A & E Delays killing up to 500 per week

you are right though sandelf

Some of these 'UP TO 500' would have died regardless of how quickly the ambulance got to them and whatever help they were given. Some of the bed shortage through delayed discharge is because nursing (in the old sense of feeding, watering and cleaning) is renamed and people needing this are thrown out of the NHS and onto the tender mercies of big business. We have been told for so long that caring for ones own is worthless, but now we see a different sort of price is being paid. Sorry to sound a bit jaundiced.

Our son had severe asthma and was told to get to A and E. He was admitted immediately and spent five days in hospital. He was saying in A and E there was a chap who had stubbed his toe and felt he should get immediate attention. When the receptionist pointed to him the dozens of ambulances outside and that there was at least 10 hours wait, he really kicked off.

The only way to avert the calamity that our NHS is becoming is to get medical staff who have left back into it. This will only be achieved through decent pay and working conditions which are sadly lacking at the moment. Even if we doubled the training places tomorrow it would take years before the situation improved. We have to retain the staff already trained, but as more leave the pressure on those remaining intensifies leading to more wanting to leave. I know of midwives that have taken early retirement or simply left because the pressures were getting too much.

Joseanne

growstuff

Joseanne

ExperiencedNotOld

The temporary hospitals put together at the start of the covid crisis are long dismantled and the spaces used returned to exhibitions etc.

Ours is doing a great job dealing with the backlog of orthopaedic surgery. Also eye surgery and diagnostics. It appears to be fully staffed and must have taken the pressure off the general County hospital a degree.
However our A & Es are overflowing and understaffed, and our ambulance service is one of the worst in the country.
It seems however many hospitals are opened, however many beds are provided, they will still be filled to over flowing.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust has one of the worst performance ratings in the country. It bought the Nightingale Hospital "shell" and, apart from a small amount of extra government funding, has diverted its own funding to staff it.

Correction growstuff, our Nightingale was purchased by the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, not Torbay and South Devon.
The point is that it has not alleviated the situation in A & Es of West Country hospitals.

Apologies for the error. However, your point is the same as mine. Resources (mainly staffing) have had to be diverted from other services.

biglouis

Is the entire population now suffering from Munchassen's?

Why are people turning up at A&E with minor complaints like a cut hand, constipation or flu?

If you have flu you go to bed and take paracetamol.

For minor cuts and ailments the pharmacy can advise.

There are plenty of google articles and U tube videos telling you what to do for flu and colds without trekking to hospitals.

No wonder people who have strokes and heart attacks cant get treated.

I didn't realise you were now working as A&E triage, congratulations on your new job. Presumably you are sifting out all the self inflicted ailments such as alcohol or drug abuse too?

It’s just appalling that this is happening but no surprise. The Conservative Party have no interest whatsoever in doing anything. They have run it down so much that there’s no way out . I felt a traitor to the NHS when I paid for an MRI and heart investigations, but didn’t feel I could wait the 12 weeks I was quoted. I spent 40 years working in the NHS and although it was hard work it was never as it is now. We are grateful ( including me) that cold surgery is being farmed out to the private sector but the cost is adding to the fire . But of course the people benefiting are the fat cats conservative members with shares in the private health companies. We have already now a two tier health system.

Is the entire population now suffering from Munchassen's?

Why are people turning up at A&E with minor complaints like a cut hand, constipation or flu?

If you have flu you go to bed and take paracetamol.

For minor cuts and ailments the pharmacy can advise.

There are plenty of google articles and U tube videos telling you what to do for flu and colds without trekking to hospitals.

No wonder people who have strokes and heart attacks cant get treated.

MerylStreep

All very fine ideas, but!!!!
This government has no intention of saving the NHS. The signs were there when evil Osborne held the purse strings.
Now !!!! It’s writ large enough for any fool to read.

Before that too.
Didn't Cherie Blair co-found a private healthcare company which was going to open clinics in supermarkets?
Of course, her intention was to complement the NHS, not replace it or profit from it.
🤔

The NHS has been sold off bit by bit fir the last decade or more. Whatever they may say to the contrary , it goes against the belief of Tories who are only interested in profit. The NHS is a service not a business, which we all contribute to but has been deliberately run down.

First to go were those services with the highest profit potential followed by the rest until they can quite rightly say that the NHS is not working and not worth the spend. Better adopt a new system, maybe something similar to our very bestest friends over the Atlantic, lucky old us.
Take medical aids, just one example of many. They used to be returned, retained, cleaned and repaired if necessary and used again and again. This service was then sold off to private companies seeking profit. So instead of re using perfectly good orthopaedic equipment they refused to take it back because obviously it is more profitable to keep giving out new equipment, throw away the once used and make lots of profit by invoicing the NHS.
A personal example is of pads which were wrongly delivered to my dh post surgery. I notified them within 10 minutes of delivery but they point blank refused to take them back. They suggested I give them away or put them in the dustbin. I was furious because the value of this mountain of pads was huge and she wanted me to bin them. (I would have needed a Dozen bins to fit them all in ). They then delivered the correct size but still refused to take the unopened double packed pads they had just delivered. I rang everywhere I could think of and in the end the local hospice were pleased to take them. But what a terrible expensive waste.
I had previously wrongly blamed the nhs fir this until I learned the true situation.

This has been all witnessed by a close family member who has worked their socks off in the nhs fir nearly 25 years.

All very fine ideas, but!!!!
This government has no intention of saving the NHS. The signs were there when evil Osborne held the purse strings.
Now !!!! It’s writ large enough for any fool to read.

Daisymae

It's not as if there were no warnings. How about an emergency plan? Cobra type meetings of people with clout to manage the next few months? Something???

quite

growstuff

Joseanne

ExperiencedNotOld

The temporary hospitals put together at the start of the covid crisis are long dismantled and the spaces used returned to exhibitions etc.

Ours is doing a great job dealing with the backlog of orthopaedic surgery. Also eye surgery and diagnostics. It appears to be fully staffed and must have taken the pressure off the general County hospital a degree.
However our A & Es are overflowing and understaffed, and our ambulance service is one of the worst in the country.
It seems however many hospitals are opened, however many beds are provided, they will still be filled to over flowing.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust has one of the worst performance ratings in the country. It bought the Nightingale Hospital "shell" and, apart from a small amount of extra government funding, has diverted its own funding to staff it.

Correction growstuff, our Nightingale was purchased by the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, not Torbay and South Devon.
The point is that it has not alleviated the situation in A & Es of West Country hospitals.

It's not as if there were no warnings. How about an emergency plan? Cobra type meetings of people with clout to manage the next few months? Something???

Joseanne

ExperiencedNotOld

The temporary hospitals put together at the start of the covid crisis are long dismantled and the spaces used returned to exhibitions etc.

Ours is doing a great job dealing with the backlog of orthopaedic surgery. Also eye surgery and diagnostics. It appears to be fully staffed and must have taken the pressure off the general County hospital a degree.
However our A & Es are overflowing and understaffed, and our ambulance service is one of the worst in the country.
It seems however many hospitals are opened, however many beds are provided, they will still be filled to over flowing.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust has one of the worst performance ratings in the country. It bought the Nightingale Hospital "shell" and, apart from a small amount of extra government funding, has diverted its own funding to staff it.

A&E is such a crucial part of the health system, & I think the forecasts on footfall which are done as part of forward planning as in any business, may have underestimated how many A&E staff & space would be needed. The acute response to Covid scrambled people & equipment together to fight the storm, but TBH it's still not back to normal - lower immunity to bugs that are endemic (flu, strep A, RSV), people who have been on waiting lists for elective surgery reaching crisis point, and patient difficulty with reaching GPs and a certain reluctance with GPs to take on anything acute & complex perhaps, when they are so busy.Also the increase in MH problems since the pandemic, as A&E are at the sharp end for this too. Add that to the well-publicised lack of social care provision to discharge people to which makes it difficult to admit patients for ongoing care, & they really are in a difficult place. Anyone working in A&E at the moment is a total hero to me, & I hope everything possible is being done to recruit & train people for the longer term to do this vital job. Private healthcare as it exists in this country can't help here.

We will be losing more NHS staff if this government doesn't get around the negotiation table to do something about this awful situation. Losing more staff means probably losing more lives

It's getting a daily occurance now that our news here in N.I are putting out warnings that A&E departments are overwhelmed and not to attend unless its life threatening. The GP's, for some reason, still can't seem to see you so people are heading to A&E for care, hoping to get a face to face consultation there.
I see no end to all this, something needs to be done urgently or there will be a lot more deaths. My friend tried to go private and he was told it would be 3 months, you used to get in 3 days.
We have an empty hospital near us, it's just used for x-rays, ultrasounds, etc. If they had the staff it could be used for people that are fit to leave hospital, but can't get help to be able to go home. This damn government need to get to grips with the NHS and fast.

Charging nurses to get the necessary qualifications is a ludicrous thing to do, same for any profession that is a vital commodity (teachers etc). Make nursing free, who on earth would pay to become one. Not just nursing but one of the many problems is the number of people who cannot leave hospital as there is no alternative care for them. Sort that out as a priority. Make it possible for all pharmicists to become prescribers, that would solve a few issues. Make more nurses prescribers too. Bring minor injury clinics to the neighbourhoods so that people who can't get to see a medic at the surgery don't have to go to hospital to get a bad cut seen to (for example). There are so many easy fixes but no one is actually in control of the NHS and so things will not chnage with Tory control. They have no interest in health, its all about the money.

I felt there would be a lot of medical staff leaving after the pandemic due to burn out and exhaustion. It was heartbreaking to see them working so hard and for so long in such difficult conditions. I just knew there would be a long term price to pay for all of us. And the more they are pushed the more of them will leave.

according to the telegraph a fifth of patients being denied GP appointments are turning up at A&E too

ExperiencedNotOld

The temporary hospitals put together at the start of the covid crisis are long dismantled and the spaces used returned to exhibitions etc.

Ours is doing a great job dealing with the backlog of orthopaedic surgery. Also eye surgery and diagnostics. It appears to be fully staffed and must have taken the pressure off the general County hospital a degree.
However our A & Es are overflowing and understaffed, and our ambulance service is one of the worst in the country.
It seems however many hospitals are opened, however many beds are provided, they will still be filled to over flowing.

The number of beds available is not the actual beds but the staff to service them. A hospital can have scores of beds in empty wards, but without staff, they cannot be classed as "available"
When any hospital makes a statement about bed shortages, it is really staff shortages they are reporting.

The staff who are left are exhausted and being pushed to their limits.
When they leave - what then?
Lack of social care = bedblocking.

It's heading towards a perfect storm.

It’s ok having the hospitals but pointless without staff,