredients were all from Sainsburys – yes I could have got them in Tesco or Lidl but it was a one off and my sister at that, so money was no object. So the ingredients alone – cake, marzipan, icing, dowels, cake boxes, ribbon, cake tin hire for the HUGE fruit cake – were over £150. Cost in the time, gas and stress and that cake was easily worth double that I’d say. Not to mention the number of times I did a dry run of all but the fruit cake.

The thing is when people get quotes for wedding cakes they nearly always think they’re extortionate – and to be honest I think I’d always sniff at a couple hundred quid and feel it was daylight robbery, after all anyone can bake a cake right. Well not so actually. The baking is only the first step, then there’s the icing, and the decorating, and the transporting, and the stacking, and the finishing. It really is much more complicated than you think. All of this is time consuming like you wouldn’t consider.

None of this even starts to consider the stress. The responsibility of making the centrepiece for someone else’s special day, takes a lot of the fun out of it. Watching Betty cutting, icing, stacking and decorating the wedding cake this weekend reminded me of just how stressful it is. Never again. Seriously. I did offer to help Betty out with her own cake (she’s getting married in three weeks) but she declined – and I am *so* relieved. Betty, in her real life, is a paramedic, so she’s trained to cope with stress and work under pressure – she is definitely more adept at it than I am.

My final thought is that the value of a friend or relative making your wedding cake is something that you can’t actually buy or put a cost on – it’s love, it really is a *massive* labour of love. So if you’re getting married any time soon, and someone offers to bake your wedding cake for you, please do accept, but accept graciously and spare a thought for the effort, time, cost and love that goes into it.

It’ll taste all the better once you appreciate the love that has gone into it.

 

 

10,000 views #cancer #servicedesign #networks #hope

I’ve been blogging since March 2010 and today I passed 10,000 views of my blog. I can’t quite believe it, even if you completely over-estimate spam bots and decide at least half of those visits didn’t result in a post being read, that’s still at least 5000 that did. Now I know some of you will be sat here reading this, feeling all smug as you regularly get lots of hits to your blog, I’m sure there are some of you who get that many in a week…. but I like to focus on quality as much as quantity

Given my love of stats I thought I’d share some with you in honour of my 10,000 view.

Top 10 posts

Home page - does what it says on the tin, front page

What is service design? - another fairly obvious title, if I say so myself! My attempt to define Service Design – awesome 18 comments too, great discussion

The Price of Life #23weekbabies - talks about the cost of care of babies born at 23 weeks – another busy post for comments, although was first where I really struggled to decide whether to post comments or not – in the end I decided it wasn’t for me to vet them

About - another obvious one, little mini biography of yours truly

10 key factors for successful networks - post highlighting research into networks and ten success factors

ServDes: value, trust, transparency, ethics and shared expertise - my reflections on the Nordic Conference on Service Design and Service Innovation in Linköping

Cancer – the price of hope - first of the top ten talking about my Dad’s battle with cholangiocarcinoma and the value of hope

End-of life care - post accompanying Dispatches on end of life care provision

Service recovery Virgin Media style - my experience with Virgin Media

Cancer – the cost of no cure - cancer treatments, cost effectiveness and rationing

Top five referrers: Twitter, BBC, Facebook, WimRampen’s blog, WordPress Tags

Top five search terms:

impossible is nothing	52
how to build a wendy house	26
successful networks	19
service recovery process	17
george blogs	15

Comments: I had no idea when I started blogging whether anyone would engage with what I had to say and I had a bit of a fear that no-one would ever comment – leaving me feeling that I was shouting in a void. To date I have 356 comments from real people and numerous deleted from spam bots.

I think over the past year or so I’ve become less bothered by whether people comment and more interested in whether what I write resonates with people. Interestingly a lot of what I blog about is Cancer and my Dad’s experience of living with it, so not exactly a cheery subject, but I’m always amazed at how much people are interested and supportive. I’m also surprised (and pleased) about the number of people who find my blog when looking for cancer information. I always wanted to present a more balanced experience, or at least not *just* a negative experience of living with cancer. I’m really pleased if anything I offer can help anyone with their own experience, this comment sums it up really:

My mother was admitted to the hospital one week ago and after tests they say she has bile duct cancer. They sent her home with a tube for drainage of the bile from the liver and set an appointment to discuss the treatment on May 11th. They said the cancer had spread to the liver and lungs. Thanks for sharing your experiences as it is helpful in dealing with this.

So here’s to the next 10,000 and thank you all for your support and interest. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, just do it – start a blog, you’ll not look back!

Santander customer service #fail

Last night as I was busy enjoying @PizzaCafeNewton and watching the Apprentice Final, I received a phonecall on my landline. The conversation went as follows:

Me: Hello

Caller: Hi, it’s Ben (cant remember his proper name) calling from Santander. Just to let you know this call may be recorded for training purposes.

Me: Uh huh

Caller: Can you confirm the first name of your address please

Me: Um, could you tell me what you’re calling about please

Caller: Um, I need you to confirm your address details first, they’re DPA requirements. I’m from Santander.

Me: Sorry Ben, I’m not sure I’m that comfortable confirming my details to you

Caller: Why not, it’s DPA requirements…Data Protection Act

Me: Well, yes, but I’m still not that happy with it. You called me, how do I know who you are (while really thinking I’d rather be enjoying my evening)

Caller: I’m Ben, from Santander

Me: Yes I know you say you are, but I don’t know that. I’m not that comfortable to be honest

Caller: *Long loud huffff* Oh well I can put something in writing if you want

Me: Yes please, that would be great, thanks.

Am I missing something here. I get called at home, by a bank, requesting my details – when I say no, they don’t even offer a number I can call them on (not that I’d particularly trust that either). Not sure whether it’s spam or just shite customer service but I’ll live without knowing what I’m missing for now.