NHS - oh dear!

growstuff

M0nica

The vast majority of immigrants to this country are legal, the illegals are quite a small %.

Can yu recognise an illegal immigrant when you see them in the street? Can you tell who is legal and who is illegal just by looking ata them?

I often feel that righeous indignation about illegal immigrants is a mask for resentment about all those people with different colour skins and different cultures who now live in this country.

Given that I think all governments are reponsible for us needing so many people from other countries to run our economy. Proper planning, especially in the higher education system should mean that we have many more places for student doctors, engineers and structured trained careers in the care industry.

I am sure the current present situation of so many younger people not working or with mental problems, does not have its roots in the events of the last 4 years, but lie far firther back with the lack of clear and sufficient training opportunities for school leavers at every level of ability.

Or it could have something to do with the level of pay and conditions, especially for those working as care workers and the lower levels in the NHS.

Or it could have something to do with the level of pay and conditions, especially for those working as care workers and the lower levels in the NHS.

Good point growstuff.

This doesn't just affect young people and their work / future life. No-one needs me to explain that the level of commitment required for these jobs is out of proportion to the level of pay. Both employee and 'client' suffer as a result.

Investment in public services though is now looking unlikely because the barrier to it has been established as "throwing money at the problem" by those with vested interests in sucking money out of the economy. So any meaningful and rational debate on the matter is stymied - the solution of course is then to adopt the business model and do more with less. The problem is though, that we've been doing more with less and there isn't much more these public services can do, with less resources.

It's contentious to say this, but when governments run a country for - to borrow the phrase - the few and not the many, the fall-out has to be dealt with by short-term, reactive, initiatives and policies which, like the hastily applied sticking-plasters that they are, simply come unstuck.

However, that's just a personal POV.

... fewer, not 'less' (resources).

We are the problem for the NHS not migrants, who actually help to keep the NHS running. In in the 70's the over 65's made up 14% of the population, now it's nearer 25%. Too many of us are fat, unfit, drink too much and live sedentary lives resulting in co-morbities that in earlier days would have sent us to an early death. We can now do so many things to improve the quality of our lives as we age, new joints, new heart valves, stents to keep our blood flowing, beta blockers and pacemakers to keep our hearts beating, cure cancer or keep it in remission etc etc . However, we make huge demands on the NHS and without migrants and a constant supply of children being born, we can neither fund our services or run them effectively. fwiw if we relied on white British to keep our birth rate up we'd be like Japan but at least their elderly people tend to be much fitter than us because their diets are better. I'm including myself in the problem as I now have a pacemaker and also take beta blockers, I've also had a couple of hospital in patient stays in 2024, the difference is I've seen who helps to keep our NHS going even in my pretty rural area and it's an eye opener.

foxie48

My local hospital ('local' but pivotal in Oncology) is in an area where there's a substantial immigrant population.

Having unfortunately been one of the over 65s needing, at one time, frequent hospital admissions, I know from my own experience that the majority of immigrants are not in the beds- they are the ones making them. One of my 3 consultants is an immigrant. The nurses are from Spain, Italy, Poland, and southern India. The hospital porters likewise, and the cleaners and catering staff. In fact, if all those immigrants were suddenly to decamp - the hospital would have to close its doors.

growstuff that is part of the problem as well, which is why I mentioned the need for training and clear career paths, because with that should go the rate for the job - and not the current one -

Successive governments in this country, have preferred buying in people from other countries, to properly training young people already in the country.

M0nica

growstuff that is part of the problem as well, which is why I mentioned the need for training and clear career paths, because with that should go the rate for the job - and not the current one -

Successive governments in this country, have preferred buying in people from other countries, to properly training young people already in the country.

But somebody will always have to do the jobs "at the bottom". The issue is that nobody is willing to pay them more. There is a career path for care workers who want to gain nursing qualifications, but if they are promoted, somebody will still have to replace them.

Dickens

foxie48

My local hospital ('local' but pivotal in Oncology) is in an area where there's a substantial immigrant population.

Having unfortunately been one of the over 65s needing, at one time, frequent hospital admissions, I know from my own experience that the majority of immigrants are not in the beds- they are the ones making them. One of my 3 consultants is an immigrant. The nurses are from Spain, Italy, Poland, and southern India. The hospital porters likewise, and the cleaners and catering staff. In fact, if all those immigrants were suddenly to decamp - the hospital would have to close its doors.

To be honest, I didn't count them, but my experience with breast cancer care was the same. The surgeon and the consultant oncologist both had Indian names and slight accents, so my guess would be they weren't born in the UK. I must have seen a couple of dozen people in total, including nurses, radiographers, assistant doctors, phlebotomists, MRI operators, mammographers and people I've probably forgotten. I didn't keep a tally, but my guess would be at least half of them had immigrant backgrounds.

Seven years ago, my stent was fitted by a German doctor and the registrar was also German (I know because we got chatting and he came from a place I know well). My children were both delivered by an Indian consultant (by CS). The senior nurse when my mother was dying was Rumanian, as was the best GP I've ever had.

When my husband was taken to A&E a couple of weeks ago very poorly we had nurses from Somalia, the West Indies, UK and a wonderful Muslim nurse who was kindness itself.

....and now I have covid. A receptionist was coughing and spluttering in the A&E department on Thursday night - I tried to keep out of her way, and I sanitised my hands after using a pen she handed me but still it has got me.

Luckily I had vaccination recently so hopefully it will not be too bad - but I took the test because I felt iller than I might expect with a cold. Fingers crossed.

Get well soon Luckygirl3

Finally had my appointment with gp today. Numb foot,leg ,pain behind eye,balance problems and weakness in arm. GP has referred me on 2 week rule ? brain tumour. Sent me a text to say I need urgent blood test. But first appointment at surgery is in 6 weeks time. You couldn't make it up !!
Managed to book blood test at hospital next week. Feeling that even if I have brain cancer some bright spark will tell me that treatment won't start for another 6 months.
Beyond caring now,it's taking too much of a fight .

Oh Jaffacake - I hope it’s not what you think it is. Be positive

Jaffacake

Six weeks to get a blood test at the surgery... it's all mad. As I have said before, if my GP husband needed someone to have a blood test he would take the blood whilst he was talking to the patient.

Jaffacake - I am sorry that you have the stress of all these delays on top of a potential diagnosis that you do not want. Sending a hand hold.

The NHS .Missed Appointments Costs the NHS £ Millions every year.Some folk don't bother to Cancell an Appointment they Can't keep,whilst some folk are able to accept
A Cancellation at short Notice .

Hospitals also fail to inform patients that they have an appointment and then sanction them when they do not tun up for the appointment they know nothing about.

I feel despair at the situation in the NHS. Absolute despair.

I am with you there maddyone - there always was going to be a problem with the NHS as the population aged and more sophisticated and expensive treatments were developed, but the farming out of so many of the services to companies with profit incentives has drained money from it and reduced quality.

Someone has to get a grip on the systems now prevailing in the NHS which slow communications, waste money and border on farce some of the time - Kafka eat your heart out .......

It is ironic that the more sophisticated our computer systems become, the poorer the service to patients, when it should have the opposite effect.

I have long believed that the NHS has needed a major re think about how it is run. Not little tweeks here and there, but something like the major enquiry undertaken into the poisoned blood scandal and the child abuse scandal. A Royal Commission that will take several years to look at how our system works. how things are done in other countries and recommends the best system for us.

The reasons we become ill and how we are treated has changed beyond measure in the 85 years since the NHS was instigated.

The current system is like a company with a lorry bought in 1947, which has never been traded in for a new one, instead when bits have broken the new bits have been up graded. The body work is a mass of welding, it has a 1980s gear box, 1990s clutch. except that they decided to make it automatic last year.

The lorry still moves forward, but very slowly and consumes huge quantities of fuel and the oil needs constant changing.

Like the lorry the present NHS sytem needs scrapping and replaced by something new and up to date.

A good analogy, Monica.

It describes our main hospitals here, too. Old buildings (some Victorian), wings added over the years, less car parking resulting in massive inconvenience for patients and probably uneconomical to maintain. However, the old parts were probably built far more sturdily than newer hospitals.

I agree that the NHS needs a major overhaul.

Jaffacake2

Finally had my appointment with gp today. Numb foot,leg ,pain behind eye,balance problems and weakness in arm. GP has referred me on 2 week rule ? brain tumour. Sent me a text to say I need urgent blood test. But first appointment at surgery is in 6 weeks time. You couldn't make it up !!
Managed to book blood test at hospital next week. Feeling that even if I have brain cancer some bright spark will tell me that treatment won't start for another 6 months.
Beyond caring now,it's taking too much of a fight .

Terribly sad to read this. Try to get some help with your MH which has taken a battering. You are worth fighting for.

Tiley

nanna8

Our system is also crumbling, I don’t know what the answer is really. Too many people, not enough resources. When we first came here 50 years ago you could just walk straight in and get a GP appointment that day. Hospital emergency care was always within an hour at the very most. Those were the days and we didn’t even realise how good it was!

I think you have hit the nail on the head, there are far to many people living in our small island. We are lucky where I live in Dorset where our NHS is good. However, can,t imagine what it must be like in big cities with the added numbers created by migrants

Big cities often are better. The migrants are the staff.

Monica. My son works for a multi national company that has a large department that continuously looks at improving efficiently. They go in and work with all sections with the coal face workers not management to see where problems exist, iron out wrongly thought out processes and see where money can be saved. It is not fire fighting but continuous evaluation of efficiency. I doubt this exists in the NHS