Do non NHS people realise how bad it is at the moment?

[DoyouknowJo]

I had to justify to my managers manager why I needed to spend £7 on stationery. Stationery. Some biros, some staples and a box of envelopes.

One of my colleagues chairs broke and she was told to apply to charitable funds to get a new one.

Everything is held together with sticky tape and blu tac (literally and figuratively)

We have four members of admin staff bunched into a desk meant for two, because there is no money to pay IT to put a new port in on their desks.

Waste toner cartridges are on lockdown. If yours is full you should take a scalpel, cut the seal open, empty it and then stick it back together and put it back in the printer. Don't worry about all your printing then being covered in smudgy ink. We're broke ya know.

And some fucking idiot turned up to A&E today...because their arm has been hurting for two months and they are off on holiday tomorrow and could we sort it please.

I'm thinking of starting an anonymous instagram account to get all this crap out.

That plastic spoon analogy is absolutely spot on.

The declining numbers of nurses are having an effect on social care too. Today, a colleague told me that several care homes in the area had been forced to deregister their nursing beds as they could no longer employ any nurses due to shortages. They're just residential homes now which don't need to employ qualified staff. I would imagine that this will have the effect of social workers pushing people into homes with nursing needs, but trying to pass them off as residential or just trying to persuade the district nurses to fill the gap when it comes to dressings, pressure area care and diabetes care. Homes will struggle to provide appropriate care and people will suffer.

Another way public sector resources are wasted is by politicians trying to tinker with things they don't actually understand and then blaming the people tasked with putting them into effect with the results. Try running a business where you have less than you need to provide the expected service, then you are told that half of that too small an amount you are not free to use your expertise to decide how to spend, anyway, because some idiot politician has jerked his knee and concluded that this money should be spent on a national target of no relevance to the needs of your specific hospital/school/whatever public service you run, so has ringfnced it and forbidden you to spend it on what you actually know to be necessary. Then deal with the angry staff and members of the public asking why you are wasting money on silly things instead of getting your priorities straight...

NHS managers waste billions of pounds in dishing out lovely little 3rd-party contracts to their pals' start up companies
....
the initial meeting involved about six NHS people sitting there and a note taker

I feel so irritated by the contradictions of these posts.
The minutes are taken to achieve the very accountability that the first statement implies doesn't exist. The high number of stakeholders are there to make sure the ultimate product is fit for purpose AND to create accountability among many, so that the money doesn't slip into someone's backpocket company.

The meetings are subject to FOI requests. They often become public record. AND anyone who might have "pals" who own bidding companies is supposed to declare their potential Conflict of Interest which stays on record (in minutes too).

The plastic spoon analogy is perfect. I work for a different government department that is not a vote winner so is hugely underfunded. The majority of our contracts are awarded on the basis of price so we have cheap everything. As a result our critical infrastructure (eg - but not only- our entire IT system) regularly breaks down. The wastage in that is immense but it’s not due to our own stupidity - it’s a political choice to cut costs.
We buy our own stationery out of our own salaries. We are incredibly understaffed. So you might have a team of two responsible for a range of work that was previously done by a team of eight or ten.
And then the permanent reshuffles mean constant changes of direction. I think my dept is on its fourth Secretary of State in two years. And there’ll be yet another next week.
This is no way to run anything.
If I’m honest I spend most of my time looking for work outside government; this is so far from the public sector I joined almost 30 years ago.

@ Ineedaknittedhat The NHS are actively convincing elderly ill patients to return to their own homes. They use emotionally blackmailing language to give the patient the idea to return home. I watched them going through the same suggestions towards patients to ensure and home discharge rather than a Care or Nursing Home discharge. That is not good care practice and not cost effective either.

@StillMe1 Its been discussed on other threads. 3am discharge times have been used as well.

@HelenaDove The reason I posted about the discharging of the elderly folks to home is that they are barely home before they are back in hospital again. Their family get under too much stress and end up ill too. So the more cost effective way to deal with elderly ill people would be to care for them properly and not having them in and out of hospital. It will also cost the NHS to care for and provide prescriptions for those who care for the elderly while they are at home.
The wastage in the NHS crosses every single aspect of expenditure from the provision of pens to care of patients and those around them.

Things might be starting to get bad in the NHS, but things have been bad in the government department I work in for over 10 years now.

None of my team have had a pay rise in 16 years, wages are just above minimum wage, plenty of equipment broken and not replaced, constant IT problems, more than half of all staff have left and not been replaced, unreasonable/impossible demands made on remaining staff, culture of bullying, completely demoralised/downtrodden workforce etc.

I have friends who work in the NHS and they are shocked when I tell them some of the stories from my workplace. I often wish I'd trained to be nurse, my wages would be double what I earn now and I might be able to smile from time to time.

Sorry i should have made it clear Family members have posted in the past about 3 am discharges I agree with you

@isitsummeryet1 that wouldn't have been drugs. Maybe devices, wound care or otc but not prescription only drugs.

I don't think society as a whole actually is willing to pay the cost of caring properly for an expanding and increasingly decrepit elderly population, especially not when it used to rely so much more on a massive unpaid workforce of women caring for their elderly relatives in the family home. Passing the buck is guaranteed to happen when the resources and manpower are not there to do anything else - nobody has the capacity to take long term responsibility, so they pass the problem down the line, back to the people who have an emotional responsibility because they are the relatives. If the relatives can't care for them, then nobody cares for them and they just spend the rest of their short life being treated like the Old Maid in the card game, with everyone trying to get rid of the responsibility of having them.

@ArgyMargy are you really going to be picky about who brought pens? I was there to speak, not analyse the merchandise. My point was, the NHS doesn't need to bring their own merchandise to event. There are lots of reps who bring their own, which in this case, was over 20 different company reps. Some even brought sandwiches. Drug companies (who were there) was just an example!

especially not when it used to rely so much more on a massive unpaid workforce of women caring for their elderly relatives in the family home.

Yup, we can't have it both ways. Either we have women out earning and paying tax and national insurance that helps prop up the state services,or they are not earning money but doing the unpaid care and taking the strain off the NHS and social services. I think we know that when governments encourage families to look after their frail members that they usually mean 'women'. ALthough I know several men who have looked after sick and frail elderly parents with great devotion and skill.

@isitsummeryet1 no I was just being pedantic

@Abra1de And we all know that they are expecting women to do both.

Boy are they gonna get a shock when the Pension Credit changes kick in and some of the younger partners who are carers for their spouses will be forced to look for/find work.

NHS aint seen nothing yet.

I know. It’s going to be clear how much women have propped everything up.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/3479693-Changes-to-Pension-Credit

A&E suffers cos people can’t get into see their GP about GP things, and so much A&E are mental health related because me r health services have not been adequately funded. Like the rest of the nhs - underfund & make it sh-t. Ppl that have got into see the GP see locums far too often & you really can’t get enough info from a patient you’ve never met before in 10 min appointments. It’s a crying shame. Drs want to do better but when spread so thinly what do u do? Have to focus on the most immediately ill & just do ur best. A&E is fur accident & emergencies. Everyone who turns up & who is neither gets 1. Not much help got their problem - told to see GP, 2. Creates a good 30 min of admin/writing up notes in addition to time seeing them, which means someone else waits longer etc. Can see both dudes v clearly. Was very different under Labour. Anyone who votes Conservative has asked for this. Anyone who voted brexit inadvertently supported this. Tory brexit = nhs sold off. USE YOUR VOTES PEOPLE, VOTE LABOUR BEFORE THE NHS IS GONE.

Jobcentres also waste surgeries time.broke wrist in 2000 and had to supply letter every 2 weeks .everyone knows plaster casts stay on for 6 weeks minimum and you can't work mine was on for 9 weeks😭

NHS staff here (PICU-mental health)!! Just in off a 12 hour shift, dangerously short staffing levels, no budget for bank staff let alone anything else, 12 hours of soul destroying abuse and assault.
OP I hear you......... 😥

Of course not compounded by the NHS tourists and the fact that every £75 pair of crutches isn't taken back into stock plus all the other wastage that goes on. The management needs to be sorted out I think.

Nhs “tourists” are not the problem. It’s the vast majority of uk born n bred ppl who are getting old, have mental health problems & really long waiting list for mental health services - if they ever get to be properly known to services... the money required just isn’t being put in. Really really really never come across health tourists.

Huge respect to everyone in the NHS, it must be so hard to work in such a difficult environment

Bloody hell, I'm just about to go back into the NHS for the last 10 years of my pension. Am I mad.