Thread 20 Sunak and the Winter of Discontent

[DuncinToffee]

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@Notonthestairs

At least in an ambulance there is someone watching over them

That's ok for them, but what about the others lying in pain somewhere waiting hours for an ambulance. Surely it's better that as many people as possible get "some care" rather than some getting none at all. I'm sure being on a corridor in a hospital with at least "some" occasional care from nurses etc., is better than lying on a pavement in the rain for hours being "looked after" by bystanders.

If leaving patients in A&E regardless of circumstances after an arbitrary period of time was genuinely the preferred and safest course of action then I would imagine Trusts would have been doing it months ago. So why now?

I am not overlooking 500 dying a week because of care delays and obviously my preferred course of action would be for everyone that needs an ambulance to get one in a timely fashion according to their needs and to be brought in to A&E.

So why now?

Probably because they’re so busy firefighting that no thought has gone into it. And they’re doing what they’ve always done. Equally the trust isn’t responsible for the patient if they’re in the ambulance so there might be an element of back covering. I think @taxguru is right.

I agree in principle but I was in A and E about 18 months ago and waited on chair (with arms so you couldn't lie down) for 15 hours. It was hell. I was seen twice in that time but was not allowed to remain on the day bed I was put on for blood tests etc.

It was truly truly awful. I felt utterly abandoned. The only time they gave me any attention was when I lay on the floor and they told me to get up.

No one expects to have to take two days worth of camping equipment to A and E with them.

The whole thing is so terribly distressing.

As someone watching this play out from somewhere with a functioning health service, why the fuck are the people of Britain marching on Downing Street and demanding action? Why are you accepting this shit show?

Why indeed? I suspect because a lot of the public don’t seem to care, or can’t be bothered because it’s not affecting them right now, or truly don’t believe the Government are to blame? It’s amazing how many people think this is how it should be and are happy to put up with it! 🤦‍♀️

I think a loooot of people think it is karma for the fat, the old beyond their expected lifespan, the unfit, or the undeserving poor.

I will say what I said at the start of these threads (many years ago now)
Until there is significant suffering for the majority of people nothing will change
It takes once on a generation trauma to affect real social change

People are tired. They are on low wages needing government handouts to pay the bare minimum of their bills. They are needing food and heating banks, access to food kitchens just to be able to sleep and work.

People don't have the energy needed to fight a government that is supposed to be putting the best interests of the people they are supposedly serving first.

This government has ripped up the social contract it has with the British people and is now removing the thin veneer of common decency, responsibility and integrity it has worn badly over the last few years and revealing it's true colours. People have become used to poor governance and struggle to see a better way forward. We cling to the dream of democracy, hoping that we get a general election to remove the vermin before too much damage is done. Meanwhile the tories are intent on stripping the country bare.

So why now?

If I had to guess it’s because as well as bearing the brunt of it the ambulance service is also the last line between the hospitals looking even worse than they do now. Working to the letter and agreed targets means shifting the problem on and that will continue up the chain I imagine. It’s shit for colleagues working in the hospitals but what else can they do?

it’s brutal but every patient they get to that’s beyond help is brushed under the carpet in the community rather than under the scrutiny of a hospital setting.

Sadly I think you’re right. Any notion of freedoms fought for in WWI & II is too abstract now. I’m pretty sure that’s what contributed to society in recent generations.

WTF is wrong with British media? The state of the NHS should be headline news on every media outlet. Instead the current headline news on each website is:

The Times: Don't ditch childcare reforms

The Independent: China threat over travel rules

BBC: Teen faced terror charges

The Daily Mail: Burglar threatened to stab me

ITV News: Pele's coffin reaches final resting place

Sky News: Pele's coffin carried through streets

The Guardian: No 10 says it will be ‘very difficult’ for some people to access NHS this winter

The Mirror: Hundreds dying every day, inside the crisis engulfing the NHS

Just The Guardian and the The Mirror leading with the fast approaching collapse of the NHS.

WTF is wrong with British media?

Most of it’s in cahoots with the Tories.

A very simple question and no answer

Asked if Rishi Sunak would be happy for his own family to only use the NHS, the Prime Minister's spokesman says that it would not be in the public interest to answer questions about his use of private healthcare.

@Fladdermus tbf the NHS has been crumbling all year (well longer actually but 21/22 has been a complete horror show and getting worse) and thoroughly ignored by the media. I dread to think what would force their hand to report on it properly. Foreign reporting on it possibly? Although globally countries are experiencing their own issues too.

Seems like a pandemic is a good way to haemorrhage staff unsurprisingly.

Not in the public interest? More like not in his interests for the public to hear the truth.

@Fladdermus I think the answer is that in the main the owners of the UK media are Tory supporting billionaires.
Who knew that this winter would be an even worse struggle than the winters of the covid years ?
I've heard hints of a spring GE. Let's hope it coincides with the spring energy bill hikes to show what needs to be done.

Ambulance service unions were warning about the escalating crisis back in July - whilst the Government were focusing on leadership race. Months of government lost.

I'm beyond furious.

I do see why ambulances will have to leave patients in A&E waiting rooms/corridors and move on. My knee jerk reaction was, I realise now, in response to a recent family incident. The idea that a patient with dementia and a head injury will be left to wait alone in an overwhelmed A&E upset me. But this is where we are.

Agreed.

But I also think newspapers are reacting to what we click on - and if you don't need the NHS much maybe people scroll past. They probably sell more advertising space/papers by writing a gazillion Royal Family related stories.

I think it had done in the past due to the fact housing has appreciated etc and so people have stuff to conserve.

However that's changed over the past few decades and so boring has changed with it.

It isn't just the emergency side of the NHS that is broken. In November my GP referred mto neurology because of symptoms that might be Parkinson's Disease. I have now found I am on a waiting list for a routine neurology appointment which could b a 65 week wait!
Of course I know I'm not in a life threatening situation but having to wait that long isn't doing my mental health much good. I'm also a a stage where I need to make decisions about life ( like when to retire) and it is hard too do that when I may or may not be facing a significantly live changing disease!
I am wondering about trying to get an initial appointment privately but I know I will need some scans which I can't afford so it would depend on whether that would mean I could get in an NHS scan queue more quickly as to whether it would be of any benefit.
And that of course means that people who can't afford even an initial appointment would be further back in the scan queue which doesn't seem fair either.
But 65 weeks!!! How do you deal with that?

I don't know what to say. 14 months before an initial appointment is just terrible.

I know someone who has wasted 4 years for a back operation
She is now on morphine patches, can't work and ends up in a&e regularly

Nobody signed up for this...It’s obscene.”

NHS staff are forced to examine patients in store cupboards and on hospital corridors, by holding up sheets.

A neurosurgeon describes the effect that providing "the worst A&E care he has seen" is having on colleagues.

@GlobalPlayer.

twitter.com/thenewsagents/status/1610325116294160386?s=46&t=FAP1EJaJRSpEQ2Agwtq2aQ

Not in the public interest? More like not in his interests for the public to hear the truth.

Nail

Head.