Book info

• Title More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
• Author Tom Reynolds
• Year 2009
• Genre Memoir

Meet Tom, an Emergency Medical Technician for the London Ambulance service. It is Tom who shows up to pick up the drunk tramp, the heart attack victim and the pregnant woman who wants to go to hospital in an ambulance because she doesn't want to call a taxi. Tom is also a man who rails against the unfairness of it all, who bemoans the state of the NHS and who ridicules the targets that state that if the ambulance arrives within eight minutes and the patient dies it is a success and if the ambulance arrives in nine minutes and the patient's life is saved it is a fail. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of the emergency services. From the tragic to the hilarious, from the heart-warming to the terrifying, Blood, Sweat and Tea 2 is packed with fascinating anecdotes that veer from tragic to hilarious; heart-warming to terrifying and Tom deftly leads the reader through a rollercoaster of emotion.

Thoughts

I was determined to read this one, as the follow-up to the first book that I reviewed here previously. I got this book for free at the same time as the first, but it looks like the price has now gone up to a very reasonable £1.99. I’d say that comparatively speaking, the prices are very reflective of the source material. This second book was a lot less depressing than the first, and whilst still giving a lot of in insight to how idiotic both humankind, and the NHS bureaucracy, can be, it was a tiny bit more uplifting.

It’s very telling that towards the very end of the book, Tom/Brian starts questioning why he continues to do the job. I think the last time I checked the site, he had transferred to a nursing unit somewhere, putting his skills to a less mobile use!

Anyway, if you enjoyed the first, you will definitely like this one, and if you were a bit skeptical of the first, then you might like this one better. If you didn’t like, or weren’t interested in, the first one then steer clear, as this is very much more of the same. I have found another Kindle book about life inside hospitals, so look for a similar review coming soon!

Rating: 3 / 5