The NHS

Thanks. Useful to air things on here and obviously the politics is important - no denying that. Totally support the NHS but think that many of us are struggling because it is under-funded and there has been too much interference. My original question was how do you deal with being at the receiving end of this as many many of us are. Sensible advice to either fight back or shrug your shoulders. I'm suffering from not letting it go but not doing anything about it either. Just think everyone needs to be aware of the everyday stress caused by what seem like minor things like cancelled operations. Would still welcome advice!

My DH has had 2 operations cancelled over the years. You build yourself up for the trauma of a potential lifethreatening situation and then at the last minute it gets cancelled. It is hard to deal with. Having said all that my DH has had numerous ops and procedures done under the NHS and has always had good care and treatment.

I work for a GP and have done so for many, many years. I have never seen him so near to breaking as he has been in the last 2 years. The pressure from all angles both NHS England and from patients is so intense he may well give up soon to save his own life. Something is very wrong with the way the NHS is run (this is non political as no party has got it right) GPs should be allowed to treat patients not spend most of the day form filling and box ticking.

My neighbour who has has had a gynae problem since January has finally got a diagnosis and scheduled for surgery "in two weeks" she was asked to go for her pre-op on the same day. She was rung last week offering surgery on either Tues or Thurs next week,then she was rung to say all lists have been closed and she must wait for a date in the future. She is understandably upset and frustrated and in the meantime her symptons are getting worse.Just one more statistic.

Why do they make up lists and then change everything at the last moment? I just wonder if those who are responsible have lost sight of how it feels?

The reason the doctors are complaining is because of this government's mismanagement , cuts and interference.
They are not complaining about the NHS. They are complaining about Jeremy Hunt trying to ruin the NHS so it is fit for soon's idea of insurance based.
Jeremy Hunt wants to put a label on medicines to tell people how much they cost and say "Paid by the British taxpayer."
Doctors want the same label to be put round his neck.

Sorry not to have any practical help, Jane. Frustrating, isn't it?

Yes - completely agree with you about this government. We are the taxpayer who pay for our own medicine. People say they are grateful for the NHS but they pay for it! You know if we were paying for it directly we would never put up with this!

If you were paying for it directly you wouldn't be making so many demands of it! GPs I know sometimes can't believe the trivial things patients turn up with. Our local surgeries all post the number of failed appts each month -often well into the 100s. Some 'patients' have a lot to answer for. We're all in this together. Its too easy to just place a blanket blame on the govt of whatever hue. The end sufferer is people like the OP's DH

janep57 if you were paying for it you'd be paying a helluva lot more than your contributions have been. I have had thousands of pounds of treatments over the years which I would never of been able to afford.

DD2's FiL had a heart attack 4 weeks ago and his family were told to expect the worst. Thanks to the NHS he is home and almost ready to go back to work. That's what I call a good health service.

Well said Tanith.

At my age I would be uninsurable and I certainly could not afford to pay for any surgery privately, except the odd minor operation. I have a friend who has never had surgery in her life nor had any investigations. She is a rare breed I would think. Like "tanith* I have had my share of what I have paid into the NHS paid back tenfold by the surgery and treatment that I have received over the years.

I have realised that I did not post the latest of whitewave's NHS threads. Here it is.
www.gransnet.com/forums/health/a1217515-Non-political-Save-our-NHS

For a government to be electable, it would have to bring in a good insurance scheme.
It couldnt have such a thing as "uninsurable".

www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2015/oct/22/nhs-doctor-surgeon-junior-contract-quit-job-stress-family-children

This is what Hunt's NHS has led to.

”janep57 if you were paying for it you'd be paying a helluva lot more than your contributions have been. I have had thousands of pounds of treatments over the years which I would never of been able to afford.”

How on earth do you work that one out? If my house burns down tomorrow I will get a payout far more than I’ve ever paid in premiums because the claim is met from the premiums of all those whose houses don’t burn down. Similarly, your healthcare has been paid from the contributions of others who are less sick, not from money that was conjured out of thin air by the fairies. That’s how an insurance scheme works, whether it’s public or private.

My mother lives in a council flat, so if the plumbing breaks down the council send a plumber who is paid for out of the rent, but that doesn’t mean he has to be a council employee. I don’t see why the NHS can’t work the same way.

The problem with the NHS is not that they don’t do a good job most of the time, it’s the way they behave when things go wrong. Soon didn’t give examples, but I can. There are a handful of cases that illustrate the general problem quite well:

Kane Gorny
He’s the lad who died of thirst in Tooting Hospital because the nurses wouldn’t give him a drink. He called the police, but they turned them away at the door saying he was just a troublemaker, the same defence they used at the inquest. The real scandal here is that they knew that the public would let them get away with it.

The Websters
Are the couple whose son was taken for adoption because the NHS wrongly told social services that he was being abused. The child had scurvy because the GP had wrongly taken him off prescription soya milk. What’s revealing is the way the public reacted to this scandal, instead of placing the blame fairly and squarely with the NHS where it belonged, they were hurling abuse at the social services who had acted entirely properly. They were advised by the NHS that the child was being abused, so they removed him from the home.

Gerry Robinson
Who went to Rotherham to try and improve the running of the hospital. When he noticed that none of the theatres were being used on Friday afternoons, he found out that this was because the surgeons all go off playing golf. He never did manage to get them to work Friday afternoons; and when a follow-up program was made, they all turned up wearing T-shirts printed with a slogan gloating about it. I wonder if the public would put up with police or firemen bunking off work to play golf, and gloating on national TV.

Henry Crun

He had been complaining that something was wrong for ages, but was just patronised like a ‘steaming great hypochondriac’. Eventually he was taken to A&E and diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, but instead of accepting this, the NHS chose to repeatedly deny that they had ever seen anything wrong for several months. They even told him to his face that he had never been taken to A&E at all, and ignored the paperwork proving otherwise.

There’s a theme running through all this: the NHS are arrogant and unanswerable, but the Great British public just sit back and allow it. When the police smeared the Lawrence family it was a scandal, but when the NHS routinely smear their critics they get lauded at the Olympics.

Sorry not read the thread in detail and none of the links but I don't think it is all down to underfunding. A lot of it is down to inefficiency.

Of course it makes sense to run the services every day of the week as the equipment is so expensive and people don't choose when they are ill.

Of course patients use the NHS when they should deal with it themselves and imo the medics should educate them instead of simply treating them every time. My GP gave some examples one of which was someone who dad diarrhoea and when asked how long for he said 2 hours!

DH was told just over a year ago that his operation would be 'before March' but they were getting the waiting list down by operating on Saturdays. He is still waiting and in the intervening time has been back for 5 lots of pre-op tests, 5 blood tests and 2 MRI scans! It takes at least 1 1/2 hours to get there and they ask him to be in at 8 am, 8.30 and 8.45! It does not take much to make the early appointments for the locals and the later ones for people who have to travel. It should also be possible surely to do them all on the same day instead of having to go on different days for different tests..

Twice they have called him to take a cancellation and then realised he can't as he has to stop taking his meds a week before. Once they gave him an appointment for the 20th and then a couple of days before changed it to the Saturday before, 16th but we had organised a birthday party for a child on the CPR so he couldn't take it and they had given someone else the 20th. Then he was given and date and it was cancelled 3 days before because they had an 'emergency'. We were sceptical because we realised he hadn't had the blood test they said he had to have within 4 weeks of the op. Then they gave him a date just before the holiday we had booked for July and said he couldn't fly for 6 weeks after the op. They seemed to think it was unreasonable to have booked a holiday for July when he had been told the op would be months earlier! They suggested he cancel it but there were several of us going and the insurance would not have paid out as it was not an emergency.

He had a call to say he hadn't turned up for an MRI scan a couple of months earlier but had never been called for it. Yesterday he went for his latest MRI and had called beforehand to remind them he needed a blood test as well and they actually managed to do them on the same day.

I wonder how much this has all cost the NHS? If this goes on all over the place it is no wonder they are short of money. I also think that TVs in waiting rooms are an necessary waste!

sorry for the long rant!

The current state of my health (I am classified as disabled) is directly related to the fact that I was Carer to a family member for 20 years during which time there were so many failed discharges. A Dr was told don't give a certain drug, he gave it, family member suffers. When questioned on this he asked what qualifications I had to discuss anyone's medication, do I have a degree in medicine - NO I am qualified because I have a brain and I knew the patient had had previous problems. There were failed discharges with threats from a nurse in charge. My parents told me to watch the company I keep. I have met some crackers in my time but none as bad as those employed by the NHS.
They cost themselves money because they have perfected the art of inserting the cranium up their own rectum.
I now have to depend of the likes of that for the rest of my life.
SPF

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11932931/The-public-isnt-as-terrified-of-NHS-privatisation-as-politicians-think.html

Janet Daley wrote an article in the Telegraph about the fact that most of the public do not care who runs the NHS. It was true according to the poll at the time, but that was only 650 Telegraph readers.

It's now very much the reverse.
If you believe in the NHS and want to add your vote, you can do so on this link.

I have chronic health problems and recently developed a new issue that led to me being referred to a cardiologist at our local hospital. I don't want to go into too much detail but suffice to say, I'm very happy with the care I'm given on every level. Excellent GP practice, and 3 consultants dealing with various different long term health issues sensitively and in a totally professional manner.

Signed durhamjen

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/caroline-molloy/it-may-not-look-like-it-but-jeremy-hunt-does-have-plan-for-nhs-0

I've just read this. Look at the bit about Lansley if you do not think they are privatising as much as they can of the NHS.
It will be privatised before this government leaves office, but they'll blame the doctors and nurses this time.

The latest figures I heard were that 6% of the NHS is privatised which is 1% more than when Labour passed it over. No, I haven't read the links I find it worrying that someone receives so many from their friends.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/views/blogs/the-mad-referral-merry-go-round/20030213.blog

This is why it takes so much time to see a specialist that you need to see.
As someone says in the responses, we need to get rid of the internal market.

Why should you be worried, Nonnie? I'm the one that reads them all. There are quite a lot of links to read on the opendemocracy link. It keeps me busy, so I do not write so much on here.
Or are you just jealous that I have so many friends?

Or are you just jealous that I have so many friends

I hope that was ironic DJ , if not, surprisingly petty and childish , not really worthy of you.

janep57 I am sorry about your problems. I have had a lot of contact with the NHS lately because of my 93 year old mother. Sometimes there have been things which haven't been perfect, although much of her treatment has been excellent. When things have gone wrong I have always made a complaint. I would suggest you find out what the complaints process is and do this, but bearing in mind how things could have been done better and what could be done to make this happen. I think it is always better to give positive suggestions when complaining.I have found that the people responsible have been very pleased to get feedback and are sometimes unaware of what is happening and really want to make improvements.
As far as cancelled operations go it is often difficult if the particular area of medicine concerned have a lot of short notice emergency operations to deal with they necessarily have to cancel other operations. Which I know is no comfort for you and your DH.
The NHS is a great organisation but like anything else it makes mistakes and most of the people who work for it want it to do better.

On Thursday I was out with a friend for two hours for coffee. On her getting home her 83 yr old husband wasn't well and his surgery was closed. She rang A&E who told her to go straight away, he has a heart condition. He was admitted, lots of tests done and discharged in 36 hours with medication and an outpatient appt with a Cardiologist for 10 days time. All very efficient but this hospital garners lots of complaints for long waiting lists, poor care on wards and long waiting times in A&E not to mention dreadful food. It seems to show the NHS is like the Curates Egg, good in parts.