How the NHS wastes money.

It’s not racism!

No, it's not racism because I understood that any doctor, nurse or midwife coming from overseas was required to take an English test regardless of their country of origin, even if the first language of that country was English.

I can’t pretend to know what I’m talking about here, but a suggestion might be to charge patients for wastage under our control? Missed appointments is an obvious option, but also things like not using taxis that have been booked, or completing courses of treatment (assuming it was possible to do so).

I am having physio just now, and some patients get free taxis but don’t turn up. They have a place on a 12 week programme that could have gone to others, but turn up sporadically, despite the taxi charge going to the NHS, and their place being wasted. I think drugs are rather different, as doctors have to prescribe them, so they should be monitored, but I understand there is a lot of wastage there, too.

I don’t know- I am very intolerant of ’flakiness’ and letting people down, but I’m sure that if people were paying for treatment they would respect it more. I don’t ever want to see the NHS restrict treatment to those who can afford it, but could we look at charging those who don’t attend what they have agreed to attend? And use what they have agreed to use.

FGS it's not racism for someone to talk about their experience of not being able to understand what someone was saying to them, due to an insufficient command of the English language.

argymargy

dalrymple23

Sadly, Alira, this is not the case. Competency in the English language was disbanded some years ago when either the BMA or the GMC decided that it was "discriminatory".

I have frequently had conversations with incomprehensible medics. The Trust for which I worked many years ago, had an unwritten policy that all medical secretaries should be English, so that they could translate the incomprehensible letters which were dictated!!

The waste is absolutely phenomenal and a disgrace. No privately run company would allow it. Do you know that all the expensive equipment which is freely put into a patient's home, in order to allow them to live there - wheelchairs, commodes, hoists and slings, walking frames, hospital beds, rails and other paraphenalia - is disposed of when the patient no longer needs it? Even if it is in good working order? Most of it (not commodes) is very easily sterilised (I saw it being done in one of the Scandinavian countries), therefore can be reused.

Whenever one of my clients was returned home from a brief stint n hospital, they would arrive with blankets, pillows and sheets, despite them having a full complement of bed linen at home. On one occasion I tried to return these to the local hospital. The nursing staff did not know what to do with it - apart from putting it all in the bin. How wrong is that? What is the national cost?

I can tell you much more but will let you have a big yawn instead!!

Completely wrong. International Medical Graduates (IMGs) are required to pass an English language test before they can register with GMC. Please stop with the racism.

It’s not racism! I posted a few weeks ago on here how embarrassing it is for both medical staff and visitors and patients if the staff cannot make themselves understand.

I felt an idiot asking a person a number of times to repeat what she had said to me. I kept saying “I’m really sorry but I can’t understand you.” Situations like that put all of us in an unfortunate position. It shouldn’t be like that. I mentioned at the time that I thought all staff coming to work in the UK had to have a certain level of written and spoken English.

I also read about a nurse who was sacked for several reasons and one of them was because she had been warned many times about her poor English but had not complied with instructions to undertake more English courses.

As already stated, foreign doctors have to pass a competency test in English. Why do people make such inflammatory comments is totally beyond me. The NHS would not function at all if all the foreign trained staff left and all the ones that I came into contact with during 2024 spoke English.

International Medical Graduates (IMGs) are required to pass an English language test before they can register with GMC

I understood it was still the case and for nurses and midwives too, who wish to work in the NHS.

We can recycle walking aids to the local hospital here, and the Council has a recycling schemes for all loaned equipment for home use. This is in Wales, and all areas here now do the same. I wonder if this is available in England too, it started quite recently, in 2021 I think, for my area.

I’m not defending the lack of recycling of expensive equipment. Over thirty years ago our social work teams were horrified but the response was that the cost of collecting cleaning and completing admin was greater than cost of equipment
We did collect our aids clean recycle but we were in house

dalrymple23

Sadly, Alira, this is not the case. Competency in the English language was disbanded some years ago when either the BMA or the GMC decided that it was "discriminatory".

I have frequently had conversations with incomprehensible medics. The Trust for which I worked many years ago, had an unwritten policy that all medical secretaries should be English, so that they could translate the incomprehensible letters which were dictated!!

The waste is absolutely phenomenal and a disgrace. No privately run company would allow it. Do you know that all the expensive equipment which is freely put into a patient's home, in order to allow them to live there - wheelchairs, commodes, hoists and slings, walking frames, hospital beds, rails and other paraphenalia - is disposed of when the patient no longer needs it? Even if it is in good working order? Most of it (not commodes) is very easily sterilised (I saw it being done in one of the Scandinavian countries), therefore can be reused.

Whenever one of my clients was returned home from a brief stint n hospital, they would arrive with blankets, pillows and sheets, despite them having a full complement of bed linen at home. On one occasion I tried to return these to the local hospital. The nursing staff did not know what to do with it - apart from putting it all in the bin. How wrong is that? What is the national cost?

I can tell you much more but will let you have a big yawn instead!!

Completely wrong. International Medical Graduates (IMGs) are required to pass an English language test before they can register with GMC. Please stop with the racism.

Sadly, Alira, this is not the case. Competency in the English language was disbanded some years ago when either the BMA or the GMC decided that it was "discriminatory".

I have frequently had conversations with incomprehensible medics. The Trust for which I worked many years ago, had an unwritten policy that all medical secretaries should be English, so that they could translate the incomprehensible letters which were dictated!!

The waste is absolutely phenomenal and a disgrace. No privately run company would allow it. Do you know that all the expensive equipment which is freely put into a patient's home, in order to allow them to live there - wheelchairs, commodes, hoists and slings, walking frames, hospital beds, rails and other paraphenalia - is disposed of when the patient no longer needs it? Even if it is in good working order? Most of it (not commodes) is very easily sterilised (I saw it being done in one of the Scandinavian countries), therefore can be reused.

Whenever one of my clients was returned home from a brief stint n hospital, they would arrive with blankets, pillows and sheets, despite them having a full complement of bed linen at home. On one occasion I tried to return these to the local hospital. The nursing staff did not know what to do with it - apart from putting it all in the bin. How wrong is that? What is the national cost?

I can tell you much more but will let you have a big yawn instead!!

Charleygirl5

At my GP surgery, there are many Polish patients, and interpreters are provided when necessary. However, I am sure if I were in Poland, I would have to provide and pay for my own interpreter.

Quite honestly I don’t think the NHS should provide any interpreters at all. People should either take a dual language family member/friend with them, or they should pay for the services of an interpreter.

If a Japanese tourist has a stroke here in the UK, they will be treated for free, because the UK provides all emergency treatments free to anyone who is in the country. However the provision of an interpreter should be the responsibility of the patient, most likely through his/her travel insurance policy.

It’s no wonder there’s insufficient funding in the NHS.

Skydancer

nanna8

I don’t know what it is like there but here if they are doing roadworks you usually get 6 people. One doing the work, one holding up a sign for traffic and 4 standing around with their hands in their pockets chatting. The young ones ( usually female) who hold up the traffic signs get paid a huge amount, presumably ‘ danger money’ More than nurses, teachers at any rate. Sometimes there are more people standing around chatting. Very noticeable because they have to wear orange vests.

I could have written this about where I live.

Road workers are in danger because motorists often ignore the traffic management signs.

nanna8

I don’t know what it is like there but here if they are doing roadworks you usually get 6 people. One doing the work, one holding up a sign for traffic and 4 standing around with their hands in their pockets chatting. The young ones ( usually female) who hold up the traffic signs get paid a huge amount, presumably ‘ danger money’ More than nurses, teachers at any rate. Sometimes there are more people standing around chatting. Very noticeable because they have to wear orange vests.

I could have written this about where I live.

When I read the OP I just felt annoyed at the lazy maintenance man who took advantage of having the opportunity to work without supervision.
There is certainly a need for the NHS to have a hard look at areas where money can be saved and I hope that will happen sooner rather than later.

A few years ago I worked in a GP surgery. Every time we needed to employ a telephone interpreter it cost the surgery £500 a time. This was for the patients who actually lived in the UK. As they were citizens there was no chance of getting the money back.

I needed a voice activated computer after our secretarial support was withdrawn RA made typing difficult. So my last ten years I wfh going into the office once a week and for team meetings etc
I was productive and happy. There may be the odd skiver but they’re equally at home in the office

Casdon

I don’t know where you got that fromNonGrannyMoll but it’s wildly inaccurate. Example, at ward level all staff are responsible for reporting a fault. It’s an online system, all staff are trained, it retains a record of what has been requested so if somebody else sees the same issue they can see at a glance if it’s been reported or not. I doubt if the system is much different to that anywhere in the UK.

At a hospital I was in last year the patients were all freezing cold, especially overnight and cold air was blowing directly on to us. The nursing staff gave us extra blankets, I wore one like a headscarf, another one round my shoulders. The staff said they'd reported the problem innumerable times but nothing was done. As soon as they could, they moved us to another ward which was fine.
They asked us to put this in as a complaint on report forms we were given.

GrannyIvy I applaud the NHS trust your daughter works for. They clearly want to retain her as a member of staff and are prepared to make changes to make her work more attractive. The NHS doesn't always pay very well but recruitment of new staff and their training is expensive. Actually many people who work from home are more productive, value their jobs and are loyal to their employers. I say that as someone who worked mainly from home for the last 20 years of my working life. Actually computer equipment is pretty cheap these days.

Casdon

I don’t know where you got that fromNonGrannyMoll but it’s wildly inaccurate. Example, at ward level all staff are responsible for reporting a fault. It’s an online system, all staff are trained, it retains a record of what has been requested so if somebody else sees the same issue they can see at a glance if it’s been reported or not. I doubt if the system is much different to that anywhere in the UK.

And thanks to Kate 1949 for detailing your experience which I know is challenging and frequent. My 78 year old stage four cancer patient collapsed on Sunday evening. The ambulance arrived an hour later during which he’d drifted in out consciousness. Paramedics called the cardio specialists who arrived forty mins later. He was blue lighted to the cardio unit and admitted straight into a bed. He died seven hours later
Of course the waits were hard for his wife but after over a year of treatment/hospitals she was prepared. She couldn’t praise the many members of staff involved highly enough

My friend, a widow on her own, had to phone the GP on Monday, she was extremely dizzy, unable to walk straight and had severe pain down her left arm. Was advised to phone 999. The response was it would be at least a five hour wait for an ambulance. A Paramedic and ambulance arrived seven hours later, decided she didn't need hospital care, but to contact GP in the morning. Saw GP on Tuesday, diagnosed inner ear infection. Here in Wales we have been told that strokes are not considered serious enough for immediate hospitalization , and if you consider you are having a heart attack you should get yourself to hospital by what every means a you can. .

I think it's a shame to parody those working so hard and the many who do get things right like that NonGrannyMoll. Thankfully other GN threads on the NHS have said "thank you". Criticism where its constructive but balance.

I don’t know where you got that fromNonGrannyMoll but it’s wildly inaccurate. Example, at ward level all staff are responsible for reporting a fault. It’s an online system, all staff are trained, it retains a record of what has been requested so if somebody else sees the same issue they can see at a glance if it’s been reported or not. I doubt if the system is much different to that anywhere in the UK.

In anticipation of any PC bellyaching, before I wrote this I asked the maintenance man what his preferred pronouns were. So you can increase the number to 22.

Q. How many NHS employees does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 21:
1 member of ward staff to ask a higher-ranking member of ward staff what should be done
1 higher-ranking member of ward staff to phone whichever manager happens to be in his/her office at that moment
1 member of ward staff to phone Maintenance to report the issue
1 member of Maintenance office staff to write a requisition for a new bulb
1 member of Maintenance office staff find a copy of the light-bulb insertion procedure (or design & print one if it's missing)
1 member of Maintenance office staff to allocate a maintenance worker to the job
3 maintenance workers to rope off the entire area around the light to a 10-foot radius
4 members of ward staff to discuss whether a 20-foot diameter will contravene the current health & safety rules
1 member of ward staff to phone the maintenance man & tell him he can now come to do the job
2 maintenance men to carry out the job (1 to do it, the other to hold the ladder and chat up any passing nurses)
4 ward staff to discuss what to do with the old bulb
1 member of ward staff to chuck the old bulb in the bin and hope nobody queries whether it could have been recycled

I realised that HVDY Yes he is fine now thank you.