97 Yr old Gran waiting 8 hours for an ambulance with a broken hip!

So you artificially pushed up the list? That's not the answer.

I'm sorry OP. It is disgusting. Last year an elderly gentleman broke is hip just outside our Church. We waited 6 hours for help from the ambulance service. After 6 hours the operator rang back and told us to get him to hospital ourselves if possible. A local tradesman helped and we were able to put the gentleman on an old door and load him into the back on transit. The NHS is a third world service.

Laughs in Welsh.

No, Labour will do no better.

Did an ambulance come OP?
how’s your Gran doing?

soveryyhv Who pays for the NHS then?
I think a major problem is people have been encouraged to be selfish.

So many people, myself included, can’t get a doctors appointment. Yet last week I worked 7 days and will pay tax and NI on my earnings.
I do not agree with having to pay twice, as it’s always the working person who is screwed over. Never the very rich or the benefits class. Yet those groups get access to what the working person is paying for. Dh is waiting to be seen for a serious medical condition. I asked him if we should consider paying to go private but dh says we cannot afford it.
I won’t have the luxury of being able to retire at 60, I will still be paying tax into the system.
I know several young people who have medical degrees. None of whom work for the NHS. As a previous poster said, they have chosen to work abroad citing better pay and conditions.

Genuine question

Would it be better to have a private system funded through insurance for those who can afford it NHS for those who can't? Wouldn't that free up money/space for nhs?

I agree ,totally irrelevant in the triage system and so it should be.

Yes me too, why would saying someone developed chest pains automatically mean they had a heart attack ?

It’s how I read it too! Think there’s a bit of back pedalling now! Why else was it put in inverted commas?

That is exactly the sort of knee jerk response that gets us nowhere.

it is in fact expert opinion that the NHS has been starved of money. It spends far less per capita than comparable countries.

research also shows that degree nurses outperform non degree nurses, and nursing today is a far more complex and skilled job (I despair of people who think modern nurses just think they're "too good" for bedpans. No, they just have too much work to do and that's why HCAs are doing the basics that don't require long and expensive training.) The NHS' problem is not a nursing shortage. It's a shortage of nursing jobs or decent wages because there is no money to pay them. So British trained nurses go to Canada and Australia and the UK turns round and poaches them from elsewhere.

bed blocking is an issue, but there needs to be somewhere for people to go.

Yes, there's some shortage of beds (NHS utilisation is exceptionally high) but you cannot compare it to decades ago. There's more emphasis on keeping people out of hospital, on shorter hospital stays, and on doing procedures and operations as day cases. We simply don't need the same number of beds per capita as we used to.

Labour will NOT fix it by throwing money at the NHS!!!

We need to strip out whole tiers of useless expensive managers, arseholes who WFH pontificating on stats, overloading front line staff with their demands.

Diversity Advisors ....useless in the most diverse workforce in the nation.
TO SAVE MONEY!

A new IT system that effectively communicates across ALL the NHS.

Bring back the hands on, Matrons for each speciality, surgical units, medical units.
Contract out (as we are already doing) as much of the quick through-put, easy surgery as possible, cataracts, hernias, carpel tunnels.

Cararacts are now done in bespoke theatres set up on industrial estates....and a LOT more operations could be rapidly done just like this.

Reopen cottage hospitals for rehab and assessment to liase with local services for returning people back home and emptying hospital beds.

Open more wards.... the population has grown exponentially but hospital beds haven't kept up.

Increase access into nursing without requiring a degree. Enrolled nurses (2 year hand on training)were the wonderful mainstay of past years in the NHS.

Subsidised creches/ nursery places on hospital sites for staff members children.

And all foreign born nationals should be required to have private health insurance.
A credit card taken prior to any treatment.

Time we stopped being the NHS for the world and looked after our own.

It's tragic to see how badly the NHS is now run. I'm so sorry OP from an ex very disheartened employee.

Huge hugs for your gran op

Hopefully she'll be on her way soon

💐💐

''Bed Blocking'' really seems to be a problem.

My lovely neighbour had a fall at home, 92yrs pre covid era {In summer, I'd have heard her call, had she called, as my windows were open}

She also had an emergency call button around her neck.....

She had lain there for 48 hrs, in silence- she wouldn't allow ANYONE to have a key, so her cleaner who came on the Monday, called the alarm with her daughter who lived an hour away as she couldn't get in.

Neighbour taken to hospital, and died there within a couple of days.

Her daughter said ''Mum wanted to go... she never would have called {Too proud}

I know she'd fallen before, and had a dread of living with her daughter, as she wanted to be independent.
It's a big problem with the elderly.

Gosh this is so sad, your poor gran. Can't believe this is Britain in 2024.

I agree, everyone deserves treatment, obviously.
However OP did say her gran has paid into the system and yet others haven’t and get better treatment…..
I’m Just pointing out that’s irrelevant

OP wasn't expecting priority treatment.

She was merely pointing out that her Gran had always paid her taxes and was an upstanding citizen in contributing to this country.
Now she needs a bit of help back, it's not forthcoming.

The NHS is literally on its ass. I have been waiting since 2019 for gynae surgery.

I hope your nan gets seen soon x

@StandingSideBySide It has never been the case. Patients are supposed to be asked for consent, but it is a medical decision for the Drs to make.

It wasn’t with me. I was told they would not be doing it and that while they were talking to me, which they had insisted on doing before I could see her, that she could die any minute. They then said, “do you agree”, twice, as I didn’t answer the first time, too overwhelmed with what was going on. I thought was odd afterwards as they had already told me the decision was out of my hands and they would not be doing it, so I don’t know why I was forced to answer if I agreed. I wanted to get to see her before she died, so to be let to do that and they fact that they also said she would have brain damage and punctured lungs after the attempts, I had to agree.

That's really unfair. Hospitals are full of social care patients because the care system is broken. People are not allowed to be discharged until there is suitable care in place ((quite rightly) but what happens in reality is the hospital initially tries to push (or assume) relatives will do it when they don't have the capability do so. If relatives insist on an assessment and this finds they do need care, then this often takes weeks to put in place, often because they have to wait for a "slot" to become available before the care can start . If a capacity assessment is needed, again this can take weeks. If a patient does not need care (which the hospital/care team assesses) then the patient will just be discharged - ime this can literally involve a patient being taken home by patient transport with no warning, sometimes late at night. If a patient refuses a care package and they have capacity, they will again just be discharged. So it's not correct that patients who don't need care would just be kept on wards indefinitely. There are also interim facilities for patients who need nursing care but not hospital care where they can be discharged too before going home.

The system is clunky and inefficient and there isn't enough care available. That isn't the fault of patients or their relatives who are just trying to ensure that their relative isn't just discharged with no support when they can't take care of themselves.

I have had years going through this process repeatedly with my Nan (at various stages of heading care at various levels, refusing care, losing capacity et c etc so I know exactly how it works and how difficult it is.

I lied on the floor for more than 24 hours with a broken hip and shoulder, waiting for an ambulance a couple years back.
They'll be thinking that she's indoors and being able to be kept warm and fed so it's less of a priority than someone who's in the middle of the road, for example.
It's really terrible. But once she gets there she should be helped pretty swiftly. Broken hip in elderly patient will be prioritised as much as possible. I hope that she gets surgery and recovers well. I saw lots of elderly ladies in the ward recovering from hip surgery after a fall. Sometimes they can be moving ok after a week.
Please don't worry too much. X

Some people probably end up using it far more than they would have if they had been treated properly and in a timely manner to start with, instead of having to wait so long their issues develop into worse issues or complications that cause long term and permanent illness.

I thought the person themselves had to agree to a do not resuscitate.
Is that not the case anymore

What a terrible thing to happen OP. So sorry to hear this.
we have a seriously high aging population that are swamping other age categories, and lots of the population out of work, so in effect more people taking out of the system than putting in (and using far more than they have contributed) Unless everyone puts in more - pensioners and those not working included, the system will never work as it will be under funded.

The truth is we pay less for our medical care than most other developed countries but expect a service like theirs. You get what you pay for.