@NHS Do you trust Theresa May?

inews.co.uk/essentials/news/health/eu-nurses-numbers-slump-brexit/

t.co/SjKVQJAlON

The government has gone back on its promise to fund 10,000 new places for nurses at universities.

Do we trust the government with the NHS?

I think that happens more often than you think because private hospitals are limited in the scope of what they can do in an emergency.
Anything goes wrong and the NHS picks up the pieces.
That happened to a friend of mine who had a knee replacement done privately (she just could not wait the 2+ years as she was in agony). However, an infection developed and she was sent to the NHS hospital for weeks, sent home then back in again for quite a long period of time.
I must say it put me off having my knees done.

Our guest house in York was near the Rowntrees factory.
Our side of the factory part of it was turned into a private hospital.
On the other side of the factory was the NHS hospital.
We had a German doctor staying with us every other week for six months or so. She was doing hip and knee operations at the private hospital. If anything went wrong, she told us she just had to get an ambulance to take the person a few hundred yards to the NHS hospital.
I never asked her how often anything went wrong. It seemed impolite as I was taking her money!

The Daily Mail (yes really) ran an article in June about the danger of private doctors and hospitals, and I would urge anyone contemplating private treatment to read it. It was about 14th June. Sorry can't do links on IPad.

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Then there is the theory that, if a patient can afford a private operation or has insurance to pay for it, their place on the NHS waiting list can be offered to someone else who needs it thus reducing their waiting time.

Swings and roundabouts.

Private work is never justified in my opinion.
No doctor can be in two places at once.
If s/he is performing an operation privately, s/he should be working in the NHS.

Many experienced NHS doctors run or work in a private practice alongside their NHS work. There are no rules against it in principle but consultant contracts stipulate there must be no conflict of interest between NHS and private work.

I think it has always happened but whether it has a negative impact on the NHS is something which is often discussed.

At one time NHS hospitals had private rooms and the theory was that this brought additional income to the NHS. I remember MIL being in hospital when I first met her and she was in a private room in a large NHS hospital. That was over 50 years ago.

By the way, Scotland has lifted the 1% paycap because of the threat of nurses going on strike, and the number of MPs voting for lifting the cap in Westminster.

I don't understand why the same Dr who would do a NHS operation can offer you the same operation privately, surely this isn't helping the situation. But as I say I don't know enough about it other than I know it is an option given to patients,can anyone explain more about & is it justified?

Pressure seems to be working somehow, I think.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/29/nhs-chiefs-soften-brutal-cost-cutting-plan-after-huge-backlash

They are still going to cut somehow, somewhere, but not as much as they had previously suggested, I think.
Far too many abbreviations in the NHS.

There is clearly a problem of inappropriate attendees and drunks in A&E but it easy to get sidetracked when statistically by far the biggest demographic of A&E attendances are the elderly. These are often as a result of falls
Lazigirl those of us elderly who fall and break a limb would be seen much more quickly were it not for the inappropriate attendees and drunks and young children who will have silly accidents and require attention.

ps don't take this post seriously btw!

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/01/junior-doctor-rachel-clarke-nhs-lament-jeremy-hunt

A book written from the point of view of a junior doctor.

'Dr Rachel Clarke’s book chronicles how rota gaps, exhausted staff and risks to patient safety make a mockery of ministers’ claims to be creating a “world-class” health service. Leading medics believe that the honesty, humanity and unflinching detail in Clarke’s book, Your Life in My Hands, which is published this month, will deepen public concern about the state of the NHS as it enters the 70th year since its creation by the postwar Labour government in 1948.

“Dr Clarke has written a blockbuster, a page-turner, a tearjerker,” said Professor Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. “This is a from-the-heart account of the wanton erosion of a magnificent ideal – healthcare free at the point of need, funded through general taxation and available to all. It is a love song for the wonderful National Health Service that has embodied – to an extent unequalled anywhere in the world – the principle that healthcare is not a commodity but a great duty of state.”

Clarke’s publishers, John Blake, describe the book – part autobiography, part cri de coeur for an increasingly fragile NHS – as “a powerful polemic on the systematic degradation of Britain’s most vital institution”. She finds humour in sometimes bleak situations, is said to take the reader on an emotional rollercoaster, while being enraged by dubious government claims about the NHS.'

There is clearly a problem of inappropriate attendees and drunks in A&E but it easy to get sidetracked when statistically by far the biggest demographic of A&E attendances are the elderly. These are often as a result of falls and require admission. Looking at the bigger picture if there was better and well funded care in the community this would not happen to the extent that it does. However it does require political will to fund it........

Poor staff and other patients having to put up with such awful behaviour.
I was in A&E one night after DS was attacked (by a gang of drunks), I was horrified at the miasma of alcohol hitting me as I walked in the door. There were even policemen posted in the waiting room.

ps and have a fight in A&E - also witnessed

You've missed our point I think. There's no need to drink yourself to oblivion, get into fights and end up in A&E etc for example
Yes, I do realise - I have been in A&E with a possible fracture and seen people who have been there for dubious reasons and then decided it was not worth the wait and went home to suck a lozenge instead.

My GP friend can't believe some of the trivial reasons people demand an appointment for Eg a sore nose from blowing it while having a cold. These people do still have to be seen but it can only be at the expense of time and money that could be expended more usefully on ill or injured patients.
I don't know how people could be discouraged from seeking medical attention inappropriately though as sometimes it really is needed and it would be typical if the ones who don't like to trouble the doctor were the ones put off. No easy answers but nothing wrong with encouraging people to take some personal responsibility for their own health.

We are human with all the weakness of the human condition. We aren't robots who always behave in the right way.

I agree that people should take responsibility for their own health, but many health problems are not the fault of individuals, and it sounds quite smug to condemn those who for example are obese or drink excessively without knowing their personal circumstances. If you actually did try to see a GP for minor, self limiting illnesses by the way, you would have recovered by the time you could get an appointment!

I really do not know anyone who went to see either a GP or a nurse practitioner for a sore throat. Not missing the point at all. You agreed with JanieG about that.

If you know someone who did, should you not have advised them accordingly?

You've missed our point I think. There's no need to drink yourself to oblivion, get into fights and end up in A&E etc for example. There are straightforward public health messages that are ignored. If people took more personal responsibility for their own health there would be more time and money to provide the best care for those suffering from all sorts of accidents and diseases.

And how dare they get cancer - even if they have eaten healthily and looked after themselves.
How irresponsible of them.

This thing about taking in nurses from Australia shows the how poor UK thinking and planning is on these matters.
That's because so many British nurses went to Australia

Fair exchange?
There are all kinds of reasons - a desire to travel, new experiences - or love?

How dare the public be ill and want to use the NHS?