What is happening/happened to our NHS ?

badlywornroy

badlywornroy

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Two instances of rank poor NHS service close to home.

1. My wife had covid in July, she has been troubled by a cough ever since. She mentioned it to our local GP who said she would send my wife for an X-ray. She explained this was precautionary
but wanted to rule out anything else. We would like the peace of mind the x-ray will hopefully bring. X-ray completed and the hospital told my wife resuts would be with our GP in a week.
After a week and nothing heard she phoned the surgery who said the results would take 4-6 weeks " they always do " We are into our 3 week now and no results yet.

2. For background. My daughter in law, a type1 diabetic (inherited) struggles with her health due to this condition. Recently discharged from a few days in hospital due to problems
caused by her condition. Yesterday she tries to make a Dr's appointment. After numerous attempts to phone through, then getting to 10th in the queue she was 'cut-off'
In despair she walked to the surgery to make a GP appointment. She was told she couldn't make an appointment in person, she had to telephone !

What is going on ? since when did owning a telephone become a prerequisite of accessing NHS GP services ?

In 2012 David Cameron told the country our National Health Service was safe in the Conservatives' hands.

Frankly I despair.
 
Saddened to hear that but it does seem that healthcare services are quite variable across the country :(

As for how quickly the likes of X-ray results can come through I think that can be influenced at to where the X-ray was done e.g. a DGH or smaller hospital. You are likely aware that all X-rays will the analysed by the senior radiographer and quite possibly by the doctor too and that can take time.

However, because of the need for more prompt clarity, were I in your shoes I would phone the hospital radiology department and ask them when the GP will get the results.....stating you were told that it only be about a week.....as cynic that I am ~ are the results genuinely held up in the hospital or at the GP but they have yet to have time to 'digest' the incoming reports???
 
It's not just across the country where the services are variable it happens within GP surgeries as well!
My wife did an e-consult to our GP asking about a shingles vaccination, after 2 weeks she phoned and the receptionist was surprised that no-one had been in contact. The receptionist said that she would chase them up. After another 2 weeks the wife went to the GP surgery where the receptionist again expressed surprise and booked the wife in for that morning.
 
Getting a face-to-face consultation with any doctor in our GP's practice is like getting blood from a stone. I don't generally both my doctor from one year to the next but this year I have started to suffer with arthritis and we have been struggling to find a pain relief regime that works for me. I've had several phone consultations but two months ago I felt the need to speak to the doctor personally - it took three weeks to get an appointment. Phone after 8:30 to get an appointment ... and join the queue to get through to reception - with no indication of where you are in the queue. Getting cut off is not a rare occurrence.

On the other hand, SWMBO and I have spent a large portion of today at the Royal Hospital for Children in Bristol, where our youngest grandson (13 months old with Down's Syndrome) has been for the past six days being treated for pneumonia. Yesterday he was so poorly we thought we might lose him so today we were determined to get to see him just in case the worst did happen. Throughout our visit I was amazed at, and thankful for, the compassion, dedication and attention to detail shown by the nursing staff and doctors.

The two experiences are like chalk and cheese. The NHS has never been perfect but it is certainly stretched close to the limit these days. The difficulty for people to get a GP appointment means that A&E sees more people with non-urgent issues resulting in ambulances being unable to hand patients over. The lack of joined-up support in the community results in bed blocking yet there are in excess of 100 empty spaces in care and nursing homes in the Bristol area.
 
It’s broken in many many areas. Inaccessible and people have died needlessly. Primary care in particular is difficult to access with a lack of GPs and more and more homes being built without the necessary infrastructure being out in place. I don’t blame the staff as there are not enough of them but the whole situation is a shambles…and don’t get me started on the NHS employing god knows how many Diversity Managers of £70k+
 
I don't think your experiences are unique.

If the tests are normal our GP never gives us any feedback which is distressing because we can spend weeks waiting and worrying and when we think we've waited too long and chase the GP for an update it's an case of... nothing to report.

Oh, and my mother was treated appallingly after suffering a bout of delirium. It was like a scene from the movie "I care a lot" as they just didn't seem to want to discharge her to home and without informing any of the family or social services they discharged her to an old folks home who quite rightly refused to accept her and she only got home after the intervention of a social worker. The nurses lied about her being double incontinent, I collected and did her washing and there was zero evidence of this, and when she got home her jewellery and a case were missing. The jewellery was thankfully recovered but the case was never seen again despite my name address and phone number being all over it. Efforts by me to complain were completely stone walled to the point I gave up and one of my sisters tried and was treated the same. I'll doubt I'll clap for the NHS again.
 
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To be honest the question you are asking is odd as where have you been for the last 5 years and have you been reading and watching the news?
i'm sorry about your experiences but the NHS in this country has been on its knees for a good few years.
COVID kicked it in the nuts and the government refuses to give it more money.
we would rather spend pointless billions on an aircraft carrier that can't even make it out of harbour

also the previous government tried to help with the NI levy and that was repealed by the new government a bad mistake

The 1.25% Health and Social Care Levy will not come into force as a separate tax from 6 April 2023 as previously planned.
 
Who was it who said “The NHS is about as safe with [BoJo, Gove et al] as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python”. Actually, I think it was that great socialist, John Major.
 
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To update this my daughter in law continued her attempt to phone her Dr's for an appointment. She finally got through to be told all appointments for the next day were filled. Her choices were an appointment in 3 weeks or phone in for an earlier one.
It is like some sick sadistic merry-go-round.
 
If there was anything grim on the chest x-ray you would very likely have heard already.
The radiographer i'm told flag anything suspicious to a doctor for further examination.
 
It does seem to depend on where you live. My mum lived in London until recently, although she’s now in a home. She’d been waiting over six weeks for a District Nurse to call to dress her leg ulcer. We’d tried phoning them umpteen times to see what was happening but their phone service inbox was constantly full, so we couldn’t even leave a message, let alone speak to anyone. We complained to her GP, whose response was “sorry, we’ve only got the same phone number as you”.

Then one day I got a call from the medical alarm people saying mum had pressed her wrist alarm button as she didn’t feel good. An agent from the alarm company attended while we were driving up to her house. He’d found her dehydrated and delirious and had tried to call an ambulance. The ambulance service said they were “too busy” and wouldn’t attend but said they’d organise a call from a doctor to assess her. We were at her house for over 5 hours and nobody rang. Finally we made the decision to take her home with us, for her own safety. We rang our GP the next day and got her temporarily signed up with our surgery. The following day a district nurse turned up at our house and dressed the ulcer.

We live in Kent, about 70 miles from my mum’s house and it seems the NHS is a complete postcode lottery. I have family members who work for the NHS and my wife is an ex nurse specialist: they all despair of the state of what was once a great organisation.
 
The main problem is the NHS has to deal with people who in the past would already have died of old age.
No old peoples homes so wards are blocked with people who have nowhere else to go.
When I collect my bad bonce meds some people have carrier bags full of drugs, does anyone ever check if they are all needed?
Then you have kids who are just little buggers that now have to be to treated for all manner of spurious conditions.
Even worse the sick lame and lazy who are so unfit they are in wheelchairs or whole families who seem to be on crutches.
The money can only stretch so far and no matter what government we have the NHS can't cope with the increasing demand.
 
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Whats wrong with the NHS .... IMHO:

Too many people
People living longer
Too many people not contributing to NI scheme
Aftermath of Covid
Poor & expensive corporate governance

Form experience, 4 years ago my local small town had: 2 Doctors surgeries with 5 GP's plus a small cottage hospital. Now: I surgery 1 to 2 GP's part time and the cottage hospital runs on a much reduced service. For quite a while no GP wanted to run the practice as they could make more money as a locum rather than take the responsibility of running the practice.

I fear the deliverables the NHS is required to do is too far gone to patch it up ... a total rethink in how GB delivers health care may be required

BTW I wrote this before I saw T Taxi's post above
 
tijuana taxi said:
If there was anything grim on the chest x-ray you would very likely have heard already.
The radiographer i'm told flag anything suspicious to a doctor for further examination.
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Thank you for that, it is a comfort and we will bear that in mind.
 
Just a few weeks ago I had an incident that resulted in a 999 call at around 11:00pm, the paramedics turned up within 10 minutes, I was then blue-lighted into A&E and put straight into a bed, and subsequently moved to a ward before the night was done. There followed several days of superb care, before having a pacemaker fitted. Everyone was absolutely brilliant and I can't speak highly enough of all the workers in the NHS. I was lucky that I needed to be "wired up" otherwise I think I'd have been in a corridor. I suspect that few people these days enjoy such a good response as I was lucky enough to get - but obviously luck shouldn't be a factor.

All of which is why I haven't done much photography these last few weeks!

Trying to get into see my GP, on the other hand, isn't so easy. I think the pressure of massive housing developments locally (along with all the reasons mentioned in the few posts above) is really stretching General Practice in the area. But again, for Covid and Flu jabs, blood tests, and so on, the organisation is good and the staff are excellent. It must be so frustrating for all these excellent, highly trained, caring people to be working in such a broken organisation.

Derek
 
delb0y said:
Just a few weeks ago I had an incident that resulted in a 999 call at around 11:00pm, the paramedics turned up within 10 minutes, I was then blue-lighted into A&E and put straight into a bed, and subsequently moved to a ward before the night was done. There followed several days of superb care, before having a pacemaker fitted. Everyone was absolutely brilliant and I can't speak highly enough of all the workers in the NHS. I was lucky that I needed to be "wired up" otherwise I think I'd have been in a corridor. I suspect that few people these days enjoy such a good response as I was lucky enough to get - but obviously luck shouldn't be a factor.

All of which is why I haven't done much photography these last few weeks!

Trying to get into see my GP, on the other hand, isn't so easy. I think the pressure of massive housing developments locally (along with all the reasons mentioned in the few posts above) is really stretching General Practice in the area. But again, for Covid and Flu jabs, blood tests, and so on, the organisation is good and the staff are excellent. It must be so frustrating for all these excellent, highly trained, caring people to be working in such a broken organisation.

Derek
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Good to hear the NHS can work in some circumstances.
 
Mr Bump said:
COVID kicked it in the nuts and the government refuses to give it more money.
Click to expand...

I can't remember the figures but the NHS has had more money and is now what % of GDP and ever rising? How much of an increase each year does it want/need and how much can be afforded? Are there no limits to the amount of money the NHS must have? These are rhetorical questions and I'm not getting into a debate.

I hear a lot about overwork and stress and conditions but I have to say that the norm seems to be to see an unrushed and what looks to be an unpressured environment, more like a civil service office operation than a high pressure high stress environment. There is of course a never ending list of people to see but staff seem to walk calmly from one location to another in a seemingly unrushed unstressed manor and there are always people stood around or sat talking. Not that I want to see doctors and nurses running, rushing and making mistakes but it just doesn't look like a high pressure running at 100% operation with staff showing any degree of hustle. Thinking back to jobs I've had which were busy and stressful there was a lot of hustle to hit response times and performance stats and get recourses in but I've just not seen any evidence of any hustle in the GP's or any hospital. It all seems rather... leisurely.

I had a sister who was a nurse most of her life and to be honest she seemed to spend a lot of time off work. I can see a reason for that as you don't want people passing on infections and again thinking back to my days of over work and pressure and stress I very often dragged myself into work when I really should have been off for my own health. Being able to take time off for seemingly trivial little things must surely help to ease stress levels and improve overall health.

On the general questions about how it all works and how much it all costs I think a review is reqd. I don't want privatisation and I do want a free at the point of delivery health service but I don't think the NHS needs to be worshiped and it shouldn't be untouchable or above questioning,
 
tijuana taxi said:
The main problem is the NHS has to deal with people who in the past would already have died of old age.
No old peoples homes so wards are blocked with people who have nowhere else to go.
When I collect my bad bonce meds some people have carrier bags full of drugs, does anyone ever check if they are all needed?
Then you have kids who are just little buggers that now have to be to treated for all manner of spurious conditions.
Even worse the sick lame and lazy who are so unfit they are in wheelchairs or whole families who seem to be on crutches.
The money can only stretch so far and no matter what government we have the NHS can't cope with the increasing demand.
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Agree with much of this. Friends Mum died last year. He took two bags full of drugs back to the pharmacy. One bag contained nothing but Paracetamol - why are doctors prescribing paracetamol long term when you can get it at the supermarket for pence. My parents get vitamin D on prescription… why when they can get it anywhere for pence. My parents have two plastic boxes full of pills, some are of course necessary but there is never a review to see if they could stop some, they just submit repeat prescription.
 
Craig1912 said:
Agree with much of this. Friends Mum died last year. He took two bags full of drugs back to the pharmacy. One bag contained nothing but Paracetamol - why are doctors prescribing paracetamol long term when you can get it at the supermarket for pence. My parents get vitamin D on prescription… why when they can get it anywhere for pence. My parents have two plastic boxes full of pills, some are of course necessary but there is never a review to see if they could stop some, they just submit repeat prescription.
Click to expand...

Our GP does reviews but the problem is that they do them behind closed doors and don't consult or even inform of any changes. Any changes seem to be for their benefit not the patients. They changed my mothers medication and she ended up in A&E and a few months back I went to collect her prescription to find that procedures had changed and not only couldn't they tell me what would happen if we ended up with too much medication (we did end up with boxes of unused pills) they couldn't tell me what the procedure would be in the more serious situation of running out. Much of the NHS is IMO a shambles ran by people with little if any accountability.
 
The "machines" are eating a lot of the money. Technology for medical use is ridiculously expensive. "They" (whoever they are) seem to prefer to spend on machines, rather than staff or bricks and mortar. Health care becomes more expensive and more people are using it for longer. Far too much waste and distant management with distant decision making. Massive investment is needed to keep up the service that we have come to expect. Start making people who can, pay for some of the service and charge for "self inflicted" injuries due to "dangerous" sports or activities, including injuries occuring whilst under the influence of whatever. I however, would not want to be the person making those decisions!!!
 
My tuppence worth: the NHS is not and never has been a "National Health Service".

The problems were inherent from the beginning: allowing doctors to opt out with GPs and consultants effectively private contractors, failing to implement a national pharmaceutical service to run alongside it and produce products at controlled prices; a political party totally opposed to free healthcare, which misses no opportunity to damage it further, when in office.

The alternative approach would probably have worked better: no NHS but a true national insurance scheme with all services run for profit. One option might be similar to how I have been told the French system works: care providers invoice the patient who reviews the charges and passes it along to the insurance department for payment.

There are various ways things can be improved but it is necessary to want and support those improvements - not fight them for half arsed and ill considered political reasons.
 
Craig1912 said:
Agree with much of this. Friends Mum died last year. He took two bags full of drugs back to the pharmacy. One bag contained nothing but Paracetamol - why are doctors prescribing paracetamol long term when you can get it at the supermarket for pence. My parents get vitamin D on prescription… why when they can get it anywhere for pence. My parents have two plastic boxes full of pills, some are of course necessary but there is never a review to see if they could stop some, they just submit repeat prescription.
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My late ma was the same, not with the Paracetamol on scrip, but the sheer number of different tablets.
Some were to counteract the side effects of others which were quite possibly no longer required.
I took a huge amount of Gabapentin (Neurontin) back to Boots for disposal, they now have to be logged in separately.
 
Chevin said:
Whats wrong with the NHS .... IMHO:

Too many people
People living longer
Too many people not contributing to NI scheme
Aftermath of Covid
Poor & expensive corporate governance
Click to expand...
All wrong except the last one perhaps.

woof woof said:
I can't remember the figures but the NHS has had more money and is now what % of GDP and ever rising? How much of an increase each year does it want/need and how much can be afforded? Are there no limits to the amount of money the NHS must have? These are rhetorical questions and I'm not getting into a debate.

I hear a lot about overwork and stress and conditions but I have to say that the norm seems to be to see an unrushed and what looks to be an unpressured environment, more like a civil service office operation than a high pressure high stress environment. There is of course a never ending list of people to see but staff seem to walk calmly from one location to another in a seemingly unrushed unstressed manor and there are always people stood around or sat talking. Not that I want to see doctors and nurses running, rushing and making mistakes but it just doesn't look like a high pressure running at 100% operation with staff showing any degree of hustle. Thinking back to jobs I've had which were busy and stressful there was a lot of hustle to hit response times and performance stats and get recourses in but I've just not seen any evidence of any hustle in the GP's or any hospital. It all seems rather... leisurely.
Click to expand...
LOL, please tell me where this is so I can apply for a job there.

On my last set of 4 nights I:
- had a 45 minute break, not each shift, in TOTAL!
- was late off by over 30 mins in 3 out of 4 of those shifts. (only 10 mins late on the 4th)
- attended the birth of 11 babies, as these were nights they were ALL emergencies I HAVE to attend.
- made the decision to admit 4 babies to NICU.
- discharged one baby back to her mother (which made me feel good).
- had 2 deaths (which were both devastating).
- had 2 emergency admissions from other hospitals.
- suffered from dark p*** and mild constipation due to a lack of fluid intake and found I lost just over a kilo in weight.
- found myself crying as I went to bed after the 3rd night and wanting to phone in sick for the 4th one.
I didn't.
This is just me, many of my colleagues over those 4 nights had similar experiences.

What is wrong with the NHS is that NO government has tackled the fundamental lack of staff and skills necessary to deliver what it needs to. Nursing vacancies are at an all time high of 47,000 despite the tories telling us that there's more nurses than ever before coming into the nhs, what they don't tell you is there's more than ever before leaving too!
 
Donnie said:
What is wrong with the NHS is that NO government has tackled the fundamental lack of staff and skills necessary to deliver what it needs to. Nursing vacancies are at an all time high of 47,000 despite the tories telling us that there's more nurses than ever before coming into the nhs, what they don't tell you is there's more than ever before leaving too!
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spot on mate the governments of the last 30 years just want to spend money on wars, bombs and bullets not people.
also lets not forget Roy the R****** from Preston he politely asked many of the wonderful EU nurses to return home and not darken our doors again.
 
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Donnie said:
All wrong except the last one perhaps.


LOL, please tell me where this is so I can apply for a job there.

On my last set of 4 nights I:
- had a 45 minute break, not each shift, in TOTAL!
- was late off by over 30 mins in 3 out of 4 of those shifts. (only 10 mins late on the 4th)
- attended the birth of 11 babies, as these were nights they were ALL emergencies I HAVE to attend.
- made the decision to admit 4 babies to NICU.
- discharged one baby back to her mother (which made me feel good).
- had 2 deaths (which were both devastating).
- had 2 emergency admissions from other hospitals.
- suffered from dark p*** and mild constipation due to a lack of fluid intake and found I lost just over a kilo in weight.
- found myself crying as I went to bed after the 3rd night and wanting to phone in sick for the 4th one.
I didn't.
This is just me, many of my colleagues over those 4 nights had similar experiences.

What is wrong with the NHS is that NO government has tackled the fundamental lack of staff and skills necessary to deliver what it needs to. Nursing vacancies are at an all time high of 47,000 despite the tories telling us that there's more nurses than ever before coming into the nhs, what they don't tell you is there's more than ever before leaving too!
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Thanks for doing it. I couldn't.
 
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Thank ye for the kind words guys.
I know strikes are an emotive issue, I voted to strike in our trust but sadly not enough staff got off their backsides and voted and hence I'm legally not allowed to strike on the 2 days called.

What I am going to do though is donate my two days wages to charity, I'm just not sure where. one I think will be our local foodbank, I'm tempted to donate the other day to Macmillan to be honest. If my colleagues in other areas are willing to take action and lose a days pay each time, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is!
 
At our practice, even before COVID, one hospital would take 4-6 weeks for an X-ray report even though the hospital said one week.
 
This is not a new problem as I remember taking part in a very large demonstration in London 10-12 years ago in support of young NHS doctors whose numbers were drastically falling due to conditions and wages. A friend's wife unfortunately suffered a serious stroke during the first covid wave only to find on release from hospital that many of the support services had disappeared a couple of years previously and were now (not) performed by the area district nurses. Without of course any increase in numbers which meant no support.
 
omens said:
At our practice, even before COVID, one hospital would take 4-6 weeks for an X-ray report even though the hospital said one week.
Click to expand...
My local practice (NHS Scotland) - patient, with a history of skin cancer, recently noticed a suspicious new mole and was seen the same day by GP. Appointment with hospital specialist arranged for the next day. Biopsy taken .............. result will take 8 weeks !
 
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omens said:
At our practice, even before COVID, one hospital would take 4-6 weeks for an X-ray report even though the hospital said one week.
Click to expand...
I had a chest Xray to rule out lung cancer. The result took about 48 hour. This was on the "vague symptoms pathway", a fast track check for cancer.(bloods, xray, ct scan, ultrasound) so was fast tracked.
My wife had bone scan and was told 2 weeks but it only took one.

The radiographers were very good. Mine said she wasnt qualified to give a diagnosis, however, if she could see anything she said she wouldn't let me go home.

When somebody is checking x rays and scans you don't really like to think they are rushing through a backlog.
 
It's strange how so many slagg off the NHS based on stories in the rags. Just hope you don't have to visit a hospital in a large city otherwise reality might be more than just a kick up the tootsie.
 
Apparently we have 16,000+ beds blocked by people who no longer need hospital treatment but can't be discharged due to lack of social care.
 
Cockney said:
Apparently we have 16,000+ beds blocked by people who no longer need hospital treatment but can't be discharged due to lack of social care.
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Yes this is one of the main issues
if social care was sorted out /funded a lot of pressure would be taken off hospitals
 
There is obviously a huge lack of funding but we can't moan about 5 hour waits for an Ambulance and import photography gear from outside the UK to avoid paying the tax/duty on it.
 
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Cockney said:
Apparently we have 16,000+ beds blocked by people who no longer need hospital treatment but can't be discharged due to lack of social care.
Click to expand...

Bed blocking can be caused by various thngs - patients having nowhere to go being the biggest reason. My sister died five weeks ago and my dad was taken into hospital because she was his carer and he had nobody to look after him, Whilst in hospital he caught Covid and was only released to a care home at the beginning of this week. He has quite advanced dementia.
Back to the NHS problems, we could look at the £3 billion each year paid for agency workers, possibly the different levels of management, unco-ordinated and wasteful procurement methods. An ever increasing, ageing population, less people wanting to train to become nurses or go to medical school, mainly because the rewards are not there for the first few years.
The ex test and trace head Dido Harding in married to Coservative MP John Penrose belongs to the 1828 think tank who want to see the NHS defunded and replaced with an insurance system. Liz Truss is also on that board.

NHS Pay Calculator & UK Pay Rise Data - Nurses.co.uk

NHS Pay Calculator for Nurses & Healthcare Staff. How much will you be paid? Shows take-home pay after tax and pension.
www.nurses.co.uk www.nurses.co.uk

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk

The NHS workforce in numbers

Facts on staffing and staff shortages in England.
www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk

en.wikipedia.org

Dido Harding - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

en.wikipedia.org

John Penrose - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

www.thewestonmercury.co.uk

Weston’s MP joins board of group calling for NHS to be replaced by insurance system

Weston’s MP has joined a student think-tank group calling for the NHS to be replaced by an insurance system.
www.thewestonmercury.co.uk www.thewestonmercury.co.uk
 
Let me 'fuel' the discussion.
Data released under Freedom of Information rules.
The amount being spent by NHS in England to plug staffing gaps by hiring agency medics has reached £3bn a year, with one hospital trust paying more than £5,200 for a doctor for a single shift.
 
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