@NHS Do you trust Theresa May?

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

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.

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........

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
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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

X posts

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.

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!

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.

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 needed a knee op 5 years ago and I was offered to be treated at a private hospital, but still on the NHS. I'd already had my other knee done at a local NHS hospital the previous year and so I knew what to expect. The operation done at the private hospital was a disaster. No pre op was done until I was actually outside the operating theatre. I was given such a massive dose of anaesthetic that it took me days to come round, unlike the year before,when I was awake when I got back to the ward. I was discharged with a canula still in the back of my hand. Several weeks later, they sent me a photograph of the joint prior to the operation and post op. It was only when my GP pointed out that it was a photograph of the opposite knee that we realised I'd been sent someone else's photos. No idea why it was necessary to send them anyway, the NHS never did.

Private hospitals are not subject to the same scrutiny as NHS and don't have to monitor outcomes in same way, and apparently medical insurance cover if things go wrong, can be problematic according to Mail article. Treating NHS patients is big business for private hospitals as apparently a third of NHS funded hip & knee replacements are now done in private hostpitals.

I must say, though, that DD and I both have had operations performed at private hospitals under the NHS. That was many years ago, both went fine but they were not what you would call major operations although both required anaesthetic and DD had to stay in overnight.

publicmatters.org.uk/2017/06/24/the-americanisation-of-the-nhs-happening-right-here-right-now/

A new website set up to look at all public service changes and cuts, but starting with the NHS privatisation.

A real nurse talking about her job, her pay and progression.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/nursing-why-im-leaving-public-sector-pay-cap-brexit-hunting-a7822876.html

By the way, stopping the STPs is as important as stopping the pay cap.
The pay cap only applies to nurses employed by the NHS.
Nurses employed by the private sector are becoming more numerous.
Stopping the STPs should bring nurses back into the NHS fold.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/david-bailey/nhs-birthday_b_17389586.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Please reverse cuts and give the staff the pay they deserve.

Thank you for links, which I know some don't like or can't be bothered to read, but I find them informative and useful jen, and circulate them as widely as possible. The "public matters" website information was particularly concerning, and the fact that we are sleep walking towards wholesale privatisation of NHS is so depressing AND PEOPLE DONT REALISE IT. It's very often only when you or those close to you use the NHS that you can see first hand what is happening. I have seen some posts on here from those who can't see a problem, but all I can say is they're not looking hard enough.

Lots more nurses saying why they are leaving nursing.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/05/why-i-am-leaving-nursing-morale-is-the-lowest-i-have-ever-seen-it

I wonder if Jeremy Hunt ever reads articles like these, or if his minders hide them from him.