To wonder what's happened to the NHS?

Ive unfortunately had to use the NHS a lot the last couple years and have seen a lot both good and bad.

I had surgery in June and genuinely the staff couldn't have been more amazing and I felt so looked after, but that surgery took a year to get to on an urgent list and the appointment to even get on the list was a year before that of waiting, again on an urgent list and eventually only sped up because my MP got involved.

I went to A&E the other day for the first time in at least 10 years and was genuinely in shock at the number of people there, especially people that I felt possibly didnt need to be but I imagine were there because they couldn't see a GP. Lots of people with infections and saying they couldn't see the GP.

The staff were working hard but you had 3 nurses for around 30 people (the nurse said exactly this to someone when he asked if he could just get his antibiotics and pain relief so he could go). When I was triaged I was told I needed an ECG because my heart rate and BP were so high and I explained that I believed this was because the level of pain I was in. I was told a canula would be placed for pain meds. At this point it took another 90 minutes before I was seen and then they put in a canula, did the ECG and took bloods. I asked about pain medication and was told I was on a list. The Doctor came to see me and she asked if I had pain meds, she popped back a while later and I still hadnt had any. After close to 4 hours and 2 prompts from the Doctor I was given a small dose of oramorph which honestly barely touched the pain. But I dont know what happened but I was left in pain so bad it was raising my heart rate and BP for hours, only to be given a liquid med that could have been done hours earlier. The canula wasnt needed at all. The whole thing was just odd and it seemed no one knew what they were meant to be doing and I spoke to 4 different people until someone I hadnt even seen eventually bought pain meds to me.

The NHS wait times are insane, in women's healthcare especially, some parts of the UK have waits of 4-6 years for surgeries that are urgently needed, ive heard some as much as 10. Just to see a gynaecologist or endometriosis specialist is 1-3 year waits and the women needing these appointments are in debilitating pain and their lives are literally on hold. I have barely left my home in 3 years because of the amount of pain, only to have a surgery to tell me I have an issue but it was too complex so now im on another waitlist to see someone else, to likely go on another surgery list.

I agree that we should be open to other models of funding and organisation used in Europe, but the UK spends less per capita on health than most other comparable European countries, so it certainly wouldn't reduce the cost. How much does the UK spend on health care compared to Europe? | The Health Foundation

Labour have to deliver now though, not rely on the last time they were in power.

I’m meant to be having some procedures and they tried to make me not have general anaesthetic. There was plenty of manipulation, pressure and gas lighting of me by the hospital. I put my foot down, went to PALS and made a formal complaint. Guidelines state very clearly anaesthetic especially in my set of circumstance. I have little sympathy for the staff in this situation due to their bare faced lies and acting like l was “going on”. Their stance most likely is due to penny pinching and laziness as general is more expensive and time consuming but that’s not my problem and l don’t care

In answer to the original question the NHS hadn’t been funded properly for years. Plus we have an ageing population who are often not in great health, compounded by poor diets and not enough exercise

What happened to the NHS? That would be the Tories and Andrew Lansley’s ludicrous reorganisation in 2012. Just remember that in 2010, under a Labour govt and pre Cameron and Osborne’s austerity, satisfaction with the NHS was at an all time high. Join those dots and you’ll see the very obvious answer.

Precisely, it would be the same as exemption from prescription charges - 89% are free of charge. It would save a lot of hassle - and probably money - to make them completely free like Scotland, Wales and N Ireland.

I think the issue would be who would be exempt and would that be so high many wouldn’t be paying £10

You think we shouldn’t have had new hospitals then? The principle was fine, the execution was appalling because the NHS didn’t employ experienced contract negotiators and had shit lawyers so the private providers ran rings round them. Presumably you’d also be wailing if that government had borrowed to pay for them?

The NHS has been seriously underfunded for years under the Conservatives. But also I think we should be focusing more on prevention. Giving people access to knowledge about nutrition, more awareness of their health stats and what to do to live a life free from chronic illness as long as they are able. Yes, poverty is a huge issue for many with access to nutritious food so should be tackled alongside. Complications arising from type 2 Diabetes costs the NHS millions and they are trying to educate people on the disease once they have it but would be better to prevent it as long as possible.

Because this is Britain and our politicians copy the Americans at every possible turn. They love the place. It gives them the chance to turn us back into a full oligarchic state again - the empire government called itself not only a democracy but referred to ‘the mother of all parliaments’, a total lie - make more and more money for the rich, and slowly ditch all pretence of democracy and caring about people. We will not be given the choice.

Otherwise they’d be training up locals instead of hiring cheap foreigners.

£50 would make it unaffordable to many who would put off healthcare until they present with more progressed illness at A&E and end up costing more.

The quality of care in the mayo clinic for example in the USA vastly surpasses our mediocre NHS

Completely agree. I think even a charge for GP appointments of less than £10 would drastically reduce the amount of no shows.

Everyone trots out the USA as being the only alternative.

I think that the NHS should charge per appointment to keep the time wasters away.
£50 ought to do it.

Agree. I hope Reform get in and overhaul it completely. It's a pile of crap.

Agreed, although It's not just the older generations, I'm a Paeds nurse and the improvement in NICU care has massively shifted our role and what we see come through.

The concept of specialist neonatal doctors didn't come around until the 1960s, and at that point, any baby born prior to 28 weeks gestation was unlikely to survive, now the age of viability has changed so much we offer 'active interventions' to babies born as early as 22/23 weeks. That's obviously amazing for those families, but does mean there's a huge increase in babies getting NICU care. Typically they are expected to stay until somewhere near their due date, so you're potentially looking at 18 weeks of (very expensive) intensive care, potentially with multiple surgeries. Large numbers of this cohort as well will suffer neurological or other physical impairment as a result of their preterm birth, meaning they may go home on oxygen, or go on to have tracheostomies, feeding tubes, stomas, catheters, they may require enhanced ongoing care for life, meaning community nurses, additional hospital appointments through childhood, and then into adulthood as well.

Even outside of preterm births, we can do so much to help children born with genetic/other conditions at birth that they too will require lifelong care - I've looked after families who have 5+ children, all with the same/similar conditions and complex needs.

I'm not saying we shouldn't treat these children, it's not my place to play God, but not only is the population growing faster than the rate of healthcare, there is an increasing percentage of the population who will require significant healthcare support. I work in a specialist area and to be blunt, the majority of children I see and care for wouldn't have still been here 50/60 years ago as the technology/knowledge didn't exist to save them 🤷🏼‍♀️

Mental.health crisis is expanding yet i understand there is a recruitment freeze, so newly qualified mental.health nurses, are struggling to find employment. These are people who given funding to train. It doesn't make sense

@ExtraOnions

Try going to the USA, where being tens of thousands of pounds in medical debt is almost the norm.

The only alternative isn't the USA. Why don't you compare the NHS to the various different systems throughout Europe, or Canada, or Australia?? We need to look at Europe and adopt that kind of model.

Agree on all those points!

Blair and Brown expanded the use of PFI.

Blair's government significantly expanded the use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), scaling it up from a relatively minor policy introduced by John Major’s Conservative government into a major mechanism for funding public infrastructure.

Real funding in 2024 was higher than in 2010. The NHS is just a crappy way of delivering healthcare. I like what they do in most of the other world.

I’ve seen and also heard about this too. I simply don’t understand how we can have such high unemployment levels but are so dependent on the wonderful people who come from abroad both in the NHS and in the care communities. It’s madness.

It has not and I am sure you know that. Real time funding was higher before and after the 14 years of Tory.

I worked in the NHS for 35 years, DW still does , now in her 43rd year. What’s gone wrong, well from the perspective of people who were/ are frontline staff and it’s our opinion and won’t be shared by many,too many people who now don’t do frontline work compared to years ago, team managers and band 6 nurses who rarely actually see patients, a worrying trend where people are allocated to a specific nurse, which should work well, but no one else seems to have a clue what’s happening with them, over reliance on the information stored on the iPad/ computer without knowing the person, target chasing, dare I say it, nursing degrees which seem to have conspired to remove the empathic, non judgemental, non condoning mantra we learnt in the early 80s. Could go on and on and sadly have experienced much of this first hand witnessing the care given to my late mum when she was in hospital

Where I live, the hospitals, both NHS and private, seem to be staffed with those from the four corners of the world. God knows what it would be like if they weren't here. During my last stay in hospital, I was looked after by people from practically every continent. My surgeon was Indian and the anaesthetist from New Zealand, my favourite nurse was from Zimbabwe and another was from SA. The theatre nurse was Austrian.

A Filippino friend is a nurse at a large general hospital in Kent. There are so many Filippino staff there that they call it "Little Manila".