The Dispatches programme on the NHS

Do you realise how much money the NHS is given, to spend as it sees fit? The more money it is given, the more it wastes. We have had NHS employees on GN giving first hand evidence of this.

If anyone has been unfortunate to have to use A&E over the past couple of years, you come away with a few impressions.

First and foremost the professionalism, kindness and competence of the staff.

Next the conditions under which the staff are working is one of the most stressful most of us will ever witness.

It is obvious that what should and could be carried out by GPs is not being done, because of the way resources are managed. We know for instance that GPs are finding it difficult to find a practice.

It is at breaking point - no doubt - whilst I was waiting for morphine to be administered the A&E consultant for the night shift came into the waiting/triage area and asked people to consider going home if they possibly could or contact the small injuries clinic or their GP in the morning.

Take out last night’s program, that hospital is rotten to the core.

Have some forgotten this horror.

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/30/baby-deaths-inquiry-shrewsbury-nhs-trust-condemned-for-repeated-failures

Of course there is waste in the NHS, GSM. I give you an example: £1.7 billion per year is being spent supporting hospital beds occupied by patients fit enough to be discharged but for whom no ongoing care is available (and thus their discharge would be unsafe). This is because of the failure of the Tory government over 14 years to resolve the problem. Johnson claimed to have an oven-ready solution which he never explained although he added to the NI contribution, an addition which was promptly removed by Truss. Another obvious waste is the use of A&E by patients who cannot get a GP appointment at a time when there are qualified GPs unable to get a job because the Tories won't fund the posts in Primary care.

Grantanow

Of course there is waste in the NHS, GSM. I give you an example: £1.7 billion per year is being spent supporting hospital beds occupied by patients fit enough to be discharged but for whom no ongoing care is available (and thus their discharge would be unsafe). This is because of the failure of the Tory government over 14 years to resolve the problem. Johnson claimed to have an oven-ready solution which he never explained although he added to the NI contribution, an addition which was promptly removed by Truss. Another obvious waste is the use of A&E by patients who cannot get a GP appointment at a time when there are qualified GPs unable to get a job because the Tories won't fund the posts in Primary care.

Yes!!

Agreed Grantanow.

I watched the Despatches programme - it was horrific!

Any government that allows a public health service to decline to such a degree should never be allowed to govern the country again - IMO. 14 years of underfunding in health AND social care has brought our NHS to its knees.

It was heartbreaking to watch. The young man who went undercover was shocked and disgusted too. I couldn’t sleep afterwards. Is this what it’s come to? Patients waiting hours on end, some very poorly indeed with no privacy, waiting hours for pain relief just completely helpless.
Whoever wins this election has one hell of a job on their hands.

I felt sorry for the poor man in the corridor having to wee into a bottle. What if he had wanted to poo? What if it had been a woman having her period? Horrible.

People go to the Dr's here with a blocked nose costing the NHS 100s to save themselves £4.50 at the chemist, anything free is abused no where else in the world can you do that.

Altyann

People go to the Dr's here with a blocked nose costing the NHS 100s to save themselves £4.50 at the chemist, anything free is abused no where else in the world can you do that.

How do they get past the triage system, which most GP surgeries now operate?

Really Altyann? Whereabouts are you? Here in the UK it’s quite difficult to get a Drs appointment and all requests are triaged initially by the receptionist to prevent minor issues taking up unnecessary GP time. A blocked nose would get a quick referral to the chemist over the road.

We live in Telford and our local hospital is in a Trust with Shrewsbury. We are to lose our A and E Department so all our emergencies will go to Shrewsbury, 14 miles away, making it even busier. The population of Telford is around 157,000 and growing with lots of new housing happening whereas the population of Shrewsbury is around 77,000.

I was in hospital ( S W Wales) for 4 weeks during Covid and had no major issue with being given a bed, but the cleanliness was poor…a ‘cleaner’ would come on once day, flash a brush around the floor and depart…not once did I see floors or similar actually being cleaned, the stains on the floor were still there when I left. Beds were blocked by dementia patients who had been cured of ills but seemingly dumped there!? One spent the nights and day Screaming like a banshee whilst we were trying to rest. They had to allocate one nurse solely for her! A friend ( in her 80s) recently had to go in to this same hospital, and was sat in a chair for the first 48 hours, after which they got her a bed, which was taken away every morning, and returned at 9 pm, as they were using it to take patients to theatre in, etc, during the day….sounds horrific, and yes I saw the Dispatches programme and thought “ that wouldn’t happen here…” but apparently now it does! This is so wrong!

When ambulances were queuing up outside A&E departments unable to discharge their patients to bulging hospitals, a taxi driver was telling me about how disgusting it was that his wife couldn't get an ambulance to take their son, who had a sore throat, to A&E. He had to take them himself and after a wait of several hours his 6 year old was diagnosed with a throat infection and discharged with a course of antibiotics. I tried to explain that a sore throat was neither an accident nor an emergency and that it would have been more appropriate to go to his GP or pharmacist. However, he seemed to think that a throat 'infection' was a very serious condition warranting a visit to A&E.

I found it so upsetting especially the lady with suspected stroke that had been missed. The going under cover reporter was excellent and he found it so upsetting

What I found unbelievable was most of the patients just accepted what was happening

I know nothing... but here, I see no mention of the people having "operations" done abroad, then coming back here to our NHS for corrective treatment, ( only hear of this in the media)

Also I hear , again, on the media, how many people come from other countries for operations etc. apparently our NHS is free to them also..

so many areas where the NHS system is abused, and money wasted... just saying.... I can easily fall into despair...

who ever gets in after this election. .??? so much to do, water pollution from Water companies really leaves me in despair.

growstuff

Altyann

People go to the Dr's here with a blocked nose costing the NHS 100s to save themselves £4.50 at the chemist, anything free is abused no where else in the world can you do that.

How do they get past the triage system, which most GP surgeries now operate?

Good question growstuff- I think we'd all like to know!

Or perhaps it's only in the area where Altyann lives that they all get blocked up noses - a sort of 'local' disease recognised by the triage system?

We had to take our son (recently post transplant) to A&E at about 2am after 111 was no help and took far to long. We went to the window, explained the situation and hadn't even had time to sit down before he was whisked away to a cubicle to be seen. It took a long time for him to get a proper bed but at least not left in a corridor and received appropriate monitoring and treatment so we knew he'd be OK. We moved to the area several years ago because the hospitals were good and generally speaking they have remained so. It's clear they are working under extreme pressure though. I hope a new government has the will to keep the NHS operating well into the future without stupid privatization, which may be a short term solution to waiting lists but will never work as effectively as a collectively funded state run institution. We already have far too many examples of privatized services falling apart and ripping us off.

Staff covering themselves due to entitled selfish people. They threaten to sue ' if it's something serious'.
Who remembers when everyone got free Prescriptions? People were expecting paracetamol, which costs around 35p now , on prescription. Plus things like plasters. I personally know someone who asked for sunscreen because of her sensitive skin. She got It!

I had experience of local A&E 3/4 yrs ago and it was dire even then. I had fallen downstairs and could hardly breathe, had broken a couple of ribs and it was a wknd. Waiting area was packed there were drunks causing chaos and a man picked up some sort of VDU machine and threw it at the doors to the treatment area and then tried to force his way through when a nurse came out to call in the next patient.
More recently I was with my DH when he was taken by ambulance to the A&E, he was dealt with very quickly but the nurse who came to take bp etc wrote his results down on a paper towel which she later picked up and threw in the bin by mistake, second nurse wrote results on her hand! No wonder when he was finally discharged a few days later his next of kin details on the paperwork was some completely unknown person. Thank goodness there was no need for an emergency call at any point during his stay.
Total chaos on both occasions with staff trying to do their best but failing in many ways.

Suelld
Maybe one day you might have a disease that would lead you to scream like a banshee
Have you any idea how terrifying a hospital ward is for someone suffering with dementia.
I’ll answer my own question: you obviously don’t.

My daughter is a GP and she has been asked for sunscreen because of sensitive skin. More than once. She refused it, but she told me other doctors will give it just to get the patient to leave quickly rather than engage in argument about why the NHS shouldn’t prescribe sunscreen.

You say that the NHS needs more staff and more money, but what you do not say, nor anyone else ever does, is where this money is supposed to come from?

It may very well be that the NHS is using its money unwisely - we all tend think that all public funding is being used wrongly, after all.

I doubt the statement that neither of the two main parties want to know - any attempt to increase taxation is shouted down, and presumably politicians do know, although sometimes I doubt this, that you cannot use money, you do not actually have!

Maddyone, can you explain why?

I know my daughter has to be prescribed cetraben for example as the care staff cannot apply it without prescription (which I find ludicrous too but it is how it is)