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.

Blaming patients for unhealthy lifestyles is pointless!

Most ill health is "self inflicted" at some point, from poor diet and lack of exercise to smoking, heavy drinking and sports injuries (what was that about exercise again?!)

Even most cancers have lifestyle factors that increase the risk of getting them!

People aren't robots though. They have understandable reasons why they do what they do.

Eg poor diet and exercise - working very long hours at nmw just to get by and so lacking time, energy and motivation for meal planning, cooking and exercise.

Heavy drinking - learned and socially acceptable, even encouraged, coping mechanism that's relatively cheap and easy to access particularly for people with other mh issues who aren't getting access to treatment.

I wonder how many of those posting such comments live perfect lifestyles? All teetotal, non-smoking, healthy weight, macrobiotic sugar free organic vegetarians? Who drink water only. Who live in the country away from as much pollution and carcinogens as possible? But don't drive themselves, exercise daily and don't use any hormonal contraception? Practice zen yoga & mindfulness regularly? Only work 30/35 hours per week?

Yea don't think so!

These conditions aren’t different from working in a school. The amount us teachers spend on our classroom and lessons is massive

I work in the private sector in a care home as a nurse and spend most of my time in arse covering bureaucratic nonsense. I recently had a client whose NEWS score indicated that they needed to go to hospital, but I knew the numbers could largely be explained by their condition. But, managers had drummed it into us that if the numbers indicated there was a problem, off to hospital they must go. So, off they went in an ambulance, were assessed by A&E and returned a few hours later.

No common sense or decades of experience allowed, just don't get the service into trouble or all hell breaks loose. Colleagues and GPs display the same behaviour now and it comes at both a human and a financial cost. This isn't just an NHS problem, but a societal one now.

Yes it’s bad but I’m not surprised, people have never thought about the cost of it

Then he said he always wants to do his own! I asked whether he'd get a copy of our file or had access via the computer, and he said no, he always starts from scratch. So not only is there a massive waste of resources in duplicating what's already been done, he had no interest whatsoever in the relevant medical history/notes of the chemo etc.

So you would prefer everyone's medical notes to be on a national centralised system? I seem to remember that billions of taxpayers money was paid to private companies including BT to do that a few years ago. Funnily enough it was a disaster not least because the private companies were deal with data management, patients confidentiality etc.

Sometimes we need those annoying admin people to go and and look at where money is going and clamp down on it.

Unfortunately those annoying admin people havn't got the balls or the ability to go after the big spend/loss areas, hence why they obsess about the small stuff like pens. Makes it look like they're doing something.

@ anothernotherone

As someone who has lived in both countries, I agree 100% with what you have said.

Moreover, I find it baffling how so many people have bought into the idea that patients overusing the NHS are to be blamed for the bad state it is in whereas it is clearly mismanagement at the top as well as chronic underfunding.

There is some serious large scale brainwashing going on in the UK, not only regarding the NHS, but also other matters such as Brexit and social care.

FIL who is in the late stages of dementia has been self funding his care from savings, but now needs part funding from the LA because his state and private pensions are not enough to cover the costs. The LA want him to move to a nursing home with shared rooms and only one washing facility on the entire floor where he will be showered/bathed once A WEEK despite the fact that he is doubly incontinent.

People should be out in droves protesting on the streets, but instead just seem to be accepting of the conditions and/or blaming each other instead of the politicians responsible for this mess.

It should be clear to everyone that the existing NHS system needs to be largely scrapped for a better one (look to Germany, France, Belgium etc., NOT the US) and that taxes need to rise to fund this. But the opposite is about to happen and things are likely to get much worse very soon.

So you would prefer everyone's medical notes to be on a national centralised system?

Why do people always resort to extremes. I suggested sharing medical history and results and you seem to think the only way to do that is a centralised database with access open to all.

There should be a way where one hospital trust can access the full medical records of a patient in another hospital trust when necessary. There doesn't mean a carte-blanche open access for everyone everywhere. It should be relatively easy for trust A consultant to tick a box to share the results/history with trust B consultant or even for the paper file to simply be photocopied and sent over, or sent electronically by email. This isn't random hospitals at opposite ends of the country - it's two hospitals in the same county where patients are routinely referred between them - there should be some kind of system to make the "notes" accessible to the other when a referral is made.

It's common sense, not rocket science.

Moreover, I find it baffling how so many people have bought into the idea that patients overusing the NHS are to be blamed for the bad state it is in whereas it is clearly mismanagement at the top as well as chronic underfunding.

It's the NHS's narrative of patient blaming. Easier to blame the patient than deal with their inherent inefficiencies. The more they do it, the more the general public start to believe it. Classic Orwellian 1984 where false news becomes fact if you say it often enough.

Look at the "shaming" posters with the number of missed GP appointments. Always a few hundred so looks a big number. But divide it by the number of GPs and nurses in the practice, and the number of days in the month, and you always come down to just 1 or 2 missed appointments per clinic/session. But they don't use that statistic do they?? That's because it doesn't sound so bad.

The problem is that when admin professionals leave the private sector for the NHS or another government job they do so, usually, from a point of failure or for an easy life. So government bodies in the UK don’t tend to benefit from good quality private sector experience. When an admin professional considers JP Morgan, Google, and the NHS as equal choices requiring equal hard work and dedication (and hours!) we might get somewhere.

How much does it cost for an ambulance to come out?

Part of the problem is that people seem incapable of self care. Once if you had a minor ailment you trotted off to the chemist - yes, I am that old - and asked them to recommend an over the counter remedy. Now it seems that no ailment is too trivial for a GP appointment.

When I worked in the NHS the trust decided it would no longer supply numerous stationery items, including post it notes. The result was that my husband liberated them from his employer and supplied my office. It saved the square root of fuck all.

Even most cancers have lifestyle factors that increase the risk of getting them!

Not so sure about that, sure I saw some statistics showing around half of cancers don't actually have any known causes. "Lifestyle factors" often only have a very minor part to play. A lot of blood cancers, i.e. leukamia and myeloma don't have any significant cause factors at all, nor do brain tumours etc. After all, children get cancer too, and that's long before "lifestyle factors" come into play.

Once if you had a minor ailment you trotted off to the chemist - yes, I am that old - and asked them to recommend an over the counter remedy.

But there's a reason for that. Now, you either get a counter assistant who hasn't a clue and just reads the label out to you on whatever pills or medicine they are trying to flog you, or if you have a "proper" condition and manage to speak to the pharmacist, they usually tell you to ask the GP anyway. It's really only the simplest of things that they can actually deal with, the kinds of things you could self-treat if you bothered to research the internet or read the labels yourself.

The NHS is overly bureaucratic, suffers from a plethora of middle and senior management and poor processes.

The reason people pitch up to A&E is because they cannot get GP services or out of hours services ... I ended up at A&E with my son once, extremely apologetic, because it was Friday at 5pm. I had been trying to get through to the GPs for 40 minutes prior to this without the phone being picked up. The staff at A&E basically told me I'd be lucky to get any GP surgery to deal with something on Friday afternoon. It turned out that although DS condition seemed like nothing it was actually serious and needed prompt treatment. I learned a big lesson that day and will not criticise any parent for wanting a second opinion about things like a child head injury

Why do people always resort to extremes. I suggested sharing medical history and results and you seem to think the only way to do that is a centralised database with access open to all.

I'm not resorting to extremes. That is exactly what they were trying to do up until a couple of years ago!

There should be a way where one hospital trust can access the full medical records of a patient in another hospital trust when necessary. There doesn't mean a carte-blanche open access for everyone everywhere. It should be relatively easy for trust A consultant to tick a box to share the results/history with trust B consultant or even for the paper file to simply be photocopied and sent over, or sent electronically by email. This isn't random hospitals at opposite ends of the country - it's two hospitals in the same county where patients are routinely referred between them - there should be some kind of system to make the "notes" accessible to the other when a referral is made.

In order to make them accessible on ticking a box the records would have to be held on a central very secure system. Another method (which I can use) is to access the records on the consultants computer to show him. I have found though that they still seem to prefer to go from scratch but that is an individual decision by the consultant rather than a failing of the NHS.

If you are just suggesting that the referring consultant writes a letter then that is what they are meant to be doing anyway. If that isn't being done it has nothing to do with NHS failure. Either the referring consultant didn't give enough detail or they did but the one you saw wanted to go from scratch anyway.

Because people are not educated in the fact the NHS is not FREE. The NHS is not FREE. Oooooh we get FREE health care. NO YOU DO NOT. The NHS is paid for by every member of the public in employment via taxes.

I'm not resorting to extremes. That is exactly what they were trying to do up until a couple of years ago!

There should be a way where one hospital trust can access the full medical records of a patient in another hospital trust when necessary. There doesn't mean a carte-blanche open access for everyone everywhere. It should be relatively easy for trust A consultant to tick a box to share the results/history with trust B consultant or even for the paper file to simply be photocopied and sent over, or sent electronically by email. This isn't random hospitals at opposite ends of the country - it's two hospitals in the same county where patients are routinely referred between them - there should be some kind of system to make the "notes" accessible to the other when a referral is made.

In order to make them accessible on ticking a box the records would have to be held on a central very secure system. Another method (which I can use) is to access the records on the consultants computer to show him. I have found though that they still seem to prefer to go from scratch but that is an individual decision by the consultant rather than a failing of the NHS.

If you are just suggesting that the referring consultant writes a detailed letter then that is what they are meant to be doing anyway. If that isn't being done it has nothing to do with NHS failure. Either the referring consultant didn't give enough detail or they did but the one you saw wanted to go from scratch anyway.

But how many people do research on the internet or read labels? They don’t, they clog up GP surgeries.

Probably going to get hate for this but here we go. My baby is 7 weeks old has had the worst colic. I have replaced all his bottles (£40) changed his milk twice (£20) bought numerous bottles of infacol in total around (£20) the only thing that helps is colief this is £12 a bottle he goes through a bottle a week. I worked part time before I had him (due to mental health and fibromyalgia) I had my wages and then was topped up by UC. Not loads just about managed. I didn’t qualify for mat pay. So had to claim mat allowance. What they didn’t tell me was that this would void any other benefits so all I get to live on is my maternity allowance and child benefit. This barely covers the bills. My HV said to ask the doctor for a prescription of colief so I have and I’ve just been spoken down to and basically told I’m a bad parent. No I’m absolutely not a bad parent the system is just flawed for everyone. I would be better off if I’d never bothered working

The fact that NHS care is "free" is a fantastic idea in principle, however it can lead to it being abused like it widely is. The ridiculous things that people present in A&E with is wasting so much money. Or what people call an ambulance for, on BBC recently there's been a program about the ambulance service in Manchester. So many of those calls could easily be treated in a pharmacy or they could get a taxi to A&E.

My GP surgery has started to fill a report with all the missed appointments at the end of the month. It is attached to the front door of the surgery.

You'd think missed appointments would be few and far between, since people are always yapping that getting to see a GP is nearly impossible? Wrong, there are at least 30-40 h each month that are wasted, for each of the GPs at the surgery, simply by people not showing up.

What would the solutions be to curb this habit? Make people pay for the missed appointment? Imagine the backlash.

I have a relative who works for the NHS, who has complained about having to supply her own stationary for several years now. Relative's husband is a consultant in the NHS, works full time but also does private work.

Said consultant was bragging about the NHS paying for him to go to Australia to attend a medical conference - business class flights. He doesn't separate Siamese twins, his specialism is a very ordinary one and no reason why he couldn't go to a conference in the UK or even mainland Europe, but why would he when the NHS will pay for his jaunt to Australia - and yes, he racked on a week's holiday so it was a jaunt. How many other unnecessary trips to Australia are they funding?

When I pointed out that if the NHS hadn't funded that one trip relative would have been able to buy millions of pens, she got very angry and said I didn't understand

I used to work for a government organisations that had lots and lots of money. Because we're were funded by levies from the private sector not tax payers money.

So........why don't we charge levies to private organisations that create illness.

So cigarettes and alcohol, car manufacturers, junk food, chemical companies. Not additional tax when purchasing, a fee the companies have to pay to the NHS.

I also think we should means test some things and fine time wasters.

I spent 5 hours in A&E recently with a 4 year old and a head injury. He cut it fairly deeply in a couple of places, was bleeding heavily and had vomited (I thought probably because he'd just had lunch and ice cream and was screaming so much but...). It was hell. We saw a triage nurse about an hour after we arrived who said that yes, he was probably fine and that they probably wouldn't stitch or glue his cuts but that due to his age we'd need to see a doctor.

Should I have taken him? Possibly not but how I was supposed to be sure. The advice from the First Aider where he cut himself was go to A&E. Probably wasn't helped by the fact that my Grandmother had just died because she ignored her symptoms until it was too late...turns out her stomach ache was an ulcer and a hole in her bowel. By the time she got help, she had sepsis and despite emergency surgery and antibiotics died 36 hours after being diagnosed.

They should put boxes for voluntary contributions in all the waiting rooms. My children’s schools ask for voluntary contributions now so why shouldn’t the NHS?

Our local maternity department do just that. After every scan they rattle the donations tin loudly. I asked and they said that most people put something in.