NHS again

Sigh.

Circle in talks to exit private contract to run Hinchingbrooke hospital
gu.com/p/44m4e

Another brilliant consequence of privatise at any cost. This Jersey-based bag of commercial and political flops can't make enough money out of the NHS so want to do a runner. Thanks, Dave!

Firstly, having lived abroad and visited OZ and NZ and needed medical treatment (below the insurance level). I'm so relieved that we have the NHS, for all its problems. For example, in NZ late last year my DH realised that he hadn't brought enough of one of his drugs so DD made an appointment for him. Appointment costs and medication cost over £100. For me 4 years ago in OZ, £80 for an appointment and prescription - medical advice at the time was we all needed a whooping cough booster as the school had an infection going on and my youngest grandson was very small and too young for his jab! Neither of these episodes were covered by insurance and we do have a reciprocal policy with both NZ and OZ for emergencies.
I can't begin to think how many people would be unable to manage if we had to have private insurance here to cover the most basic costs.
Secondly, I give my full support to the consultant who composed the letter - why is any government so negative about ensuring the health of its citizens when we are one of the richest countries in the world, I really do not know. It seems our politicians are unable to get a grip on the most important aspects of life but what to do about it??

How does one politician taking a child to A&E and that infomation becoming public make any situation in the NHS worse?

Ridiculous comment, dj.

Durhamjen

'Jeremy Hunt doesn't seem to be around very much in A&E discussions'.

I'm sorry but that comment is ridiculous. Perhaps you simply do not take an interest in anything that does not suit your tunnel visioned view of the government/NHS. If you are seriously interested in knowing what he says, whether or not it suits your opinions, watch for yourself the debates that take place in Parliament or on the 24 hour news channels. There is no excuse they are on catch up. I suggest you start with the Labour Urgent Question on A&E 18th December where 10 Labour MP's turned up to back Andy Burnham. You know all about though as it has been mentioned before.

What the hell would you do if you had a child/grandchild needing a medical assessment and your GP was not available or you had a genuine concern for his/her health? He might be a politician but he is a father first and fair play to him I say if his child comes before any concern of what the likes of his enemies think and is concerned for his child's immediate welfare and takes appropriate steps to secure reassurance. I would, wouldn't you?

You have made the reference to Jeremy Hunt taking his child to A&E before and I do not apologise when I say that using a childs health and welfare as a political weapon is not fair game. Then again Miliband has been outed as saying he wants to 'weaponise the NHS' so I guess it's par for the course these days.

There was the case of the left wing Jack Monroe tweeting about David Cameron using his son Ivan to 'score points'. What a -+'"(=#.g@2.

I'm sorry but whether it be David Cameron mentioning his son Ivan or Gordon Brown mentioning his dear daughter Jennifer , or Jeremy Hunt taking his child to A&E I wish people would simply accept they are parents first and politicians second and have every right to do/say/act appropriately in accordance what ever way they feel, the same as the rest of us.

Is 111 any better than NHS Direct?

I think that when it comes to A&E anything that needs quicker attention than you can get from a GP would have to count as an emergency. Also, if you have good reason to think that the GP is going to send you to A&E anyway, then going to the GP first is actually increasing the load on the NHS.

The first time my arrhythmia kicked off, I stayed at home and sat it out for 10 hours rather than dial 999, unaware of the damage I was doing to my heart. The second time I did the same, but it hadn't stopped after 14 hours, so I called NHS Direct first, then the surgery, who wanted to know why I couldn't go to them. Two minutes after I hung up the GP called back to say he was sending an ambulance.

Mishap the grievances I have against the NHS are nothing to do with waiting times.

Ring 111 like the rest of us.

I seem to remember it was on a weekend, when his GP's surgery was closed. What was he supposed to do, durhamjen?

Jeremy Hunt does not seem to be around very much in the A&E discussions. Could it be because he took his own children to A&E a while ago, rather than to their GP, thus making the situation worse?

Here is the A&E consultant's letter but will anyone listen?

www.brightonandhovenews.org/2015/01/07/brighton-ae-doctor-tells-prime-minister-you-lied-about-nhs/36995

Our doctors surgery is excellent, as I have said before. We know some have a poor service.

I think it is blindingly obvious there is a huge difference in the NHS and it begs the question why?

Are some practices simply run better?. Is it the location?

As for the debate about the elderly and whether or not the 'known' longer life expectancy has increased the pressure on the NHS I had a look at our local newspaper today at the death notices, as you do. There were 25 deaths, the youngest were 2 people who died in their 60's (65 & 66), the oldest was 101. The average age was 85.65.

It is the case that with our life expectancy increasing it stands to reason the NHS and Social Services will have more cases to deal with. The NHS and Social Services have always been in a position where they areare continually trying to get a round peg in the proverbial square hole.

Seems to me vast differences across the country for accessing GP services could be a root problem; I'm lucky, can generally get appointment same day, or speak to a doctor. Ours is a small village practice part of a three practice group.
My very elderly parents, who live in a town 17 miles away, can't get an appointment unless phone at 8.30a.m. if line busy then have to keep phoning and hope appointments not gone- often told 3 week wait. Cannot book subsequent appointment once seen doctor, have to go down same rigmarole all over again.

Thanks for starting this thread Mishap I think we are sometimes so busy picking out the failures in the NHS that we forget how wonderful it is. My mother is 92, has many medical conditions and takes a lot of life-saving medication. She has been treated in many hospitals and I am always impressed by the level of care she has been given. Yes there have been times when she has been kept waiting but for the main she has been treated well. The cost of her medication alone must be substantial. I am so grateful to all the medical staff who have cared for her. I always say thank you to them but being able to say a public thank you to all NHS staff is wonderful.

The problem with our GP practice is that if you wish to see a doctor soon, rather than that day as an emergency, you would probably have to wait for 3 weeks. Some things which are not that-day urgent you may want dealt with within a week which is not possible at the moment.

If we did have a like button, I'd have pressed it on reading Mishaps post above.

I'm lucky as well, we have an excellent GP practice, can always be seen on the day if necessary, sometimes wait a week to see our named GP but for those of us with chronic health problems, rather than an urgent need, that's ok with me.

A&E does suffer from people who seem to believe it's there as a right but who could wait to see a GP. Any evening visit to our A&E is always complicated by the presence of people who shouldn't be there. By that, I mean drunks and their support group.

It is right to look at the previous stage of all this - i.e. the GP. I have a very good practice and I can always get an appointment or a phone conversation with a doctor the same day.

I understand that lots of people have to wait days for an appointment and that is probably part of the problem for A&E units. At least one hospital in the midlands is employing GPs as a means of filtering out and giving treatment to those who do not need to be at A&E.

The whole pattern of how people use the NHS is changing and perhaps we need to look at that and think how things might be rearranged to deal with that.

Locally there is a drop-in GP centre at ASDA, presumably funded by the local commissioning group. My DD always goes there rather than the surgery. They book in, ask what the waiting time is, trot off and do their shopping and get back in time for their slot. They then take themselves back into the store to get their drugs if anything has been prescribed. Keeps them out of A&E and gets speedy treatment for something that is not an emergency.

I think my understanding of "emergency" must be more immediate than perhaps it needs to be; I thought a medical emergency was something that needed immediate medical treatment. Apparently not.

I am fortunate to have very little experience of A&E, and what I have had was very good and did not involve long delays in Edinburgh, Blackpool and Vale of Leven Hospitals), so I apologise if my previous post seemed unfair. That was not my intention.

I think the long delays that some people are experiencing are perhaps a sign that A&E facilities are taking up the slack of a somewhat broken health service.

The man who had to wait twenty hours should have been able to get an appointment with his GP.

Very unfair of you, bags.
I was taken to A&E when I had an aortic dissection the Thursday before Easter 2013. I spent hours in A&E and eventually was found a bed on a ward at 9 p.m.
It wasn't until the following Tuesday that they discovered I had an aortic dissection. Until then I had doctors saying, "Oh, you're the one with back pain, aren't you?" in a very dismissive way.
If they'd sent me home, like one of them wanted to, I might have been dead the next day.
I spent the next week on a HDU in a different hospital. According to your reasoning, I would not have been an emergency, as I managed to last for over four days without a diagnosis. Were you so dismissive of vampire's friend who was told she had an aortic dissection, then sent home with Paracetamol?

Bags - I think this guy had a depressed immune system and if he could not get an appointment with his GP then he was in right place in A&E.

The person who waited 11 hours on the floor for an ambulance in that article has a right to be aggrieved - what a farce.

And crun I do understand your irritation. Just because you are not about to die does not mean that your condition might not be accruing problems the longer it goes untreated. In a similar situation to yours, the ambulance was a bit slow - it took about 45 minutes to arrive (but we do live in the middle of nowhere) - but as soon as I got to A&E they shot me through and got me treated pdq - I was very impressed.

It really sounds as if the service is basically patchy in every way - between hospitals, between counties, between wards in the same hospital. There is a need to achieve some consistency so that everyone can feel confident of getting a good service.

One of our local A&E consultants in Brighton has accused the government of lying about the crises in A&E, lying about the top down re-organization and being deluded over the situation in the NHS. As much as it pains me to say his letter is published in full in the Daily Mail and is pretty powerful stuff. Needs reading. I am no good at links people so sorry for that but daily mail/health may find it.

I don't know why I keep reading threads like this, I'm finding it harder and harder to bite my tongue. When I describe my experience of the NHS I usually get treated like a liar, or ostracised.

Thatbags: "Emergency means you can't wait, doesn't it?"

Well, yes, but appearances can be deceptive, when my arrhythmia kicks off I can sit chatting with the paramedics and look perfectly normal even though my heart rate is 230. The point is, the longer my heart rate remains at that level the more damage it does, the more likely it becomes that I will have more episodes, and the higher the risk of me having a stroke. I've been told to dial 999 within 15 minutes, but I often leave it a lot longer than that.

So far, on all nine occasions when I have needed to call an ambulance I have been at home, but I have wondered what would happen if I needed one whilst in Tesco:

"What do want an ambulance for, they're supposed to be for emergencies", or
"What's wrong with you, you look alright to me".

My experience of 111 is that they eventually put you through to an MD who sends an ambulance if it's thought to be necessary. A couple of times, the paramedics who arrived after we phoned 111 sent for an ambulance. bags when my mother had a bad fall at breakfast time - turned out she'd broken her foot and had some bad bruising all over - she spent all day on a trolley first in A&E and then in a sort of waiting area. She was finally admitted around 8pm. Not 20 hours, admittedly, but quite long enough. And if you go to your GP with an injury, what happens?

wrong

Article in BBC news today in which one man says the A&E in which he spent 20 hours on a trolley untreated. Um... I'm sorry he was unwell, and I'm sorry he had to wait so long, but the fact that he could wait that long and still tell the tale suggests to me that he didn't need to be at A&E in the first place. He could have been comfortable at home and then, hopefully have seen his GP.

Emergency means you can't wait, doesn't it? And his case wasn't an accident. It seems to me, from the information available, which isn't complete I know, that he was given wring advice by NHS Direct.

Is this yet another case of someone being sent to A&E who really didn't need to be there?