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.

If drs listened then I would suspect virtually all those 6 figure compensation payouts would be saved

I worked at a medical indemnity company and nearly all fuck ups were down to communication. Either dr's not asking the right questions, listening or believing the patient or the patient not being honest with the Dr.

There's a limit to what the doctors can believe.

The number of reeling and abusive drunks who show up drunk and who then claim to have no problem with alcohol would astound you.

I've found empty spirits bottles in the ladies' toilets, had to speak to drunken patients (and relatives) who aren't capable of taking anything in and doctors are fighting a losing battle with liver patients who swear blind they've stopped drinking.

The same goes for smokers. They deny smoking even though they stink of smoke and the CO blood levels tell a different story.

On the plus side, I had a scan just over a week ago. Got a call from the GP surgery asking me to make a phone appointment 3 working days later as they had just received the results. Referral direct to orthopedics (bypassing physio!!! ) that same day. Of course how long it will take to get an appointment with them could be a different matter...

What about the rest of us who are not drunk or abusive who present with all the signs of bowel cancer, with a history of bowel cancer in the family and a thing that looked like a blown up balloon protruding from under neath the skin on one side of the stomach only to be told not to be dramatic when they ask if they have bowel cancer and then sent on their way with a prescription for constipation medication

Or when you go with back pain and with out even looking at you tell you that you have to wait till 60 to get a new hip.

Or present with indigestion a pain in the chest and pins and needles in the left arm and get sent on the way with a prescription for Rennies

You can’t just blame everyone for being drunk and abusive.

That attitude Gingernaut is why people are dying.

I'm not saying everyone needs to be treated as liars.

Doctors need to take blood, perform examinations, take into account family histories, refer for scans and treat patients properly.

"That attitude Gingernaut is why people are dying." Totally agree!

Funnily enough dd and I were discussing - in relation to getting support with mh conditions - (I have several which are pretty serious, she suffers from relatively mild but still troublesome depression & anxiety) - we've both experienced hcps not believing that we have never smoked, neither of us ever even tried it, rarely drink and don't take street drugs. It's most frustrating the time wasted when even within single appointments we are asked about these MULTIPLE times! Don't bloody judge me on SOME others behaviours.

I come from a family full of addicts and have lost people I love dearly to addiction, I also (as previously mentioned) have had major lung issues since childhood, so I don't even like being NEAR anyone smoking as it makes my breathing extremely difficult.

But dd and I have had hcps ASSUME we're lying, in dds case at least partly due to her age (18).

Hcps - stop wasting time disbelieving patients who tell you this where there is NO indication they're lying!

"Doctors need to take blood, perform examinations, take into account family histories, refer for scans and treat patients properly."

😂😂😂😂😂as if! Have you been a patient recently? You're lucky if they LOOK you in the eye!

And anyway, BEFORE all that they could & SHOULD employ common sense and proper use of "normal" senses (eg neither of us have ANY physical appearance indicators of drinking excessively/smoking/drug taking - no skin discolouration, dilated pupils, smelling of certain substances, no "smokers cough" etc and yes LISTENING to us!)

I've been "cross examined" in this way by those very Drs who at that point haven't even LOOKED at me yet!

Basic basic training - observation!

I can spot most alcoholics/drug abusers/heavy smokers at 50 paces without even asking them! There are many "5 senses" indicators of these factors, which any hcp worth their salt should be aware of.

That skill of using the 5 senses when first assessing/examining a patient seems to be rapidly declining with too many hcps becoming dependent on technology.

I've experienced hcps using equipment to do obs on me, getting stupid results that make no sense whatsoever with how I'm presenting but accepting it blindly! And recording those results! I've even witnessed friends/family almost getting WRONG treatments as a result of such mistakes.

It's another reason I wonder what the hell is happening with training!

If an accountant added up £200 + £150 on a spreadsheet or calculator and the result given to them was £920 they'd immediately recognise it as wrong and check the spreadsheets equation or use a different calculator - they wouldn't blindly accept it as correct!

• "but we are in an instant gratification society so having to wait for something as important as our own health seems wrong"

I was going to say this is one of the most stupid comments i have ever seen on here but its not just stupid Its sociopathic People who sit around in excrutiating pain while signed off work and wanting to be NOT in pain and back at work so they dont lose their job and their home is not instant gratification.

FFS

Gingernaut

Dd doesn’t drink. I know most people think all teenagers drink but Dd doesn’t.

As I have mentioned before we had to have 2 A&E visits and a emergency gp visit to just get someone to look at her.

The first A&E visit the doctor wouldn’t believe Dd hadn’t been drinking. (Again not listening and making her mind up by some ridiculous profiling) instead of treating her for concussion which is what she was eventually diagnosed with she was sent in her way to sober up.

I don’t know how much an A&E visit costs but we had one more than was necessary and a drs appointment who referred her back to A&E

Dp is diabetic fortunately I am there when he goes into A&E when sometimes he gets Ketones and his blood sugar goes through the roof .

For all intents and purposes he looks drunk. Slurring his words. I have to tell them to smell him to convince them that he isn’t drunk. I believe if Dp didn’t have anyone to talk on his behalf he would have gone into a diabetic coma and died before now.

It is frightening.

I take from this thread that NHS workers actually look down their noses at patients.

If you take on board that is what the NHS thinks of you then everything falls into place.

Nhs workers are moaning about not being able to afford pens when millions are being wasted and people are dying or being left in agony for years unable to work because those in charge think us patients are drunk, drug addicted wanky time wasters

The trouble is, Oliversmumsarmy, that an awful lot of the people going in to A&E ARE those drunk/drugged/petty ailment people, and the staff get so jaded that after 15 drunk teenagers on a Saturday night they just go into automatic mode.

I know they shouldn't, THEY know they shouldn't, but when you have dozens of people who have been waiting for hours and they are on their 10th 12 hour shift in a row, and have dealt with 3 life threatening traumas in that shift so far and know there's another on it's way, then they will make errors of judgement.

Actually a lot of todays 16 to 24 year olds are eschewing alcohol.

More so than ever before.

Took OH to surgery this morning at 8.30am, real anxiety about a forthcoming procedure. Receptionist took details, said to go home and wait for call from emergency doctor. 9am phone rang, GP listened and asked if it was OK to come for 11am to see another GP who was a specialist in that area. GP listened intently, asked a few questions, engaged with her fully. She left, much relieved, Superdrug did her prescriptions straight away. She's now a happy bunny. Our experience doesn't match those of some posters.

@Gentlygrowingoldermale that's because it's not interesting to hear about things that go right! People love to moan and criticise. The NHS delivers gazillions of perfectly competent consultations on a daily basis but no-one wants to hear about those.

@walkaround the US is an exception and useless as an example because it’s not a free market model.

My teenage DD doesn't drink, either. It's quite the fashion now to be teetotal.

So what you are saying Allergictoironing
is that some form of profiling goes on and if they get it wrong then it can't be helped.

So if you are in your teens there is no point in going to A&E even if you haven't had a drink as you are just going to be told to sober up (like DD had happen)

Stuff like this isnt helping. Hospitals having to treat malnutrition.

Charlotte Hughes. The Poor Side Of life
@charlotteh71
Tameside hospital was the first hospital in the UK to open a food bank because large number of patients were being admitted due to malnutrition related illnesses and returning home to empty cupboards and being readmitted again. We shouldn’t need foodbanks in the first place."

I'm teetotal, I'm a non smoker and have had HCPs not believe me either.

The 'Irish are drinkers' stereotype is ingrained.

I just let them take the toxicology blood sample and let them carry on...

"That attitude Gingernaut is why people are dying." Totally agree!

This. Once went into A&E after a fall I took whilst out hillwalking - was in full hillwalking gear - told them what had happened, got asked how much I'd had to drink .

I just let them take the toxicology blood sample and let them carry on...

Wow, can't even get them to take a blood test for anything half the time even when you go in with worrying symptoms, much less a tox screen.

It doesn't work like that in the US - if it's cheap, it's because you don't get much cover for anything, not because it's competitive.

That was true prior to 2014 when the Affordable Care Act set requirements for minimal essential coverage and essential benefits. What drives price differences now are co-pays and deductibles.

When my elderly dad was dying of cancer, he was admitted to hospital at one stage as he had fallen. Despite it being very clear that the reason he couldn't stand up was because he was too weak, die to his bones being riddled with cancer, one doctor insisted on quizzing him as to how much he had had to drink before he fell. He was so weak that he couldn't lift a glass to his mouth, and could barely swallow either, so even if he had been a drinker (he hadn't been drunk since he was about 20 years old, so over 60 years at this stage) previously, he certainly couldn't have managed it by that stage. He'd have drowned on the booze before he got drunk on it.

Thankfully another doctor took over who was able to exercise some common sense.

When I say the doctor quizzed him I don't mean he asked and then moved on. He just kept badgering him and insisting he must have been drinking if he had fallen...

Not quite Oliversmumsarmy, and you know that. I'm saying that in certain circumstances I can understand the ER practitioners getting a bit jaded especially when they are already grossly overworked & exhausted.

I'm "lucky" in that my only visits to an ER have been for trauma, all the way from sprains/strains that we thought might have been breaks, through concussion with broken nose, up to major RTC. I do know that there are protocols that they need to follow, which mean they need to rule out the most likely causes before looking at the less likely ones.