NHS collapsing....

We have had to visit hospital twice in the last few weeks. Both times we were there for nearly 6 hours. A few staff looked smart but many were very scruffy in shabby old trainers and ill fitting uniforms. Some were grossly overweight and bulging out of their uniforms. Some were so huge that we wondered how they manage to keep walking on a long shift.

Some depts were pretty good, others poor. After various tests, We waited over 3 hours just to get a very short discharge letter printed off and some medication. We told the doctor the medication she was prescribing had been used in the past and had caused nasty side effects but she still went ahead with it. She spoke very poor English and was wearing a mask so the conversation was slow as we had to keep asking her to repeat herself. This is embarrassing for both us and her I’m sure but not our fault.

Interesting thoughts on the American health care system. I understand that the outcomes in the UK are better than those in the States but their cost is (I can't remember the actual figure) twice (or more) as much. A huge percentage of their health care goes to their insurance companies who run much of the system.

I have health professionals in the family and I hear time and time again that the government is fixated about bringing the NHS to its knees and introducing something similar to the American model here, which would be simply awful.

We have several sets of friends in the States and those not born and bred in the UK just cannot understand why we would pay into a system so that we could look after the health of the chap round the corner whilst gaining no benefit ourselves.

Apart from lack of funding, not making medical staff working here welcome (and we probably poached them from countries needing them more) and not training enough doctors we urgently need replacement beds - we removed many thousands some years ago and people wonder why the system is clogged with bed blockers.

I will be unpopular here but I have had had fairly extensive stays both in private and NHS hospitals and have observed quite poor (non-medical) care in some quarters. Examples are patients asking for the loo but being ignored - not because the staff were busy elsewhere but finishing a gossipy conversation; food being left beside those too unwell to eat and water jugs being deposited on the far side of a room when the patient was too ill to walk to collect it. Fairly minor things but I doubt whether any of these would have happened fifty years ago.

Just downright awful ....

They do not care - Rishi promised £500m to social care - more social care = freed up hospital beds = A&E can free up = Ambulances can hand over their patients and go to new calls.

... and then he halves that money. There are 165,000 vacancies as it is, and it's all going to get much much worse.

www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/22/nhs-crisis-existential-risk-for-the-government

I am fairly certain that my massive hernia is going too strangulate again soon, and I am absolutely terrified this time.

Oh if you only knew!

Plenty of evidence available that they want rid and go for US style system.

Casualty that is.

Guess it was more left wing propaganda.

There is no real evidence that the tories want to destroy the NHS. They might be trying to make it work better and failing but that isn’t the same thing at all. And yet the narrative keeps getting repeated. Just because you hear something often doesn’t make it true.

I know it is just a TV programme- but did you watch Casualty on Saturday?

Oreo

It would be an unpopular move but yeah actually NI should go up.Pay more and get a better service.

But we wouldn’t get a better service would we. The NHS is a bottomless pit. The more we pour into it the more it needs. We need to recognise that NHS is not fit for purpose and stop trying to improve things by tinkering at the edges. I whole new system is required. One that is fit for the 21st century.

Travel insurance which covers the USA is a lot more expensive than anywhere else in the world because of the high cost of health care there.
You must be comfortably off catholicwife, but I wouldnt want to be poor and sick in America.
Ours is a National Health Service which covers everyone not just the wealthy. Its in crisis because its been run down deliberately with profit in mind over the last 10 or more years by our conservative government, with the aim of having a system (like yours) which covers the wealthy but not the poor.
You are welcome to your system. Most of us would much prefer ours. Vive le difference.

happycatholicwife1

I know everybody thinks healthcare in the United States is awful, but my husband and I and, indeed, most of the people I know have had very good outcomes most of the time.

I'm sorry if my previous text was too long and not put in paragraphs. I was given some very helpful advice about using paragraphs which I forgot!!

Anyway, back to the remark about how awful it would be if you went to the American model, I just want to say that I hear far more desperate complaints on GN about your system than I ever do about the system here.

I'm 76, and my husband is 78. You can't trust him to sort anything with the doctor because he really never complains, so I usually go along if it's anything really important. I'm pretty good at sussing out who's treating me and what they're doing. It does take a lifetime of practice in taking care of other people and then yourself to figure out what's what.

Very good luck to you all. However, I will say I would much rather have our system than yours.

I don't think 'everybody' thinks healthcare in the U.S. is awful in fact I think its probably excellent IF you can afford it!

If you live on the state pension in the UK there is no way to afford private health care. 'Going to the American model' would mean no treatment for the low-paid. You think that's a good idea? The rich have absolutely no idea what real life is like.

Anyone in hospital who has dementia really needs someone, family or friends, to be around to act as advocate.

I agree with this. When my late OH was in hospital following repair of fractured hip, one of us was there all the time during the day to make sure they fed him, provided bedpans, gave him drugs on time (he had PD and getting drugs on time was important.). Even with us there fighting for him dreadful things happened.

That’s awful icanhandthemback.

It would be an unpopular move but yeah actually NI should go up.Pay more and get a better service.

Anyone in hospital who has dementia really needs someone, family or friends, to be around to act as advocate.
They wouldn't let us. They insisted that they were able to tell whether my mother had capacity to make her own decisions despite her own social worker agreeing she didn't and me having her POA. So instead of doing their assessment once, they had to do it again and keep her in hospital an extra couple of days. They system is flawed.

Anyone in hospital who has dementia really needs someone, family or friends, to be around to act as advocate.
I had some dreadful hospital experiences with mum and in the end had to put in writing that she was not to be taken there from her care home unless she had fallen and broken a bone.

My mother has dementia too, Nanna58, and suffers from Anosognosia which means she is in complete denial of her lack of abilities. Despite alerting the hospital to that, the discharge team allowed her to tell them she could do everything for herself despite the fact that she was almost completely immobile. They were most surprised when I refused to take her home and threatened them with legal action if they put her in hospital transport and dropped her at the door like they had the time before. There is something definitely amiss with the system.

My word Nanna58 😧

Shocking ‘care ‘ recently for my 97 yr old mother. She suffers from dementia and had had a fall. A&E Dr was going to discharge her with no X-ray even tho she was in great pain and couldn’t stand as she was ‘ok to go’ . I had to insist she was looked at more carefully- fractured pelvis. We had to help her to use the toilet as the nurse said no one was available to help . Eventually she was admitted for 3 days - moved to different wards 4 times in this period. I’m well aware that her poor memory is frustrating but most staff seemed to think that raising their voice would solve this problem! When discharged the Dr said “ lucky she didn’t break anything “ when I pointed out she had she said “Oh” and took the care plan back to amend it . Horrific experience all round

Oreo

Nurses were never well paid in the past, they weren’t in it for the money.Actually they are quite well paid now tho.
Same goes for junior doctors, they had prestige and knew how well paid they would be soon.
We all need to pay more NI there’s no way round that if we want better services all round.Other European countries pay more in taxes than we do, this government won’t put up taxes and prob Labour won’t either.It’s unpopular but needs doing.
I needed a small op about 16 years ago and had to fund that myself too or face a very long wait.

Isn’t a tax burden if 48% big enough for you?

DaisyL

Why do people think the Government want to run down the NHS? What proof does anyone have of this? Also why shouldn't they pay for private healthcare if they can afford it? When Cherie Blair had her last baby she had it in her local NHS hospital where the entire floor had to be closed and filled with security. There is a huge shortage of staff and it this was alleviated it would help as many staff are finding the working conditions worse than the pay - but it takes time to train people. The biggest shortage is with carers to cut down on the bed blocking. At my local hospital the other morning there were 70 patients ready to be discharged but not able to leave because there was no package of care in place and by evening they had only managed to discharge one patient!

Well ‘some posters’ believe the evidence from 12 years of conservative govt during which all our public services have been decimated.
‘Bed blocking’ has been a major concern for over 40 years to my certain knowledge and no doubt much longer. Mr Johnson told us he had an oven ready plan for social care but of course nothing happened.
Local authorities and health agencies have been attempting to resolve the problem. Social care was moved out of l.a control to profit making agencies. We need it to be not for profit and a co-ordinated plan proposed.

Nanatoone
I had the same situation Re information being shared.
I’d had 2 ECGs done at the surgery.
Sent to hospital straight away.
Into Drs room where I was hooked up again 🤷‍♀️
I told them I’d had 2 ECGs less than 3 hrs ago.
He said but we don’t have the technology to access them
You couldn’t make it up in the 21st century in the uk, could you.

My sister is a specialist nurse practitioner and has not alot of sympathy for junior doctors it's the nurses that do the bulk of the work in the nhs

My recent experiences (one I recounted on GN where my daughter had an infected finger and the saga to get it treated left us in despair) and then a family member who suffered from a psychosis, absolutely terrifying experience. 30 hours in A&E with four of us trying to keep him restrained, no meds as certain procedures had to take place whilst unmedicated. I was told by one horrible nurse that only one other person was allowed in cubicles, I expect you can imagine my response. It was four days before he was admitted to a suitable unit and by then he was almost back to normal. It appears two meds he was given for severe back disease combine sometimes to cause psychosis and that was what happened. A brain scan was taken in one hospital A&E (we went to two different hospital, long story) and the second hospital was unable to access the scan and would not accept the results, because they have no way to transmit records between trusts. I could say so much more, but that’s enough.

I’ve no problem with our A&E locally…although haven’t had to use it since 2019. But trying to get a doctor app is nigh impossible.I need a specific procedure done every 6 months…I started six weeks before it was due trying to get app. Impossible!! Do I had to tell a lie to get the app…. something I haven’t done in all my life. But I was worried and needed the procedure done.
But what an awful thing to have to do for peace of mind!