Glorianny
icanhandthemback
As I spent the evening with yet another ambulance crew who couldn't take my mother to hospital because there were not enough beds, we discussed the state of the NHS because my last urgent call to the ambulance service did not end with an ambulance arriving even though I waited up all night for it. Eventually the fire service friends of my husband arrived to lift my Mum up off the floor and get her into bed until the Community Nurse could get there.
Anyway, the crew said that there was plenty of money in the NHS but it was poorly spent. Millions go on poorly thought out software, bad decisions about equipment and vehicles were amongst their complaints. They said some of the decisions were made by managers who were operational years ago are based on what they used to do despite lengthy consultations with current operational staff and this just doesn't work efficiently. They are in despair. This is not the first time I have had this sort of discussion with NHS staff. One of my friends is Community Nurse who has been given a Queen's Nursing Medal and after 39 years of giving her all she has had enough. She has had to reapply for her job so many times for restructures, has seen the waste of money whilst her staff are worked to death and sits in meeting after meeting telling the managers that actually their new ideas have been tried and failed before. They won't listen to the feet on the ground or experienced staff.
It isn't a National Health Service either. Each Trust uses different IT systems so can't liaise. If you live on the Border you can be sent to a different Trust to where you live. They will set up all sorts of "help" from bought in services so you can be discharged safely only to find when you get home, you get a call to say that they can't do the things they thought they could do because you live 2 yards over the border. Consequently they have wasted hours of time for several members of staff to organise stuff you can't have. It is a joke.
This really is a lot of out of date and unsupported hearsay.
There are now two organisations dealing with technology in the NHS. NHS Digital digital.nhs.uk/
and NHSX now changing to this www.nhsx.nhs.uk/blogs/2020-year-health-technology/
Most primary health care providers use Systm one en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SystmOne
It is a fast and quickly changing area that has seen huge changes developed to deal with Covid.
How many of us now have the NHS App?
Is it perfect? of course not. But imagining any ambulance staff or nurse is an expert is a bit ridiculous.
I think it was in about 2014 that I signed something to say that my medical information could be shared between ANY medical professional that needed to see it - I wasn't keen, but because I am a very medically complicated person, I felt it was necessary .... Roll on 2021, and my new Consultant in a University Hospital literally has had to contact 5 different hospital for my notes so that he can get a full picture of what has been happening to me, and what each hospital has done about it, so it STILL hasn't happened - C21st and we sent a man to the moon over 5 decades ago, but hospitals and GP's still can't talk to each other, ridiculous!
Grandmadinosaur I am sorry to cause offence, and I am sure that your friend DOES do what you say and being on an Oncology Ward is probably more compassionate, BUT in the last 2 decades I have had 24 surgeries, a lot of them major ones and I have seen a great deal of what the 'caring profession' CAN be like, although there are exceptions everywhere obviously!
BeEmerald - thanks for your support! Exactly, and it could be that they are like that because of the pressures of the job, but would I want someone administering my medication when they've just had a swig of Vodka, or sniffed a bit of Coke to keep them going in the sluice? NO THANKS!
My last admission was to a Covid Ward - none of us had it but because we coughed a bit at some point ended up in there. The poor old dear opposite me couldn't do anything at all for herself, even move anything but her hands just a little - it was ME that gave her a drink, reminded staff that just left a tray at the end of the bed then someone else picked it up 30 mins later that she hadn't been fed, closed the curtains for her when the sun was streaming onto her face, and pulled the covers up over her when she was shivering - it was appalling! Weekends we didn't even get our water jugs filled and changed as there wasn't enough staff, hot drinks at weekends were sporadic too. My medication was taken out of my bag without my permission, went missing and when I needed it had to wait 2 days to get it written up by a DR and come up from from Pharmacy. They even missed my cancer that even I, an untrained radiographer could see on a CT Scan! I could and have gone on, but my complaints always come back full of lies and apologies and their policies have been reviewed etc, but nothing ever changes ..... in 2010 it was just getting to be good. I was hoping that with Doris's dice with death and the clapping for the pandemic that the Govt wouldn't be able to get away with flogging it off, but as was their plan, it has got so bad that we will accept anything now .....
