NHS winter crisis looms

I'm glad my tv guide was correct.

So glad both Debbie and John are doing well.

The young one might be too old to have the operation she needs, it says in my guide.

My tv guide didn't say Hospital was about operating on young OR old - rather that it was about operating on young AND old.

We shall see.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/178082?reveal_response=yes#response-threshold

The petition asks for the NHS to be protected FROM trade deals.
The government response is that the NHS is and always will be protected IN trade deals.

Government taking the voters for idiots again.

Hospital on tonight on BBC2, about who you operate on, the old or the young.

Julima, in a previous life I was a sw team manager and could well have been making decisions about your MIL and indeed my own and my lovely parents. The difference was we had a degree of ownership and good working relationships with our own L>A care services, whether that was residential, nursing or a home care package. I don't claim it was perfect, it absolutely was not but at least we had some services We also had local knowledge and connections with both the hospital wards and other services. There always were difficulties about whose budget was plundered to help Mr or Mrs X but it wasn't anything like as stretched as it is currently.
Dr Khalid Haq was a joy, wasn't he. I found the two BBC reports moving and good journalism.

I am not sure of numbers attending, except that they have increased considerably Iam64 but the catchment area has 530,000 patients and one A&E consultant said
Dr Khalid Haq, one of Blackburn's consultants in emergency medicine, said he had never known a department to be so busy in his 26-year career.

Even if there were more doctors, nurses and other staff would there be the room to accommodate more and more emergency patients?
And why the large increase in patients going to A&E?

I'm not suggesting a return to geriatric wards but we do need more good quality nursing homes
I mentioned in another post that my MIL spent a month in a council-run convalescent home many years ago which was an excellent stepping stone between a stay in hospital and going home - it was not intended to be permanent but was intended to build up her strength and ability to cope again.

Jess, I can't find where are got the 1% from, but Fullfact say 0.3% and the government agrees!

fullfact.org/health/health-tourism-whats-cost/

Depending on what figures you use, it could cost more to collect than they can bring in.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/178082?reveal_response=yes#response-threshold

Is anyone else confused by this?
Sign it and put it on facebook, etc., if you can, so that it reaches 100,000 and is debated.

ww I know, I've been banging on about it as well. I was impressed that a CEO allowed filming, doctors and nurses agreed to be filmed and interviewed. I'm waiting for anyone to try and claim the NHS is safe with this government. Mrs May talks the talk quite well but I've yet to see any constructive action to support the NHS. I can't remember the numbers but when Blackburn hospital was built, the population it served was very much smaller that it is now. Add to that an ageing population, lack of social care, closure of geriatric wards and it isn't surprising it's over stretched.
I'm not suggesting a return to geriatric wards but we do need more good quality nursing homes.

The infuriating thing is that the Tories say vaguely positive things about the NHS while busily undermining it from all sides.
I think it was ITV news yesterday showing nauseating footage (not recent I think) of Hunt in scrubs helping on a ward. FFS

That's what we have been banging on about for years iam64 the NHS is not safe in the governments hands.

Spending per population head has not increased and is set to drop within the next couple of years. The governments rhetoic of spending being higher than its ever been is simply a case of smoke and mirrors.

The NHS must be removed from government interference or it will be gone. Trump and cohorts are rubbing their hands in glee at this new and lucrative market.

Not just talking about it Nellie I think it's a done deal for next year's intake.
Where did you get the 1% from djen ?
I think a lot of the figures are invented. How do they know how much money is being not collected if they are not trying to collect it (which is what the Govt are alleging).

Did anyone watch the BBC coverage of Blackburn A&E and hospital, shown on news at ten over the reports past two nights. The CEO took the unusual step of allowing filming because of his fears that the hospital is failing its patients and the staff are under huge stress.
One issue is that A&E departments in nearby towns were closed, something that is happening everywhere, leaving patients travelling to hospitals that are already close to breaking point.

One thing that stood out to me is that all the people interviewed were local, didn't see a 'health tourist' at all. Blackburn has a large Pakistani Muslim community, like many other northern former cotton mill towns. The majority of patients seemed to be white British. The occasional dark face was a nurse or doctor, most of them British born it seemed. I mention this only because of the constant comments here, blaming immigration/health tourism for the pressure on our hospitals and health service.
Well done that CEO, the medical staff, the patients and the BBC for exposing the truth. The government may just have to take notice and acknowledge its own policies are the underlying problem. An ageing population hasn't simply happened. The need to provide excellent social care, working alongside the NHS has been a key issue since I started in social work in the 1970's. Attempts to improve that situation have been undermined by privatising social care. No surprise that many private companies who took the place of local authority services are now saying they can't make a profit and are closing or reducing their 15 minute visits even further.

Now the government is talking of removing bursaries from nurses in training, while they are funding teachers with bursaries for specialist subjects.

Students in teaching and nursing do a lot of hands on training and do much practical work on the wards as an extra pair of hands. Closing down these bursaries will not encourage people to apply.

www.nursingtimes.net/news/education/student-bursary-removal-to-go-ahead-next-year-dh-confirms/7009437.

"Peter Bone advocates the privatisation of the NHS, having stated that the service would not look out of place in Stalinist Russia."

Not someone I would think of quoting on the NHS. Here's a few others not to quote.

tompride.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/leading-members-of-brexit-campaign-call-for-privatisation-of-the-nhs-and-much-worse/

I presume you watched it, Mair, to know so much about the case.
She went to America because that was where her sister was. She was on her way back to Nigeria. She didn't plan to have her children three months early in the UK.
You're all heart.

Health tourism is a dead cat.
It costs 1% of the NHS budget. Much of that 1% they get back.
It's to divert your attention from the real underfunding crisis in the NHSE.
It's working in your case, Mair.

Getting bored with this health tourism red herring. It's this second time this winter this theme has been trumpeted from the rooftops to distract the public from the real issues with the NHS. Tiny amount of beds and money involved compared to the big NHS picture.
After pressuring hospitals to "increase bed occupancy" and cutting the money to the councils for providing "social care". And decades of eroding the district nursing service. And getting rid of geriatric hospitals. There are far too many people in badly needed general hospital beds, who could be cared for more cheaply elsewhere. Some of them need "social care" and some need nursing care. These are people who want to go home.
Private nursing homes are the other option and they are also struggling to cope with the increasing nursing needs of their customers.
All this against a background of starving the NHS of the additional money it needs to cope with increasing numbers of frail sick people,

Tory MP Peter Bone said: “Someone coming to this country should be obliged to get travel insurance, so their health care is covered.

“Why should taxpayers be funding foreign nationals to have NHS treatment at vast expense?”

British docs must provide emergency medical care regardless of a patient’s nationality or ability to pay

In December, The Sun revealed the number of health tourists having babies on the NHS doubled in two years to more than 2,100

This woman has no chance of paying that. She wasn't a 'health tourist'. She didn't plan to go into labour three months early in a strange country

On the contrary that was EXACTLY what she planned:

Priscilla had been warned it would be unsafe to have quadruplets in her native Nigeria
She flew to the US, but was turned away and was on route back to Nigeria when she went into labour

Why did she even come via Heathrow? She could have taken a direct flight. Clearly after not getting her first choice (and the US citizenship that birth in America would have given her children) she opted for Britain as second best.

Who gets on a plane to fly across the Atlantic when six months pregnant with quins? I'll tell you who, a health tourist!

And I dont blame her for trying it on, smart woman, but I do blame our authorities for accepting a flight with such a heavily pregnant woman on it.

Yes, that's what happened, but she still gets lumped in with those who will not pay. She was amazing, thanking everyone. When she left hospital before the babies, she had nowhere to go and was helped by a charity.

Can anyone explain why Hunt is in the USA talking to healthcare companies?

evolvepolitics.com/hunt-secretively-visits-us-to-meet-pharma-companies-gives-speech-at-conference-sponsored-by-us-healthcare-giants/

Why is he not over here talking to our NHSE, sorting out the problems?

Oh is that what happened. Poor woman.
And this week's "announcement" only refers to non-urgent care of course.

Did anyone see Hospital last week which was about this particular issue? A Nigerian women en route back to Nigeria via Heathrow went into labour. She was admitted to an NHS hospital where she gave birth to very premature quads. One died at birth and the mother nearly did too.

The remaining three babies were in intensive care. It was weeks before the mother could be discharged into the care of a charity, and sadly another baby died. The remaining two are still in intensive care incubators and the final bill is likely to be about £300,000.

This woman has no chance of paying that. She wasn't a 'health tourist'. She didn't plan to go into labour three months early in a strange country.

The distraction of the foreign patients issue is disgraceful. Did you see the interview with a finance director of a hospital in an ordinary English town? She reckoned she'd collected all the money owing bar about £17k year.
They are talking about non-urgent treatment. So, in the main, this is when people have been to a GP, waited for a hospital appointment (maybe for months) and then waited again for treatments. Also people that don't come from a country with a reciprocal agreements, don't have health insurance, and do have the opportunity to sit around for months waiting for hospital treatment. Hmm

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/06/the-guardian-view-on-the-nhs-more-cash-less-dog-whistling-needed