To think the NHS’s biggest problems aren’t management but an ageing population, unrealistic expectations and over-medicalisation?

@AutumnFoxe or you could have been advised to go online or to your local pharmacy and buy a pack of iron tablets for less than a fiver for 3 months supply.... it would have saved numerous letters, time taken to type, send and process on the receivers end, time taken to write a prescription, the dispensing fee paid to the pharmacy.... getting that pack of iron tablets to you after your diagnosis probably cost the NHS well over £50... but people (this is not aimed at you personally, I making a general statement) don't see why they should pay when the NHS is 'free'.

@DemelzaandRoss

Older people shouldn’t be blamed for previous government’s mistakes.

It's not "previous government's" mistakes though. Older people voted in those governments. I'm sure the politicians would have loved to campaign on higher taxes but the voters wouldn't have voted for them. Just look at all the fuss about WFA and now trying to reduce the disability benefits. Governments can only do what the voters will vote for them to do!

So the secret message here is older people are a burden on the NHS (despite paying into it since it was founded), they should suck it up & die without treatment?
Well, many of us don’t want to die without being given an equal opportunity to live.
There is no other life, imo. I want to live as long as possible to see my children & grandchildren flourish.
Older people shouldn’t be blamed for previous government’s mistakes.
The current NHS is not fit for purpose due to the increased population since the 1950s. Additionally new expensive drug therapies haven’t helped.
How presumptuous of some posters thinking that they know how it feels to be over 60, 70, 80.
Lastly, re DNR I have several older friends who have been successfully resuscitated with no adverse effects whatsoever. They are still alive & enjoy their lives.

It's all of the above. I worked in the NHS for a number of years, as did all of my family.
But I know someone, now happily retired, who earned very good money training NHS managers to be 'the best version of themselves', and other such bollocks. Money is being wasted at every level of the service, but especially at the top.

To be honest, as a cancer patient I get sick to death of the "but the NHS needs more funding" and "aren't they all angels" crowd.

Yes, there are some good people, but there is far more nastiness, supercilious behaviour and bone-idleness than people realise.

People who only occasionally use the NHS for minor things simply won't realise this. They seem to treat the NHS like some kind of untouchable religion.

Once you actually access the right care, at the right time, in the right place, and hopefully with a polite/friendly member of staff, it's often fine.

But it can be a real battle getting there, and many people don't have the time, energy or ability to battle GPs who don't listen and NHS nurses who gaslight.

I wish you and your OH the best.

My Dad who is 76 has been badly affected by it, he is on a 30 week wait for a heart scan and refuses to chase it saying someone like his granddaughter needs it more
I'm sorry @Decoart , you must be worrying about them both.

One of our regulars sells their GF bread/ suncream on FB marketplace! It's infuriating to see NHS money wasted and it's those people (not saying that's all patients!) who are also the first to talk to front line staff like shit and feel entitled to everything for free/ take no responsibility for their own health etc.

NHS workers like yourselves need to familiarise yourselves with the Broken Plate 2025 survey. Ella Mills has managed to and she is more privileged than you so if she can there is really no excuse.

And i cant help noticing you didnt mention IVF Very telling

DoNoTakeNo · Today 11:39

YABU because the biggest issue is the appalling IT structure.

Can you give more detail @DoNoTakeNo ?

Literally half the beds in the local hospital orthopedic surgical ward are taken up with dementia patients who've had falls and fairly serious injuries in care homes. They are at times, quite alarmingly distressed, screaming, shouting racist abuse at nursing staff, and threatening other patients.

This was about DNR specifically, resuscitation is physically traumatic and almost never successful in older people. By successful I mean, restored to their previous level of functioning without brain damage.

I'm 54 and I'm not even sure if I would want to be resuscitated in the event of a cardiac arrest.

Fix social care, especially elderly social care and it will free up so much space in wards, thereby allowing A&E to transfer those patients who need it quicker and then manage to treat those who just need help and can go home.

Elderly care homes are woefully under resourced, under appreciated and prohibitively expensive for the majority. They don't like to take on patients with high care needs and those that are able to do so is just unaffordable. One in our area charges £2500 a week for dementia care residents.

Hospices as well need properly funding. The majority are funded through charity and grants, but they do amazing work in people's final days. Thereby freeing up hospital beds.

I would have no issue paying a nominal charge to see a GP.

as some clever lady - i can't recall who it was said on the radio the other day. The problem is the post war generations feel they have paid for their cradle to grave care and are entitled to it, the issue is they have not paid enough. No one anticipated the advances in medical care, the long term conditions we now all live with, the age we can survive to with these interventions and often for 1/3rd of that lifetime (or more) not contributing to the system. If you worked and pay taxes from 15-65, but live to 80, you've paid in for only 5/8ths of your life.

What is the european model? Because I am from an european country and I find the system (from a patient perspective) quite similar to my country of origin

I have made an advanced directive stating this and I'm 45. But depressed and wouldn't mind dying once my teens are independant. I really do not want to live a long time. If life is crap now I doubt it will be better at 65. (And yes I'm on meds that makes me fonction but I still find life utterly miserable)

No i disagree. The NHS is not fit for purpose and it has nothing to do with an aging population or people expecting too much.

Theres no set money allocation per trust so every trust can just spend whatever they want on supplies with huge discrepancies between them. They can also allocate treatment based on trust so one trust might offer ivf to certain people whilst a neighbouring trust can decline treatment to certain people. The same goes for diagnosis. Gestational diabetes for example. The criteria for testing, treatment and diagnosis varies from trust to trust. This should not be the way it should be a standard diagnosis across the board not that you are classed as diabetic in one trust but not in another.

The middle men and waiting is ridiculous. A personal example from this week alone, my midwife gave me a blood test. The lab identified anaemia. The results were sent to my midwife and the maternity hospital. The hospital then send me a letter and phone me to let me know i need to get in touch with my gp for medication. My gp takes nearly a week to respond to my online request. I then get my script to send to the pharmacy. Why was any of that waste of time necessary? Why can my midwife send tests for things and not allowed to just prescribe me the medicine straight away? Why did it then go through both the hospital and gp just to get iron tablets?

Being pushed from pillar to post, being told to make multiple appointments for even simple issues that could literally be sorted there and then. Another example, say you need to see a gp for a thyroid test and while there ask them to look at a painful cyst, they will say no you need to make a seperate appointment. Yet another waste of time and resources.

Its so badly run and managed its beyond a joke how they are still functioning.

The solution to that probably is Big Pharma, since we know diet and exercise don't work on a population level for people who are already overweight and obese. The fact that something would work if people continually did it is a very different point to whether they're actually going to.

I'm optimistic though. The price of MJ and the like is going to come down, and there's research on a pill form rather than injections, which will make it more acceptable to some.

My Mil is a hypochondriac. Only this week she has had 1 brain scan and one coloscopy. Next week it's something else. She's 80 and doesn't have any major health problems except aching limbs/back that's age related.

This is not an emotional decision, no one is advocating some cull when you get over a certain age. One has to take the emotion out of it, everyone can't have everything for free and be kept alive. It's not nice of course.

On the subject of DNR, the doctor in charge of my dad one of the last times he went into hospital suggested to us that it would be very pointless and counterintuitive to try and revive him if he was dying as the force involved to resuscitate would break his ribs. "It's not like you see on the tv" - I did like the cut of her jib. So not all healthcare professionals are the same.

Sadly we don't have enough resources for everyone, let the young at least have a chance at life.

It's inevitable that they are going to have to start prioritising by age surely?

I have already made my wishes clear to loved ones that after 80 I only want pain relief. I’m looking into an advance directive although I think medical staff may be able to overide them…
see @YourAmusedTiger pp on her poor relatives suffering😢

Yes but they can’t actually say that because the pensioners will have a melt down.

True

I’m approaching my sixties, and I really can’t see how Millennials and Gen Z can be expected to finance the NHS for Boomers or my Generation who might averagely live into our nineties. It’s not fair on them. Too many of us are living too long. There won’t be sufficient numbers of younger taxpayers (or health workers) to support us. Not without massive immigration anyway…

There are already more over 65s than under 15 yr olds.
Immigration isn't particularly popular 😆

The vast majority of patients I have seen who are overweight or smoke do so in large part because of enormous stresses and disadvantages in their lives.
Food or cigarettes are a (just about) affordable comfort when you are, for example, looking after your severely disabled child or elderly parent who has dementia. Or you have lost your job in your fifties and can’t find another one despite your best efforts. Or your husband has buggered off and left you with nothing. Or your childhood was an endurance test of abuse which left you chronic trauma and because therapy is unavailable you have to make do with chocolate.

Thank you for saying this @Whitehorses67

Also, I should add, the whole stay was astonishingly good, from the care at all levels, nutrition, physios, accommodation, facilities etc Had we not returned to the UK as planned, the aftercare would have been far better too (twice daily nurse visits, weekly Dr check up and repeat bloods after a month).

I would be more than happy to pay my 20% or mutuel for this level of care. I