Humanitarian Crisis in UK

If we don't learn from mistakes then we learn nothing.

The NHS shouldn't be subject to the whims and political ideas of different governments who keep changing the agenda.

Jalima
Some Good News re Stafford Hospital
Spooky this came in the post this morning.

From Jeremy Lefroy MP
A children's minor injuries unit is now in operation. (Closed last August)
The paediatric Hot clinics have restarted.
The trust is working national experts to open fully childrens emergency centre
It is vital that CEC reopens fully as soon as possible
Fully details www.jeremylefroy.org.uk/news
There is also a newly refurbished ward 15 and the chemotherapy suite has now opened. Refurbishment on other wards continue.
This I know is a small step
But is massively important to my family and the others in our area
What we require now is medical staff that are prepared to work at the renamed County Hospital.
I truly hope lessons have been learned.
Apologies for hijacking the thread again

That's good news Cherry [smile*]

Or even

Agreed that the NHS should not be used as a political football, but sadly it is.

Yes roses fingers crossed.
Its bit like snakes and ladders.
We get our hopes up and then they are dashed again.

Thank you Cherrytree - interesting.

I no longer live there but still have family there and some of them live even further away from Stoke so a difficult journey for treatment and especially emergencies.
I know some people (a relative and friends) had gone to great lengths to avoid going into Stafford hospital.

I think it's obvious to anybody that part of the current problem has been cuts to social care. That's not going to change and is not a whim of one government or other.

As a matter of interest, which lessons do you think could be learnt from Mid Staffs? I have no personal experience of the hospital and it's ages since I read the Francis Report.

The reason the NHS is used as a political football is that the Tories have never believed in it and continue not to believe in it. You can ask for consensus as much as you want but when a party has as an objective the reduction of any state support they are manifestly not going to agree to such measures, and if they did so, would be lying, and working behind the scenes to achieve their real objective. "There will be no top down reorganisation", but of course there was!

I would say one of the first and essential things was for management to LISTEN and ACT.

To say that it was not possible to establish if there were any unavoidable deaths at the hospital was a whitewash.
For Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson to apologise shows that things had gone wrong.

Stafford Hospital is held up as an example of bad management, bad nursing practices and neglect - it is because people from there were not prepared to have it all swept under the carpet and made a fuss that
On 21 July 2009, the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Burnham, announced a further independent inquiry into care provided by Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust. The generally critical inquiry report was published on 24 February 2010. The report made 18 local and national recommendations, including that the regulator, Monitor, de-authorise the Foundation Trust.

Have those recommendations been acted upon? I don't know although Cherrytree's post seems optimistic.

Quite frankly, the whole NHS seems to be in a melting pot at the moment.

The NHS should be taken over by an independent body - without any of the previous culprits who presided over such disasters then and now having any part in its future.

Jalima at last! Someone is singing off the same hymn sheet as I am

You mean re-centralised with a Health Minister who is responsible?

All managements should listen and act. Do you have any idea about specific recommendations? I assume an improvement plan is in place.

STPs are the melting pot at the moment, with the secretary of state moving even further away from the problems.

DD
There is a catalogue of things that need to be implemented at Stafford hospital. I am sure others have many ideas to put forward.
In my ideal world in all NHS hospitals there would be a 2 tier nursing system
The first tier would be the highly trained nurses (for example in drug administering and theatre nursing.)
And the second tier would be as before with SEN system
Nurses who would be on hand to see to personal care and hygiene.

These nurses also would oversee meals and if need be feed the patient.
They would also be required to monitor fluid intake and report back any problems.

One of the big problems I encountered at Stafford hospital was patents especially the elderly being given meals that were often unsuitable (eg chewing problems)
They were served their meals by catering staff who would return later often to untouched food
The food would be removed.
No medical staff informed
Nobody questioning why food was uneaten.
Water or fluids were often provided in jugs that were not in easy reach or jugs left empty (remember the reports of patents drinking water from vases)
I have gone over to other patents whilst visiting father and helped them with a drink.
I had to insist on drinks beaker for my father on several occasions.

Patents left in wet beds in the elderly wards was also a problem.
This again could be under of the 'SEN' remit

Hospital cleaners in my ideal world
Would be interviewed and employed individually by the hospital and not contacts given to the lowest bidder.

The hospital needs to employ staff who care about their patents.
This may sound obvious but this was a huge failing at the hospital.
The top must know how every department is performing
Nothing should be allowed to be concealed ever again.

One thing that I think Stafford hospital has got right is to have a separate A&E for children.
Although at the moment there is no night A&E at Stafford

How does anybody in charge of the NHS provide the required medical staff to every hospital in the UK.
When there are shortages in every field?

I agree with you, cherrytree, about SENs.
Feeding is a problem in many hospitals, with not many people knowing that anyone who has a carer at home can have that carer going onto the ward at meal times. All wards have a policy about it, even if you read what it says on the doors about meal times.
All the problems you say about your father happened with my husband in Durham Hospital. Once when I was in there my husband became quite agitated about another patient. He knew that this patient was a vegetarian and they were giving him cottage pie. He was vegetarian for religious reasons. Fortunately we managed to get it changed before the patient ate any of it. He was someone who couldn't feed himself, and couldn't talk properly because of his illness.

rachaelswindon.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-nhs-crisis-blame-tories-its-their.html

voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/01/11/nhscrisis-bbc-reports-what-theresa-may-and-jeremy-hunt-are-hiding-now-lets-see-them-resign/

Thank you for your suggestions, cherrytree. I have no experience of that kind of ward.

I thought hospitals already employed healthcare assistants to do the work which the former SENs used to do.

www.cuh.org.uk/corporate-information/working-for-us/healthcare-support-workers/what-will-i-do/healthcare-assistants

Cherrytree has highlighted an area which is indeed in chaos. I have experienced it when my FiL was in hospital. It contributed to his death.

Which goes to show that the NHS needs a thorough overhaul from the bottom up, from unacceptable ward practices and lack of good nursing/care procedures right through to the funding and structuring nationally,

So who's going to do that?

I have first hand experience of the same Cherry and Anya when I almost lived on a ward where my DD was ( they put her in a ward full of elderly people) this was for 10 days, then she was moved to a gynae ward ( her condition was terrible cellulitis!) and then to another hospital on the cancer ward! She never managed to get on an actual ward that was compatible with her illness.All this took about a month.
I felt so sorry for the often confused and frightened elderly patients on the first ward.
That one was the worst ward by far.Food dumped down and taken away again with not a word etc.Cleaning staff who came at all hours but did very little except stare at patients while pushing a dirty mop around for a bit, bins hardly ever emptied and overflowing, patients wanting bedpans urgently, but the 'right' staff to bring bedpans not being there to do it.These things are not lack of funding issues.

The fact that she wasn't on an appropriate ward almost certainly was a funding issue, because hospitals can't keep spare beds in case somebody needs one, so patients are dumped wherever there is a spare bed.

The cleaning would have been because cleaning services have now been contracted out to the lowest bidder. To maximise profits, they don't train and supervise staff adequately. Staff are paid minimum wage and aren't looked after properly, so they couldn't really care about their work.

Feeding has always been a problem in hospitals, because there just aren't enough staff at the right times. Most hospitals seem to rely on volunteers and family/friends.

I'm not making excuses, but funding would help overcome some of those problems.

Just heard a friend has been taken to hospital in an ambulance and had to remain on the ambulance trolley for 6 hours before getting a bed. This meant that the ambulance was tied up too!
Time and again we hear that it's due to an ageing population - it's our fault therefore for getting old. But surely with all these surveys- which a ridiculous amount - and statistics it wasn't beyond the wit of man to see the trends and make suitable preparations?

But they are lack of funding issues when nurses are stressed and have too many patients to take care of, when cleaning is outsourced to the cheapest provider and staff numbers are cut to the bone because there is no money left. How can it not be lack of funding?
It is of course also a lack of staff who want to work on geriatric wards. This area has always been one that failed to attract the best staff and is still seen by many as the unattractive end of healthcare. What can be done about that I'm not sure. Even paying more wouldn't really help, it takes a special sort of person to want to work with the elderly who may be terminal or suffering from incurable chronic illnesses.

Yes, the ward/ bed could be funding, but feeding wasn't, there were nurses clustered around the nurses station chatting, laughing, showing each other things on phones etc when meals were dumped by catering staff, and I went and got nurses to help( others) when I saw they were struggling.I also refilled water jugs and glasses, and tried to hurry them up ( staff) when an old person was distressed by lack of bed pan appearing.I also changed the sheets myself on DD's bed from a huge cupboard full of sheets when they were not changed for four days.
These situations are worse in these wards than anywhere else in the hospital and seem to make nurses very hard and uncaring, they obviously hate having to do a stint on them and it has an awful effect on everybody.Because I stayed there at all times of day and night I got to see the full picture.