How would you fix the NHS?

Charge for appointments missed, which cost the NHS £150 for each appt.

We have more comms options than ever before. There is no excuse for not showing up for an appt, and not cancelling that appt.

I've been treated for breast cancer over the past three years. My remaining appts are for annual mammograms. At my last one, I arrived an hour early and settled down in a waiting room to work until my appt but was called straight in because the previous FIVE patients just hadn't turned up. Unforgiveable!

Social insurance system

Of course it's an ethical decision and needs to be discussed as such.

I'm sorry you had a traumatic time. This isn't about you though and how you felt. It's about the patient. It shouldn't be up to grieving relatives who decide they can't face any more misery.

Bring back geriatric hospitals. Most bed blockers are the elderly. We used to have large hospitals where people with long term illnesses or awaiting care could be looked after leaving hospital beds for surgical and acute patients.

Bring back same day clinics. I used to be able to go to my GP and just wait to be seen. It's better to give rapid treatment than make people wait while they get worse and therefore take up more facilities.

Have a specific area for rapid ambulances handover. No ambulances stuck outside the hospital.

Agree that we need to look at health systems around the world that are working very well (comparatively); Germany, France, Norway and strive towards that system. I think it would inevitably involve payment at the point of access. This is waived for those on lower incomes/benefits.

Also, a more accessible GP service and better systems and pathways for mental health.

I think this is part of the problem. Anyone questioning the ethics of trying to keep somebody alive as long as possible despite spending the last three years of their lives screaming in terror because of dementia and suffering with multiple painful health conditions is denounced. And they act like they're the ones on the moral high ground.

stop shit like this
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_health/4922271-hysteroscopy-injured-during-hysteroscopy-please-read?page=1

@Thommasina trained as what though, they act like doctors when they certainly are not.

I was using a child's illness as an example. The friend and her DP at the time had a 13 year old (who was well on the day) and has been used to being the last to leave in the morning since she started the academy. If you woke up on day of surgery and a DC was being sick, you don't attend surgery

They are qualified aren't they? I mean I'm not saying they are good or useful but don't you have to train to be one?

Quite.

Some of the ageism on here is shocking.

Fine families who refuse to pick up their family members from hospitals and cause discharge delays. I presume you have never been a carer for an elderly family member.

And to the poster who suggested older people should be treated separately from younger patients - how does that work? We're individuals with our own medical needs, not one amorphous mass. But also with needs from being an older person, which simply aren't catered for in hospitals.

There is no quality of life in patients like this. Have awful memories of various relatives just clinging on for months and months. I can't picture them before during their final illnesses.

I think we did used to be at the top of that list when the Labour Party last left office. I think we are still judged very highly for value for money by the WHO and the like.

Provided that meets their wishes. My father made it very clear he wanted to live as long as possible, so withdrawing antibiotics and vaccines would be against his wishes.

I can't find who quoted my post about PAs but if I got an appointment to see one I'd turn it down.

I've had really bad experiences with the same woman at my GPs surgery.

First time I went for Achilles tendinitis. I tried to explain that it red getting me down - I couldn't go to the gym, I couldn't walk, I was in agony and missed exercising. Explained that I had been losing weight and this had really stalled it. I was told I had to continue losing weight and if I couldn't go to the gym I should just stop eating!! I've never been more humiliated in my life.

Three months later I go to see her about a sinus infection and her first comment is that I need to lose weight to get rid of it!! I went to a private GP through my work and got prescribed some strong antibiotics.

They're not qualified, they think they're these amazing people but they're not. The fact they're working in doctors surgeries is a joke.

Exactly this! Don’t reinvent the wheel and waste time and money. Go and see what works and emulate their system!

Cigarettes and alcohol already carry high rates of tax, and at one stage (when more people smoked) the duty raised on tobacco covered the entire cost of the NHS. I agree that sugar and other sweeteners should be more highly taxed.

However, the wonderful advances in medical practice, pharmaceutical advances and everything else that has happened since 1948 -- extending life at both ends of the spectrum, including additional years for the elderly and giving very premature/ill babies a real shot at survival is proving a mixed, and costly, blessing.

Stop the cruelty of extending the lives of the extremely elderly, with multiple painful and distressing health conditions for as long as possible.
I've seen the torture for poor elderly people too many times and am going to put a 'no vaccine and no antibiotics' rule in place for myself when I get to that state. Let 'the old man's friend' relieve the suffering.

Brilliant post. Nothing is going to be a quick fix. But far too much is going on treating preventable conditions, and care for the Elderly needs separate resources/funding.
The initial set up of the NHS, just after coming out of the Second World War was an incredible feat, and the vast majority of people alive in this country today, in particular those who were born here, probably owe their lives and health to this. Sadly, what didn’t happen with successive governments was the planning and funding required as more people lived into a greater old age, and the more sedentary lifestyles and poor lifestyle choices that have overtaken a lot of the previous manual type jobs down the decades. I would love to see fags, booze and high sugar goods charged at a higher rate, then the taxes used to commit to the NHS, and boost any existing funding. Everyone would benefit.

Writing to your MP might be helpful

A nurse practitioner saved a relative. Relative couldn't get a gp appointment so googled and found a walk in centre not far away. She diagnosed his stroke as he walked in and got him into hospital in record time. Nurse practitioners are much better value than PAs.
I have used a walk in centre a few times in the past. I think we should have more of them.

Both nurses and hcas were pretty horrible. There were two nice ones. One left him laying in his own shit all night until I came into visit in the morning and found him sobbing with humiliation.

Nurses have stopped nursing, that's now the HCAs job. Nurses seem like another tier of doctors now.

Also - make wards nicer places. Make the disgusting food better and more nutritious. Make nurses kinder and caring. Some aren't nice at all. My FIL was terrified of going into hospital and tbh after seeing how he was treated and the conditions he was left in he was right to be. I wouldn't have treated a dog the way that the nurses treated him.