NHS

Lazigirl, my mum, who had been anurse all her working life, used to tell us that she looked after her mum until she died.
When her mum died, my mum was 27. My brother was two years old, just, and I was three months, so that was her job at the time. In fact the house they lived in was the one where my grandmother had given my mum and dad all her money to pay the deposit after my brother was born, so my grandmother owned more of the house than they did.
When my parents died, they were 87 and 83, and none of us could look after them. Our houses weren't suitable.
They looked after each other in a ground floor flat until my mother had to go into a nursing home after she fell.

It's very trite to say that we should be looking after our elderly. Not so easy these days.

Chris Grayling, MP for Epsom and Ewell, Surrey, with Epsom and St Helier Hospital Trust in his constituency.
Fortunately the other half is in the constituency of Tom Brake, LibDem MP, who is trying, hopelessly, to get an extra £400,000 for his hospital.
I believe St Helier was the one where Hunt ran away from reporters last year.

Exactly, Lazigirl.
This is very opportune. I have just received this email in my inbox.

pbs.twimg.com/media/DSzmQW0WAAEKyMy.jpg:large

The irony is dj that most of the professionals working for these private companies were probably trained by the good old NHS.

16 jobs for Virgin Care in Surrey; Haslemere Hospital and Milford Hospital.

"We are looking to recruit a band 5 Occupational Therapist to join our rotational scheme within Virgincare Surrey. This is an ideal first rotation for a new graduate but we are also looking for more skilled band 5 clinicians who want to consolidate their clinical skills and start to develop specialist skills, undertake some project work, and enhance their team working and supervision/teaching techniques. The post will be based in South West Surrey within Farnham Hospitals and Camberley centre for Health. Rotations are for 6 months and include inpatient rehabilitation (stroke and older people), Community Rehabilitation and rapid response. "

Note it's even called Virgincare Surrey.
Checking CQC ratings for Surrey hospitals shows that very few have a rating. That means that most of them are private.
That might be what the people of Surrey want and can afford, but it doesn't make it a NATIONAL Health Service.

I read your post Annie and do not believe many elderly are bed blocking because their families do not see it their responsibility to care for them. My 92 yr old mother fell down the stairs and smashed her leg. She was a so called bed blocker (nasty term that) and had to go into a nursing home for some weeks. We are not young ourselves and physically unable to provide the care she needs. I am sure many are in the same position, and "family caring" often means "women", although there are probably a few male carers too. How many who are working can afford to give up jobs to care for relatives long term?

I want a proper NHS, primrose.
The present government doesn't.
NHS stands for NATIONAL health service, not American style health service.
I prefer to believe those who are working in the NATIONAL health service, not just one area of Surrey.

weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/nhs

OT services, provision of aids, provision of adaptations, district nurses - they all arrive from a different companies and the overlap, and waste of resources is crazy, leaving aside that some are motivated by profit. They all have silly names that are trying to convince us that they are jolly and caring - the names themselves just stick in my throat!

I remember with my Dad, he has lots of business cards and letters from all the different organisations and he was at a loss to know who had provided what - and so was I!

Best read my post whitewave

Jen, it's almost as though you don't want the NHS to work under a Tory government. You're only interested in pointing out shortcomings and faults and laying the blame on one person.

I think it's interesting that when the people working in the NHS run things in the way they think it should be run, they are showing it's better for everyone. I think it's positive that this is happening and I'm pleased they are collecting evidence to prove it.

What are you saying now annie?

Because of bed blocking, many elderly are put into homes because their families to not see it their responsibility to care for them

Apparently there were 200 people waiting for an ambulance at St Helier hospital in Surrey.
All those government ministers in the county, including Hunt, and they can't sort out their own NHS services. Not much chance for the rest of us.

Did you miss this, about Surrey?

As we can't see the FT article, we wouldn't know, would we?
I prefer to take note of what is said in the Guardian about the privatisation of the health services.

Care homes and care at home used to be run by councils. Now it is privatised.
That is not what Luckygirl was talking about.

That seems to be exactly what the NHS is doing in the FT article Luckygirl. All the services are collaborating and they are ignoring whether they get more money for what they think is the wrong course of action - they're providing a joined-up service because it works. It's made a massive difference and the patients, doctors and managers all agree it works, which must be a result in itself.

I believe they are going to scale this up to include more hospitals in that trust, to check that it's workable with larger numbers. I think it's a very good example of how the NHS could work in future.

Completely agree, Luckygirl.
You'll find others in the same position. It must be a nightmare now.
I am pleased I didn't have to sort out care for my mother in law, who died last year. She had two other sons to do that for her. I just went to visit her in the various homes, four in three years.

Just been speaking to someone who works in the A&E of local hospital. She’s been working all over the New Year, and said it is everything that you here and see and worse.

Every hospital on the South Coast had waiting ambulances and people lined up in every available space. She said that she is fearful of what is going to happen.

lazigirl so sorry to hear of the delay in your appointment. Not long to wait now.

I looked at your crowdfunding link dj and found it very interesting. The central point of ACOs seems to be to integrate care between social services, community services and health - can't argue with that as a sensible idea. The crux of the problem seems to be that potentially, as the law stands, these ACOs could be taken over by private profit-seeking organisations - not acceptable in my book.

If they could integrate services and ditch the mish mash of private/public provision that we currently have, then they would be a good thing. All that needs to happen is for the law to make it clear that they cannot be run by profit-seeking organisations.

There is already a huge amount of private activity in the health service - organising care in the community for my Dad and now for my OH involves contact with several different companies who provide different aspects of the care. It is very confusing indeed.

doe eyes whitewave? Much more scary than that! It made my blood boil to hear TM and JH's apologies for treatment delays. I'm pretty sure that if they were in the same position as me, ie waiting for ?cancer referral for 6wks (not 2) and hoping that appt scheduled for 15th Jan isn't cancelled, they would have been seen a damn site quicker.

Read Hunts book “Direct Democracy” and then listen to his double speak about the NHS.

Quote

we should denationalise the NHS

Listen to the channel 4 interview of an NHS doctor then understand what this government is doing to our NHS.

Don’t be fooled by Hunts irritatingly soft voice and doe eyes as he oh so regrets what is happening.
Wolf in sheeps clothing and a mealy mouthed bastard is what he is.

If you look on Richard Murphy's blog, you can see his address. Somehow I don't think he's in the top 1%
What's that got to do with the NHS, anyway?

By the way ,primrose, you are not really saying that everyone should have equal amounts of healthcare, are you?
My husband probably had more than his share, having been type one diabetic since he was 11. Then he fell off a ladder and broke his back, then got cerebellar ataxia, then a brain tumour. Imagine how much that cost. Lucky he died when he was 65, and didn't use up any more resources.

People like Richard Murphy, self-confessed tax avoider.

If everybody paid their taxes, there wouldn't have been a need to cut the health service.
I presume you also don't agree that the top 1% of the population should own as much as the bottom 55%.

I do not want to see the Nat. Health privatised, however I must say that the privatised clinics I have attended have been much more efficiently run. So there is scope to run our dear Nat. Health more efficiently. I also believe that anything that can be bought over the counter should NOT be on prescription. The prescription system is ridiculously inefficient. And why are we funding ops to put right operations performed overseas? And of course Hunt should be sacked. His lies are as bad as T. May's.