How can this be?

I blame the government for lack of investment in staff of all grades, and infrastructure. Many hospitals are crumbling, and for basically ignoring secondary health care needs. If you look at training and recruitment figures of doctors, there are a few more U.K. doctors in training, but by far the largest intake is from doctors trained abroad, and they are the largest group who leave, many before end of contract.

If we want a USA type insurance scheme this is the way to do it. Run down state provision and introduce private, for profit services, which is already happening. It will cost way more than the NHS, which was one of the most cost effective and envy of the world prior to 2010.
Dentistry similar.

JaneJudge It makes me very angry, it should not be necessary - and in the past it never was - and I am very concerned for those who are not in the position to pay for private treatment.

But it is a damned if you do and damned if you don't do situation.

I have had a worrying and stressful year because my GP could see no point in seeing me and the research fellow on the project I was enrolled on was only interested in looking at symptoms that showed I should be in their data sample. I could just walk away but the problem she insists I have affects my travel insurance, and I am trying to get the information changed.

I did pay privately to see a specialist who confirmed one problem I have had and I am going to pay for treatment for that as waiting lists in our area were a minimum of two years before COVID, heaven knows how long they are now.

I really resent paying because, lik eso many others I paid into the NHS for decades when I was young and fit and needed it very little, only to find when I do need it, it isn't there for me.

I would say that the NHS is wonderful in emergencies - and I have experienced these as recently as this week for Dh, But I never have the kind of illnesses that get me blued and twoed and I feel let down left, right and centre.

What is beginning to really worry me is how on earth the NHS is going to cope in the future as we have even more elderly people and the general health of our population declines because obesity becomes the norm rather than the exception. I am aware that this post is going to upset some people but it needs to be said. Nearly every nurse and care worker I came into contact with during my recent stay in hospital was overweight, many were obese. Nearly every patient that I saw under the age of 50 and their relatives was overweight and every child I saw visiting was also over weight. We are in the grip of a national crisis that will overwhelm the NHS. Carrying several stones of extra weight seems to be the norm these days. I do not wish to fat shame anyone or embarrass anyone but we have a very serious public health problem which even health professionals are very reluctant to talk about.

Nearly every nurse and care worker I came into contact with during my recent stay in hospital was overweight, many were obese. Nearly every patient that I saw under the age of 50 and their relatives was overweight and every child I saw visiting was also over weight.

I have been a hospital in-patient a number of times in the last few years and also attend numerous clinics, that has certainly not been my experience.

I agree with both of you MOnica and foxie. I have a problem which will not be dealt with any time soon unless I pay privately, but which is affecting my quality of life. I have worked all my professional life in the NHS and it grieves me to do it.

Obesity my GP believes is the biggest challenge the NHS faces because of the many illnesses it leads to, and from a young age. Demand can’t all be blamed on the elderly me thinks.

She is still in hospital. IV steroids + anticoagulant injections.

We are hoping the new infusion treatment might be started while she is in, because if she went home soon we know that finding a bed for her for the infusion would cause massive treatment delays - it has to be done as an inpatient.

She is eating and drinking now; but pretty fed up with being surrounded by some very elderly sick people for whom she is repeatedly having to ring the bell for a nurse as they cannot reach theirs. And there is no response to the bell. They are all massively to busy to answer it.

Am so sorry to hear this Luckygirl. So upsetting for her, and frustrating for you and her mother being helpless to do anything but wait and hope the new infusion happens.

I hope things improve soon.

Luckygirl3

She is still in hospital. IV steroids + anticoagulant injections.

We are hoping the new infusion treatment might be started while she is in, because if she went home soon we know that finding a bed for her for the infusion would cause massive treatment delays - it has to be done as an inpatient.

She is eating and drinking now; but pretty fed up with being surrounded by some very elderly sick people for whom she is repeatedly having to ring the bell for a nurse as they cannot reach theirs. And there is no response to the bell. They are all massively to busy to answer it.

Hopefully, now she has a hospital bed she will get the treatment she needs. It must be so worrying and frustrating for you. It's not just the very elderly who struggle to use the call bell. For the first week of my hospital stay I was pretty immobile, the design of the bed meant I couldn't reach the buttons to move the back rest etc, often couldn't reach the bell button and couldn't reach any of my possessions unless the little table was close to me. If the ward was very busy I didn't get a wash, my teeth cleaned or my bed tidied. They sound like small things but when you are in bed 24/7 it becomes very demoralising. I'm not blaming the staff, I could see how busy they were but the quality of "care" is the first casualty when a ward is short staffed. Fingers crossed for your daughter that she'll get the treatment and care she needs and is able to come home feeling well again.

Luckygirl3 My daughter had a simiar hospital experience to your daughter's after a bad road accident. She was late 30s. Stuck in a room where all of her fellow patients were elderly ladies with dementia and no one answered bells.

A number of them were noisy and restless at night and she was glad to get home in order to get a good night's sleep.

How are things now Luckygirl?

Twice recently our normally good GP practice have instructed me and my daughter to go to A&E as there wasn’t an appointment available or they weren’t able to deal with the problem. We are always being told that A&E is for emergencies only and not to go for other problems! So surprise, surprise, A&E is overwhelmed! These were both problems that the GP would normally tackle.

Another occasion I was told to go to a drop in centre (we have 3 all about 20 miles away), I had fallen and I physically couldn’t stand a trip that far on the horrendous roads when our GP is round the corner. I begged (literally) to be seen, but no, it was medically unsafe for them to even give me a phone call. My husband said if you want to see medically unsafe, you should come here! I haven’t even had any kind of follow up call since from any of our ‘caring’ doctors. I really am despairing.

MayBee70

I spoke to a friend of mine yesterday who hurt her back before Christmas. Once she was in hospital her treatment was exemplary but prior to that she hadn’t been able to get aGP to see her. She was offered an appointment at the surgery with a physio but she couldn’t move from her bed. I honestly don’t know what’s happening to the NHS. By the time she managed to get someone to take her seriously she was in a very bad way.

Oh and, when she did go to hospital it took two ambulances. They had to put her on the sort of stretcher they use in mountain rescue situations to get her to the ambulance and when she got there they rushed her straight in. They gave her the highest morphine dose possible and she is pretty sure she was close to flatlining in the ambulance.

She went home yesterday evening. Things were so difficult in hospital. She is on the autistic spectrum and the general chaos was very hard for her to deal with. At the last minute they discovered she needed a potassium infusion; then needed phosphates but they had none so she had to stay in and extra night while they got this.
There are good things in this - she has been rehydrated, but of course that would have been less of a problem if they had got on top of it when she arrived rather than waiting 20 hours in A&E to install the drip.
She has had the new infusion treatment, but would probably not have had the flare up if that had been started earlier, rather than leaving a gap between tailing off steroids completely and getting the new treatment going. This happened because of delays and and communication breakdowns while an outpatient. She will now have to stay on steroids again for a while ... they need to get her off them speedily as she reacts badly.
It is hard as we do not have faith in her follow up treatments ... it has been a real muddle and means she gets bad flareups.

Thanks goodness your daughter is home and feeling better but it's so worrying. During my recent hospital stay, nearly everyone I shared the ward with had been admitted as an emergency because an existing condition had not been treated promptly. I found this really shocking, not only had their health been put at unnecessary risk but they cost the NHS a lot more because they needed more complex procedures, more drugs and a much longer stay in hospital. how on earth we get out of this mess is anyone's guess!

Good that she’s home Luckygirl because hospitals are just “fire fighting” at the moment, and very frustrating and upsetting for those receiving treatment.
It’s a sad that we can no longer depend or have faith in our primary or secondary medical care.
I have a DG on the autistic spectrum and I know it can make a poor situation so much harder to bear.
I hope in the future her treatment is more efficiently managed.

I totally agree foxie48, DH was blued and twoed to hospital two weeks ago. He was diagnosed as suffering from heart failure - when the heart beat slows down, Three days later they implanted a heart pacemaker. He is now back home and almost back to the pre-heart problem energy.

The thing is. He has had what I described as 'funny turns' and been going gradually down hill for about 2 years. He had read his blood pressure during these turns, but I noticed that during them his heart beat was vey slow. he had described them to his GP and last summer he was even sent to A&E because of it, but no one picked up this classic symptom of heart failure until it went critical.

I am very lucky that it got picked up before his heart just gave up and he died.