NHS

Bags, you have absolutely no idea what else I do apart from what I post on Gransnet.
So sorry, you are wrong that I do nothing about it. Unfortunately, what I do is not enough to get rid of the privateers.
What do you do? Or don't you care?

They will not believe you, Eloethan.

Jane10 You say "just throwing money mindlessly won't necessarily lead to improvement".

As whitewave's earlier post indicated, The King's Fund research reported that there has been no actual increase in funding since 2009/10 and that all increases up to 2020 will be mostly swallowed by by inflation. Added to that, there has been a 17% decrease in the social care budget.

So, far from "throwing money" at the NHS, it is actually being starved of money.

POGS Do you really think that issues such as how the NHS is run, or indeed whether the NHS should exist at all, can be a politically neutral topic?

A few years ago, Douglas Carswell (now UKIP but formerly a Conservative) put together a book called "Direct Democracy", the contributors to which included Jeremy Hunt, Douglas Carswell and Michael Gove. It put forward, amongst other things, ideas for replacing the NHS with an insurance market system and called for the private sector to be brought in. Another contributor to the book, Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan appeared on Fox TV and said:

"Because you're our friends and if you see a friend about to make a terrible mistake [introduce Obamacare] you try and warn him. We have lived through this mistake [the NHS]. We have lived through this mistake for 60 years now.

"It began with the best of intentions. It began because people thought it was wrong for those who were not well off ... to be treated differently ... But the reality is it hasn't worked."

And yet, as I've said before, in 2014 a very reputable piece of research carried out by the Commonwealth Fund covering a period up to 2011 ranked the UK healthcare system in top place and the US healthcare system in bottom place, despite the fact that healthcare expenditure in the US is more than double that of the UK.

Maybe the situation is very different in big urban areas, but in more rural areas with market towns, the situation is dire. Twenty or thirty years ago, there used to be numerous 'cottage hospitals' with a basic A & E and often convalescent wards, which acted as a halfway house. The A & E departments could do X rays and bandaging or plastering and could stitch up bad cuts, etc. These don't need a high-tech A & E, but can't be dealt with by GPs. They also used to have beds for people not quite ready to be discharged back to their own homes, who now block more expensive beds.

We don't have any walk-in centres for miles and public transport is so bad that it's not even possible for many people to reach a hospital and get back home within a day. If I were to break a leg, I would have no choice but to call an ambulance, because a taxi would be astronomically expensive and I don't know anybody who would take me. This seems a waste of a very expensive resource. There are virtually no district nurses, so I would have to stay in hospital until I could look after myself.

Mental health services have been decimated. The nearest appointments are 20 miles away and the waiting lists are months. Until last year, we had a small unit in my town, but I know of some people who now can't afford the bus fares and/or are too anxious to travel such a long distance. The actual treatment offered has also been cut. Mental health services for children are particularly bad.

Vampirequeen. A&E is often used inappropriately by people who have neither had an accident nor is their problem an emergency. Identifying why people go to A&E is important. Large numbers of cases are alcohol related. Why should NHS have to pick up the tab for this? Thinking laterally do drink manufacturers and sellers have any responsibility here? Should laws on sales of alcohol be tightened up? Should a percentage of alcohol profits be given to local NHS services? Where is the individual's responsibility in this?
That's just an example. Cut down on this sort of demand for A&E to enable those specialists to focus on the genuine accidents and emergencies.
Re organise GP services to make it easier for people with more routine problems to be seen more quickly and easily. Employ well trained triage staff as required. etc etc etc

Don;t worry POGS, the NHS will stitch you back together (probably)

Kitty

No doubt we will be hung drawn and quartered as Leicester posters

Good post, POGS

I get sick to the back teeth of the politics that is spewed out every now and again over the NHS. The NHS has problems now , the NHS had problems under Labour. For Gods sake I wish the bloody political football merry go round will stop one day. The NHS should be a cross party matter to stop the back biting, blame game that will continue until the sun stops shining.

A lot of you will not have failed to note on the 'many' threads that have been on Gransnet my mother died in one of the top 10 worst hospitals when Andy Burnham and Labour were in government. What the hell do you think the Francis Report was about! How easily the shameful Francis Report is shoved under the bloody carpet by some to appease their and only their thoughts and comments should be agreed with.

Gran Tea was perfectly in order to post as he/she felt fit and if all that can be posted about the NHS is negative narrative to suit those who refuse to accept any remote good practice within the NHS then what is the point in Gransnet?

Yes, I do get angry before any poster tells me I am .

OK. i've looked it up now. You are referring to NHS england. I said I'd read two articles about it and tried to paraphrase what the articles said (for the benefit of people who get fed up with endless links). I did not say it was going to be privatised. I do understand that some people think that is the ultimate aim of the Tory Party.

On Gransnet. How is that going to change anything?

dj said I said: "it's NHSE that's being privatised."

Did I? I don't even know what NHSE is!

Also, dj, how are you fighting it? You seem to be just saying how bad it all is all the time.

How do you make a hospital more flexible? They're already treating people in the corridors at our local a and e. Is that the sort of flexibility you mean?

Jane10

There's another option -look at how the NHS could work smarter. Just throwing money at it mindlessly won't necessarily lead to improvement. There are lots of new ways of working, of doing things differently, of looking at how things are done and considering more flexible ways of using staff and buildings.

Bags, the current state of NHS finances is because the government wants to privatise it. We have two options, to fight it, or roll over and let them privatise it.
I know which I prefer to do.
As you said previously, it's NHSE that's being privatised.
You can watch from the sidelines while NHSE goes bust.

I also thought the stroke service had been centred on Durham Hospital after a long consultation.

Actually, harrigran, I went to Durham hospital and was transferred to the Freeman when I had my aortic dissection.

I do not agree with some earlier posts that personal experience is necessarily a good indicator of how the NHS is doing overall, although it obviously matters to an individual. The Kings Fund on public satisfaction with NHS states "Public satisfaction with the NHS is a multi faceted measure influenced by respondents views on politics, policy and public institutions as well as their experience of NHS performance". There is plenty of evidence that the NHS is under strain and cannot continue without more cash, or else severely cutting services. I resent the intimation by a previous poster that anyone who complains about the NHS is a serial complainer. I know the staff are under strain and morale is low, I have worked in NHS all my life. I believe if there is sufficient pressure put on the government they will increase spending on NHS. They have done several U turns recently on other policy decisions when there is sufficient opposition, particularly amongst their own MPs!

Given the current state of nhs finances, and the fact that the current government is not going to increase tax or spending for it, what other actual, in the real world, option is there for hospital management, dj, than closing down various units?

Ideals are all very well, but this is the reality we're stuck with right now.

Stroke victims are taken to Darlington now dj and heart operations and procedures are carried out at James Cook.

What's wrong with wanting no illness caused by poverty?
Do you have to go for the lowest common denominator?
Over a million people use food banks. They are not all scroungers, as you believe them to be.
Here's another idea, then.
How about killing off everybody over 80? That'll save the NHS a lot of money.
If you can bracket the poor together, then why not bracket all those over 80 as scroungers on the NHS?

Alea, did you look at the number of A&Es there will be left if Stevens has his way?
Less than one per county.

This is Northumbria and North Tyneside's new hospital, the only A&E left in the area.
"When unveiling his national plan in November 2013, Sir Bruce said it was ‘complete nonsense’ to suggest some A&Es would be downgraded as a result of the drive to develop larger specialist units.

But the opening in June of a new 210-bed facility in Cramlington, ten miles north of Newcastle, will trigger the loss of ‘blue-light’ emergency services at three district general hospitals elsewhere in Northumberland.

Officials insist Hexham, Wansbeck and North Tyneside hospitals will maintain ‘walk-in A&E services’. Yet the three units will only be staffed and equipped to cope with incidents typically dealt with by lower-ranking urgent care centres, according to a leading doctor."

Keogh lied. It's been open less than a year, and patients have already been waiting in corridors for over two hours to be seen. An ambulance driver mentioned having to do a 120 mile round trip to pick up a very sick baby from Berwick.

This will happen everywhere if Stevens gets his way. There is talk at the moment of closing Durham hospital's A&E to only have one in Darlington.
That would mean that if anyone living here had a heart attack or a stroke, they would be driven past the Durham Hospital.
It's only being thought of to save money. Not lives.

Well that's pie in the sky dj I personally know families who would love that idea, they can carry on forever living off the state with no effort needed on their part. And it would STILL not necessarily be spent on food and housing.

The best efficiency of all is to give the NHS more money.
Then they can pay for more nurses and doctors and stop employing locums and bank nurses at exorbitant pay.
Ensure everybody in the country has enough money to buy food and pay for housing; then there will be no illness caused by poverty.