Hospital

[Igottastartthinkingbee]

Anyone watching? A stunning insight into the running of a busy London hospital. Cannot believe the amount of time highly skilled doctors are forced to waste waiting for beds to become available. And the poor man with oesophageal cancer who's operation was cancelled for the second time. Wow. NHS is at breaking point!

[MEgirl]

Very disheartening. The staff want to help their patients but are hobbled.

[PossumInAPearTree]

Very very true to life. This is a regular day in the hospital I work at. Operations cancelled and staff sat round twiddling their thumbs (theatre staff) as they don't have work to do.

[beanfilledfish]

It's just so upsetting why can we not have more hospitals more trauma hospitals ? I'm feeling so upset watching this as everyone seems soresigned

[PossumInAPearTree]

We're getting less hospitals, not more.

The trust I work for currently has three hospitals. They've just shut the a&e at one and are consulting for shutting a second. Lack of doctors and a need to save money. People living near the other two hospitals have to travel over an hour now to their nearest a&e. And of course with more people coming to the only a&e will mean more pressure on beds at that hospital.

[Northernlurker]

This is my working life. I am a manager not a clinician. I'm watching wondering if I and my colleagues look as tired as the st Mary's staff.

[MOIST]

As a front-line NHS worker it's reality but also sobering as we tend to 'blame management' without seeing that they are humans who have to deal with that and make those decisions. It is falling apart and we are all shouting for help but nobody is listening.

[blackberrytree]

This is so true Moist, I think it's hard to see the bigger picture and it's easy to become quite insular as frontline staff, especially when people are hassling you for discharges, this shows that everyone is just trying to help the wider situation.

[MOIST]

I am bloody proud of my colleagues. All of them. And I am going to tell them so.

(Also a bit tired and emotional post-night-shift)

[Igottastartthinkingbee]

I'm proud of you and your colleagues too moist!

[OddBoots]

How dare the government claim they have funded the NHS appropriately when this is happening and with figures like these twitter.com/DrJackyDavis/status/817797120371675136. How stupid do they think we are?

[growcookeat]

I'm absolutely amazed at the complexity of the systems. So little wriggle room seems to be available. Only takes one more A&E patient and a man can't have his cancer operation. It seems like it won't be long until there is only capacity to deal with the most serious accidents and emergencies.

I applaud all of you who go in every day to face the same frustrations and challenges but manage to keep positive for your patients!

[RTKangaMummy]

We watched it here

The staff are blinking AMAZING

my best friend is a nurse and she had an operation yest that she was told the day before was cancelled cos of no beds then she was told yesterday morning that it was going ahead which it did yesterday evening

She was going to go home tonight then was told they were going to keep her in until morning so that the bed wouldn't be given away and so mean somebody else would have their operation cancelled

So she is a "bed blocker" tonight so that somebody else can have their operation tomorrow and have her bed tomorrow after the operation

This is in a regular ward not HDU or ITU, also not in London

[tobee]

God it was an amazing programme. I watched Ambulance last year which was also great. Tonight's programme made me feel profoundly sad though and I just can't see it getting any better. Under funding is killing off the NHS. I love the NHS and all their stuff and for large amounts of the time they are treated like shit. The way the government spoke about doctors during the recent strikes was a total disgrace.

[tobee]

Sorry staff not stuff.

[beanfilledfish]

there must be something we as public can do, surely we can have a say how our tax and NI is distributed! I was rather pay more NI if it meant more hospitals etc, I just don't understand why they don't build trauma hospitals with ICUs etc and hospitals for pre-booked operations.

And who is in charge of all this Health Minister?

[Toddlerteaplease]

I'm
A paediatric nurse and actually felt physically sick when they talked about nursing adults on paediatric wards. I and most children's nurses are only trained in paediatrics and cannot nurse. adults. I wouldn't have a clue where to start. Let alone the problems that having elderly people would cause on a childrens ward. That's aside from possible safeguarding issues as well. My trust spend millions on fancy whiteboards and a computer system about five years ago. Which is now being got rid of. As one of the people said. It's firefighting. No proper long term planning.

[Toddlerteaplease]

Bean, i had exactly the same thought about trauma hospitals. My trust has two hospitals and could do this. But it would mean specialists over two sites and when the trust was formed 10 years ago. The plan was to have specialist services on one site. So not sure how practical it would be.

[Wingedharpy]

Toddlerteaplease, I too was shocked at the suggestion of nursing adults on Paediatric wards for the reasons you say. This is going backwards to the days when there were no paediatric wards and terrified small children were nursed on wards alongside demented older people.
The plan to "put beds in any space available" also made me throw up my hands in horror because, as a retired adult nurse, I know that there would be no additional staff shipped in to help look after the extra patients a ward has suddenly acquired - in fact, in all the discussions around where to put people, at no point was it discussed (on camera), how ward staff would manage the extra workload without it impacting on quality of care or how paediatric nurses would manage adult patients given their understandable lack of expertise in their care.
One only has to look at the events at Stafford hospital a few years ago to see what happens when you have too few staff looking after too many patients.
As ever, the problems get passed down the ranks.
Politicians decide on policies, Chief Execs are paid big bucks to implement the policies, Managers are the Chief Execs generals delivering the message to the foot soldiers on the wards and departments and the foot soldiers bear the greatest weight of all because they see on a daily basis the results of it all.
Thank God I am retired. All NHS staff have my utmost sympathy. It must be unbearable.

[Toddlerteaplease]

Winged. Yes I thought the same about putting beds in any spare space. Aren't they forgetting little things like piped oxygen and suction? Slightly important! Surely in London they can share things out with other hospitals a bit more.

[Toddlerteaplease]

I think people who are not peads trained have no idea how different it is to adult nursing. And that is scary. The skills are not transferable. Only two of my colleagues are dual trained.

[Wingedharpy]

The problem though,Toddler, is that ALL hospitals are in the same boat so there is no capacity "to share things out".
I nursed an elderly lady in her 80s years ago who had never been into hospital since she was a child.
All her life she had avoided Doctors visits as a result of that experience.
She described in amazing detail how it felt to be small and vulnerable(she was the only child on the ward) surrounded by "whiskery old ladies crying out in the night".
When she was told she had to come in for surgery, she was petrified.
Thankfully, her experience and recovery was very good and she was discharged with renewed faith in the service.
She may not have been as fortunate these days!
I am not making any comparison here to "the good old days" - they weren't always good and patients (and relatives) are very different these days.
There are no walking wounded on wards today to help give out cups of tea.
I'm not that long retired that I don't know how it is now and I truly feel for those who work in it and not least of all, those who have to use it.

[Toddlerteaplease]

I was a patient in my own hospital this time last year and had to ring everyday for a week for a bed. It was very stressful. I could not believe the workload that the adult nurses had. 10 patients of which only two of us were self caring. It was not a nice feeling to know that my care came second to the other patients. My infusion wouldn't be done till very late. This year they are sending me to day care. Which is what I pushed for to free up a bed.

[PossumInAPearTree]

As a midwife I've seen adult gynaecological patients be put on the maternity ward so they can put surgical patients on gynae ward.

But I'm not a nurse. Vmany shifts there's no nurses on my ward as all direct entry. We're not allowed to work as a nurse on a nursing ward but suddenly it's OK to care for a 70yo gynae pt.

[notaflyingmonkey]

Dr Hanna who was featured in the programme was my mums doctor when she had cancer. He was as lovely to us in real life as he was on the programme, despite all of the pressures that people in his position must be under.

I am proud of our NHS, and have huge respect for those that work in it.

[Sidge]

I've recorded this to watch later. I'm a nurse (but not in a hospital) and DP is an NHS manager. He's on the verge of a nervous breakdown (seriously) after doing the job for less than a year. Every day he works about 12 hours and brings work home for the weekends too. He says he's expected to provide a Rolls Royce service on a Ford Fiesta budget.

He's on call duty manager today and not home yet. When he left yesterday the hospital was -85 beds.

He won't want to watch it with me I expect.