To wish I could stop paying into the utterly broken NHS black hole

But I am a human being, evidently

Compared to other EU countries we pay less into our healthcare system, so obviously there will be limits to the service.

I think anyone who wants to move to a system where poor people are just left to die is crazy, but I guess you can campaign for it if that's your preference.

But the nature of tax is that we all pay for services whether we need them or not e.g. police, social work, coast guards.

I don't recognise the narrative that NHS workers aren't caring or deliberately do a bad job. But there are of course limits to what is offered, because it's a hugely underfunded area.

Anecdotes. I also said 'not necessarily the staff', not 'never the staff'. Maternity care is shocking, it's one of the main reasons I'm childfree.

But so what!?
Not sure what your point us. She's still paying more than most so is absolutely entitled to a certain level of service. Or indeed to have a moan about it! And judging by her (lack of) treatment, her complaints are justified.

You disagree. That's fine. But do stop splitting hairs about how much she pays.

She pays. The End.

About 6 years ago, saw the consultant for my vision condition. Was seen very late. 4pm for a 1:30pm. Was told by consultant that I need my eyes scanned at the other eye department the Leicester Royal Infirmary has. They are in different buildings but joined. The ENT department is between the two departments.

The room with the various eye scanners closes at 4pm on that particular day of the week!

My DF and myself were pretty annoyed by this. We complained.

Since that appointment- there is a form on top of my records to go to get eyes scanned as soon as i check in.

Plus now both eye departments have a room full of various eye scanners. Must have cost NHS a pretty penny for those scanners

FYI The pie chart that breaks down how your tax is spent is printed on the back of your annual P60 form. Welfare makes up the biggest portion.

However, I think you've tagged the wrong person - I've already said upthread that I know that NHS contributions are part of a 25% share that tax payers pay every month.

So what if it's actually only 18% of that figure? That's so beside the point! The point is it's still 18% for a substandard service!

Sorry but it's often the staff as well.
On the post natal ward after I'd given birth to my twins. Only us and one other lady in the ward so not exactly over-run.
Id had an epidural so could not yet use my legs. Both my babies cots were put out of reach. When they cried I had to ring the bell because I couldn't reach them. Nobody came. There were 2 nurses having a proper shouting argument with each other - like literally shouting to the point it was scary - whilst blatantly ignoring me and the fact I needed help. Eventually a lovely HCA came in and passed them to me so I could feed them.
I actually got told off for keeping ringing the bell by the night staff but what could I do if I couldn't reach their cots?

Support staff (HCSWs?) aren't medically trained. I know it seems glaringly obvious but just because in this one case it might have been, it doesn't mean you can implement a system where band 2/3 HCSWs are responsible for the initial clinical screen, which is essentially what you're proposing there.

I actually agree with your final point, well not exactly 'agree' as some admin staff are great and some are rubbish, regardless of grade. But this does seem to be the latest tact for the NHS - 'working at the highest level of practice' they're calling it, which essentially means employing the lowest grade/lowest trained member of staff possible to do the bare minimum job. IMO they'd be better investing in the best staff possible. For example, I'm a HCP but not a doctor or nurse. In my trust they're wanting my profession to independently manage patient admissions. I am not trained in diagnosis and they have no plans to train me further. It is crazy. And it's why I will repeat, the system is broken.

This. Absolutely this in spades. The arrogance of the NHS is breathtaking at times.

Fair point! 👏👏

There were lots of "support" staff hanging around chatting, in and around reception, and also huddled in the corridor between escorting staff through. I'm not saying the consultant himself should be chasing ahead of the appointment, but surely it's a task that could be delegated to support staff to check the file actually has something in it and flag it up if not! In OH's case, it was literally a single A4 letter with a couple of paragraphs of writing on it. Even the most junior of staff would clearly see that's not enough for a consultation with a specialist cancer expert! Isn't it glaringly obvious??

Same with the admin/reception cock up of making an appointment on a Wednesday for someone who's never there on a Wednesday!

It's not rocket science.

Perhaps when it comes to admin and support staff, they'd be better employing fewer but better staff, rather than the way they seem to flood the place with unskilled people who can't really do much, i.e. the army of HCAs and admin clerks. Perhaps they need to have fewer of those and more "PA" type of people with more experience, more skills, etc., to do things properly first time and reduce the need for repeat consultations being necessary and wasted consultations!

Of course it matters. There's a reason why the NHS has slipped from the no.1 ranked healthcare system on the planet in 2014 and 2017 to 4th (9th on outcomes) it's because of austerity cuts.

@taxguru And given that the consultant had been in appointments all day, when was he supposed to prepare for your OH's appointment and check he had all the results? Because a day or two before, chances are the team were seeing patients all day too. Look, I'm not defending this, but I take you back to my first post on this thread. It's not necessarily the staff, it's the system. They want more and more from the staff with less and less resource.

@piccolorhinoceros of course I'm taking it as a compliment!! Who wouldn't?! And yes I know medical letters use this. But I still like it.

Consultant who operated referred to me as slim. Bloody hell, best compliment I've had in years from anyone 😃

Not a "good result" at all. The consultant was an arrogant sod, didn't have OH's file nor test results (just a one page intro letter from his local consultant), and the other person he was meant to see at the same consultation, the stem cell transplant co-ordinator was on her day off, so it was a complete waste of a day! Heaven knows why they gave him an appointment to see both the consultant and transplant co-ordinator on a day when the co-ordinator was always off on Wednesdays! Also, not much point in a consultation with a specialist when no bugger had bothered to send him the test results and patient file, nor had his team bothered to check they had the file/results a day or two before the consultation!

No wonder there's so much wasted time and inefficiency. If they can't even check they have the file/results until the appointment itself! It's a pretty simple basic low level admin job to actually check the appointment list a day or two beforehand and chase up the information that's obviously going to be needed.

As for the "pleasant lady" type of letter. It's antiquated and needs scrapping. Just more time and effort wasting. Referrals just need to be simple "tick boxes" that are pinged from one person/dept to another with quick notes to explain the referral. All this dictating letters, then typing, then checking, then posting/faxing, then scanning upon receipt, etc is just sheer inefficiency. No need for it at all. Far quicker for the doctor/consultant to just tick a few boxes on the screen, write a sentence or two of relevant data, and click send! Fair enough, there may be complex cases requiring more information to be sent, but this "writing letters for the sake of writing letters" is from the last century!

@Hatfullofwillow
The truth?
I made no mention of the contribution of UK taxpayers towards the NHS compared to the contribution of non-UK taxpayers to their respective (and radically different) healthcare systems, so your 'truth' is completely irrelevant to my post.

My 'truth' is that NHS spending has increased on average, year on year since 1955.
The impact of this increase on the NHS is affected in real terms by a number of factors like inflation, which also affects how much money every taxpayer has left in their pocket at the end of each month and therefore yes, we ARE paying more toward the NHS, regardless how much benefit the NHS feels after the colossal waste of spending is taken into account.
My 'truth' is that NHS services are demonstrably worse for patients with eye-watering waiting lists, minimal preventative interventions, staff frequently giving first hand accounts of their struggle and exasperation at the state of the service they are trying to provide and A&E departments with patients on floors and in corridors for hours and sometimes days at a time.
How much someone in another country pays towards their healthcare system is nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that our healthcare system is failing its often heroic staff, and failing many of its patients.
Hth.

@taxguru No that's not good, but could have been an error rather than arrogance. If it was a waiting room for a specialist oncologist all the patients will have been ECV. On the flip side, you got a consultation with a specialist and hopefully a good result? For no additional cost.

@Imalongtimepostingmum Lots of clinical letters use phrases like 'this pleasant gentleman' etc, it's not restricted to private fgs. It generally means 'wasn't aggressive' or 'not confused' depending on context, don't take it as a compliment.

@taxguru and by contrast, I saw a private consultant last week who apologised for calling me through two minutes late. I then had half an hour with him. And his letter decribed me as a 'lovely lady' (I love that bit!!)

And yet it's the same staff, though with a lot more registrars and junior doctors to do what the consultants do privately.

I am very hopeful that wes streeting will have a positive impact.

My OH needed to go to another city to see a specialist oncologist. His appointment time was 9.30. The waiting room was absolutely heaving with people. OH is obviously ECV due to cancer and chemotherapy so it wasn't a good environment for him! The hours passed and we weren't called. Turned out the entire clinic of patients had all been given the same 9.30 time!

It got to 11 and then 12 and OH kept going to the desk to ask when he'd be seen, only to be told they were "running late". At 1 the waiting room was virtually empty and we'd still not been seen. The reception was closed as the receptionist had gone for her lunch! Just a HCA in a corridor who we'd seen calling patients through, so we asked her what was going on. Told us the consultant had gone for his lunch and we'd be first on his afternoon list!

No one bothered to tell us! That shows the arrogance of the NHS. And NHS staff ask patients to treat them with respect! How about their staff treating patients with basic respect? It works both ways.

We don't have enough training places for doctors (due to funding) and are struggling with recruitment and retention of all HCPs due to poor working conditions and pay. Lots of experienced staff are retiring, and lots of newly-qualified and experienced staff are emigrating or leaving the professions. We're haemorrhaging skills and knowledge.

We don’t have enough doctors and nurses and we don’t have enough cash - which of these will change if we switched to private? Or would it be that we’d have fewer patients (who can afford treatment)

@Noras People in the NHS have to remember that some families are actually funding their pay believe it or not although many are not net contributors some are. I demand to be treated as a client and not a charity case thanks. I dislike the God like attitude of some consultants and GPs even GP receptionists.

If you speak to people the way you post, I can understand why people might be less than helpful. Sounds like you have a bit of a god complex yourself.

The truth? The truth is we are paying far less on healthcare than practically every other developed nation. 18% less than the EU average and about a third of the US.

"In every year between 2010 and 2019 the UK would have had to spend an additional £73bn more to match Germany’s spending per person (39% extra). When compared to France the UK would have to spend an additional £40bn extra every year (21% extra). Just four countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece) in the EU14 spent less per person than the UK over the same period.
The charity also looked at capital health spending on vital buildings, technology and equipment comparative to European neighbours. Comparing capital spending with the EU14 countries for which data are available it found that between 2010 and 2019, cumulative UK investment in capital health infrastructure would have needed an additional £33bn to match the total EU average invested over that period (around 55% higher than actual investment). "

www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/news/uk-spent-around-a-fifth-less-than-european-neighbours-on-health-care-in-last-decade

There’s no need to be condescending. Yes, of course I understand the difference, I don’t really see how your post relates to what I posted. I also don’t know why you don’t want people to mention the shit show which is the American health system

On another note, it is a political choice not to impose wealth taxes, there is more money, normal people like us have got seriously no idea how much money is sloshing around in the Uk. I know because I’m a service provider and have to interact with this world sometimes, it’s staggering

taxjustice.uk/blog/wealth-taxes-will-cause-the-rich-to-flee-12-wealth-tax-myths-debunked/

Getting cancer can mean losing your jouse (or life) if you are relying on private healthcare and insurance doesn’t cover it. And yes of course we want a system that works in the UK, which is why I said fight for it.