The Dispatches programme on the NHS

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?

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.

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

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 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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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

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.

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.