<rant>I cancelled my appointment with the, and I have now found out the correct term, 'Advanced Practitioner'.

I called the health clinic to try and find out what the scope of the service was and quite frankly it left me feeling very nervous about the whole thing. It's a long way to travel and there is a very poor outlook. The receptionist couldn't even tell me if this person had the authority to refer me for physio, or actually tell me anything about them at all, it seems like some random people turn up and use the health clinic facilities and the staff there know nothing about them - whatsoever. Taking 4 hours out of my day to go and see someone where there seems to be a very slim chance they may be able to help me is not happening.

It's terrifying just how bad the NHS has got recently. It is being driven into the ground, no appointments for weeks on end, staff who know nothing, then when you do actually get to see a doc it's vagueness and most of all a tangible fear of making any kind of diagnosis, the most common question seems to be "well what do you think it is?" What?! You're the doctor, aren't you supposed to tell me what's wrong?! Then they say things like they are "only able to follow the NICE guidelines". I questioned this and basically they can't use their own resources, intellect, knowledge, etc. for fear of litigation, it's just awful. This is the third time in a row now (3 times over the last 5 years or so) I have had poor experiences with the NHS. I am now at the point where I think it is just a total waste of time and I may as well just accept that I am going to have to go private. It goes against all my principles but I am going look into health care plans I think because this is just a joke.

The only thing they do seem keen on is prescribing statins. That they will do with enthusiastic confidence in stark contrast to everything else.
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Anyway, now I have got that off my chest, I have booked in with a private physio who knows about running and sports stuff. Totally different experience, the person I spoke to knew exactly what I was on about and seemed confident that they could help and gave me an appointment within a few days.

Roll on Thursday.

For the record, I have absolutely no knee pain at all today, everything seems fine, I can wiggle around balancing on one leg, nothing, not the faintest hint of anything being wrong at all. I am going to do my run tomorrow as planned. See how that goes hey