NHS - oh dear!

I’m not sure how this discussion came round to migrants. The comment about too many people, not enough services was nothing whatsoever to do with migrants. I think this obsession with migrants is most unhealthy. Just saying.

Deedaa

I have also found 111 very good. In fact I probably wouldn't be here now if it hadn't been for a doctor I spoke to on 111.

I am currently trying to sort out my prescription. Last month I was told I needed a review for my repeat prescription. I booked a telephone call and spoke to a lady who introduced herself as the prescriber. After more or less sorting out one of the meds I asked about the other two that needed reviewing. "Oh that's been done" she said. Like an idiot I took her at her word. This month I turned up at the pharmacy to be told that there was nothing for me because my repeat prescription has been cancelled! Fortunately the surgery receptionist was able to organise another review, an emergency prescription and a telephone call from a doctor. If the receptionist can sort this all so quickly and simply why does the rest keep falling apart?

I had much the same thing happen with my repeat prescription, given conflicting information.

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 .

@jaffacake2, I posted this last week but didn't know how to link it. So sorry for what you are going through. I don't want to worry you, but I had a similar problem last year. I lost feeling in my foot that spread up my leg. GP refused to take me seriously. Reluctantly put me on a 30 week waiting list to see a neurologist. My symptoms escalated so I had to go private to see a neurologist, luckily covered by my husband's insurance. Even that was a month wait. He rushed me off for a complete head and neck MRI scan. Result, I have spent the last year being treated for a grade 4 brain tumour. If I had waited for the NHS I wouldn't be here now. Please make sure you get it checked out. Go private if you can afford to.

Exactly, but it is nothing new. DH started secondary school in a brand new school that was too small before it was even opened because the local authority planned it for the number of secondary school children at the time the school was first planned and completely ignored the huge bulge of post war children already overloading primary schools.

M0nica

Gin Even big efficient companies sometimes have major structural reorganisations. I have experiencedthis in several international companies I have worked with.

There is no reason why a rising poplulation should pressure on any service, unless it is a sudden onrush - like refugees fleeing insurrection etc.

In this country the population rise has happened over about 40 years. This has given successive governments plenty of time to see the need and plan and build the extra facilities and train the extra staff.

I agree! And it wouldn't have been difficult to see that many of the changes would result from an ageing population, which has multiple conditions and different needs from 70 years ago, when the NHS treated far more infectious diseases.

petra

Even when you get an emergency blood test as I did last Friday
you still wait.
My Dr saw me 2 hrs after id made a call to the surgery.
We are lucky in that we can walk to a drop in centre from the surgery.
urgent blood test done on Friday ( 1/2 hr after seeing Dr.
The test was back with Dr Tuesday. He still hasn’t looked at it 🤷‍♀️

I have frequent blood tests, most of which are done at the GP surgery. The samples are the sent off to Addenbrooke's Hospital. I have an app called "MyChart" and the results of most tests are available and accessible 12 hours later. Some tests take longer as a result of the actual procedures used in testing.

I know what the various results mean - most of them are nothing to worry about. However, when there has been a worrying result, I've been contacted withing 24 hours.

Gin Even big efficient companies sometimes have major structural reorganisations. I have experiencedthis in several international companies I have worked with.

There is no reason why a rising poplulation should pressure on any service, unless it is a sudden onrush - like refugees fleeing insurrection etc.

In this country the population rise has happened over about 40 years. This has given successive governments plenty of time to see the need and plan and build the extra facilities and train the extra staff.

Even when you get an emergency blood test as I did last Friday
you still wait.
My Dr saw me 2 hrs after id made a call to the surgery.
We are lucky in that we can walk to a drop in centre from the surgery.
urgent blood test done on Friday ( 1/2 hr after seeing Dr.
The test was back with Dr Tuesday. He still hasn’t looked at it 🤷‍♀️

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

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.

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.

I agree that the NHS needs a major overhaul.

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 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.

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

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.

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 .

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.

Jaffacake

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

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 .

Get well soon Luckygirl3

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.

....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.