General Chat

iv never really thought about it, and always just tick the right box, lol

but as you say BC you shold have a right to refuse to answer

I always state mine on hospital forms, after all they don't send me to the path lab along with my specimen :-D

On general forms or damn surveys I leave it blank. That's sort of pay back for all the wotsits who left blank answers on the 1981 census that I processed!

Sue x

I always state mine on hospital forms too, but am becoming less happy about information on these forms. They're only useful if kept properly.
Several people I know have had their information mixed with someone else.
Staff almost insisted that mother-in-law didn't know what she was talking about when she said she wasn't taking a particularly medication. -They were looking at another person's notes.
Not as bad as the time they phoned her at home to tell her that her husband was dead. Good job he was sitting at his computer upstairs or she really would have worried.

Gwyn

I think just asking what ethnic group a person is from can be a problem sometimes, take the recent case of those poor children who were groomed for sex, it stated in the press they were Asian which covers a wide group.
It should have said they were pakistanis and Afghans and not just Asian, how do you think Indians or Turks or Syrians feel being lumped together as ethnic Asians.

George

Dear All

Hello

Hope you are okay.

I don't like filling in forms.

At a hospital appointment about 3 years ago, I was asked
"Whats your religion?".

My reply was "I don't object to a blood transfusion".

The next part: "Do you practice your religion?"

Me: "NO COMMENT.

The gathering of information by public departments seem to be getting more sinister for my liking.

A bit like the Big Brother state as described by George Orwell in his book
"1984".

Take gentle care
Very best wishes
EOS
xx

evening darling I agree with Rambling Roses first post :-D

Where is the box for 'mongrel' ? ;-)

Dear Gwyn In Kent

Hello

What a terrible shock for your mother-in-law to hear that over the telephone.

I don't think these people realise the distress they cause when they make mistakes like this.

Okay, it turned out allright but if your father-in-law had not been at home.
What a bunch of idiots.

Take gentle care
Very best wishes
EOS
xx

I get very annoyed, does it realy matter? I also get annoyed with the police if I'm reporting an incident. The question always asked is what colour were they, not how were they dressed. My retort is I don't care if they are sky blue pink with yellow spots and go on to described what they were wearing. However , they always ask the question again. Elaine :-|

I just put a dash against the question and it's not yet been queried. Will probably be down to some jobsworth in the national health service/Whitehall. Filing / sorting the data will keep a large number of people in a less than useful job.
When I was a policeman, we had several such stupid?questions on forms from our home Office masters - I remember on stolen car reports, in effect, they wanted to know how many blue ford Escorts were stolen on a Wednesday, against yellow ones on a Thursday.

Great long forms which had morphed from single sheets.

Feel better for that.

Happy days

When i was a national service man at our induction was a large blackboard with all suggestions for answering that question.bearing in mind that there were not so many ethnic minorities in the UK at the time.1959.........the possibles were

British/ English

Brit/ Eng

British Welsh

Brit/Welsh

British/Irish

Brit/ Irish

and British/Scots

Brit/ Scot
I was then,

and still am.............Brit/Eng.


there were a few oddballs there like from liverpool, manchester,London and some from the channel isles.....dunno what bracket THEY fitted into.......LOL

for what ever resion this info is used for on forms im proud of who i am
there for i dont mind putting down my ethnic group

The point of this thread is that when BC said she would prefer not to answer that particular question the nurse got annoyed with her.

I usually do tick the relevant boxes but will also exercise my right not to if I so wish and should be able to do so without someone getting annoyed with me.

Yes, Cat, I was upset because my rights were challenged :-( But it has been interesting to read of other people's take on form filling. Thanks for input everyone. BC XX

I don't really mind being asked my ethnic background, my latest bugbear is being asked my email address. The last time I went to buy a car I answered all the questions until the young man asked for my email. I declined and the sod got up and said that he would have to speak to the manager.

Needless to say when I finally decided a few weeks later I went to another salesman, nearer my age I must add, who explained the reasoning and then proceeded without the said information. -jl

I suppose I am used to having to put my nationality on forms here so I wouldn't mind putting my ethnic group either if I had to and have done in England.

I once answered a survey in UK about what foods I bought and objected to revealing if I owned or rented my house, whether or not I was the bread winner and approximately how much was my salary

Wendy

Well BC me dear, I can't even see you but have a pretty good idea which etnic group you belong to! Was the nurse wearing a blindfold? :-S :-0
I was rather hoping you'd said Banterloonie. Hmmm.....memo to moi :-D


These groupings are so broad anyway, as someone has said 'asian' covers an extremely broad area and I think the sickle cell 'reason' is a red herring.

Whether anyone chooses to answer or not answer questions on a form is up to them, and I defend the right to not answer....but if they then don't feel that services in the area
( whether that is in hospital, town planning blah blah) match up to their needs then perhaps they won't complain either. (EDIT That is most emphatically NOT having a go at BC !)

When my mum was in hospital I was asked her religion...was that an invasion of privacy..or an act designed to provide a service to her which she couldn't ask for herself ? I guess it depends on ones perspective.

I certainly don't want someone to assume they know my ethnicity, country of origin ( or allegiance!) just by looking at me!

I have to add here that if somebody was to look at one of my great nieces they would assume she is caucasian (white). Her father is Morroccan and his mother was black although he is white also. You cannot tell by just looking.

Oh well sorry I had a little joke with BC - at least I join in on other threads!!

'Black' is a race? :-S