Can we rely on the nhs anymore?

[Nc4post99]

I was reading a thread about a poor lady who’s been diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer, she’d been fobbed off with something for a long time before her diagnosis, got diagnosed in May and still nothing has been done.

there was another thread about a woman’s sister a while ago who was deathly ill losing weight and not taken seriously, i think in the end it was late stage cancer.

I was reading that our healthcare system is one of the worst now in developed nations. It’s such a sorry state of affairs. And 40k excess deaths last year. The GPs at my surgery have all lost their licences to ‘gross malpractice’ for sitting on referrals, refusing appointments. I know they are probably an outlier but all in all it’s just a really concerning picture

Then there is social care, with an older mother and a parent myself I find these things on my mind. I’m quite worried about what the future brings, things being missed, misdiagnosed, waiting lists. I’m genuinely worried one of us gets ill, needs the health service and it’s just not there the way it needs to be.

Have you completely quit caffeine and coffee? I had a persistent UTI and it was coffee causing it. My doctor said many of the patients in her urinary clinic are cured by cutting out caffeine completely.

I think there will always be those stories but the NHS also is amazing in the care it provides for a much wider population than many other countries with heavily privatised systems.

I’m not originally from the UK. I have a long term condition that is manageable but is not easy to diagnose and requires daily medication for life. I belong to a Facebook group for people with my condition in my home country (a wealthy one that lots of people tend to like to visit). People there are having a horrible time accessing care, getting diagnosed, and affording treatment. The 6 tablets I take every day cost about £3000 a month there. People are just not taking them, taking much less than they should, going to other countries to buy random generic versions that are unlicensed. There are severe medication shortages in my home country and there are a few other countries where the medication just doesn’t exist. I feel very lucky being in the UK where I had a relatively fast diagnosis (during COVID) and my meds are completely affordable.

Before I moved here, I waited 2 years for a biopsy when cancer was suspected as I had lost my job and insurance and i didn’t have the roughly £1000 the biopsy would cost. Both my parents had serious delays in starting cancer treatment (my dad a year and my mum 3 months) due to doctors faffing about and insurance pre-authorisations taking forever. My dad ended up with stage 4 and died 3 weeks after it was confirmed due to it being missed. Still cost a small fortune though! It’s not perfect in lots of places and I think the numbers don’t tell the whole story. People get treated faster in some cases (not everyone especially if you don’t have the really good insurance) but they lose their homes and marriages break up due to stress from debts. The long term costs are great. The NHS isn’t perfect, but nothing is. But you couldn’t pay me to move back to a largely privatised system.

take it you’re from the US? I’ve got a friend from America and granted she’s from a privileged family and she says the opposite. She argues that outcomes in the US are better for those with insurance than outcomes are here across the board. The nhs though is one of the worst healthcare systems in the world. There has to be some middle ground between the us system and ours.

im glad you got a fast diagnosis during covid, my dad died during it because of care.

It's so sad. Referrals but being done, 12 months waits. I'm waiting to see consultant re my back. My whole case: x Ray, mri wait etc has been a disgrace. The pain I've been in....

Just remember where the blame lies - and it’s not with the staff.

NHS staff hate what has happened.

I’ve worked in private healthcare and it’s okay for elective surgery’s but for anything else I would pass on it. When things go wrong they are quick to turf you out for the NHS to put things right, believe me calling an ambulance at 2 am to get a patient picked up to be taken to A&E because there were no ITU bed in the hospital, the consultant lives miles away and the patient is really poorly and you haven’t got the resources you need to care for an acutely unwell patient is frightening. Yep will pass on the private hospital if you are seriously ill!

For the most part I agree, but I keep coming back to my GP surgery and what caused them to be struck off

So basically we’re f’d either way?

Last night at 6pm I called 111 for some advice. On that advice I took ds to A&E. We were triaged within ten minutes, saw a doctor within an hour and a half . Saw a surgeon ten minutes later. Saw a specialist surgeon ten minutes after that. Within the next fifteen minutes we saw an anaesthetist and he had his pre med. At 11pm he was in theatre having surgery that would save him from life changing consequences.

Every single person we met was unfailingly kind and professional. We are home safe and recovering.

I am deeply deeply grateful to them.

HOWEVER- there was one doctor in paediatric A&E last night and the waiting room was so full there weren’t enough seats. People were patiently waiting but tempers were beginning to fray and the staff were clearly very very busy.

I walked around to the main A&E at 10pm to buy some water. I noticed a very chic lady with a head injury sat in a wheel chair. I remembered her because her outfit was so lovely and incongruous with the waiting room where people were sat and were lying in the floor.

DS was discharged at 10 am and we left via the main A&E: The chic lady was still there. On a Tuesday night.

We have excellent people working in the NHS. Skilled, compassionate and dedicated to patient care. People who take time to explain things and nurses who will hold your hand and hug you while you cry.

They don’t deserve to be understaffed, fighting for resources and badly paid.

I think that's true in a lot of cases, but not all.

I had a long term pain problem. My GP's only suggestion was to take ibuprofen as needed. Which was every day. There was no suggestion of a referral, and when I asked it was refused.
Thankfully I moved jobs to one where they have private healthcare and private GPs. I got a referral, saw a consultant who works part time NHS and part time private. He diagnosed and treated me (a very simple treatment actually) and I am no longer in horrendous daily pain. He said it was a treatment he gives relatively regularly at the NHS hospital where he works (so it wasn't something the nhs wouldn't fund), but my GP refused to refer me.

Having to fill in an online registration form which would not submit without a landline no for the next of kin is ridiculous and what i had to do two weeks ago. The next of kin in this case ditched her landline a while ago. There was no multiple choice You had to put a number in and no you couldnt substitute her work or mobile no cos the form had already asked for those so they had been filled in. Phoned for help but in the time it took for the phone to be answered the form timed out and i lost all the information i had put in. Told them i was not prepared to go through this ridiculousness again So the patient (who has had a stroke) went to the hospital and they filled in a paper form.

There was also a online medical questonaire which went on for ages and would have literally taken all day. Information they could have got from the GP. Since when was the patient also their secretary

This was a private provider the NHS sent the patient to. The actual appointment was this week The patient has been waiting years for a knee replacement At previous appointments he has had x rays and told the knee replacement badly needs doing. At THIS appointment with the private provider he had another x ray and was told that his knee is a bit worn but doesnt need replacing. And also told the knee problem was caused by the stroke but the knee problem proceeds the stroke. Now has to go back to the GP

Id have a bit more respect if they said We cant/dont want to do it rather than use stalling tactics and gaslighting.

I called my GP surgery at 8am on Monday 19th June, saw the nurse at 2.20 who wanted me to have blood tests and a scan of my abdomen.

Bloods were done the next day and the scan is on Friday 7th July.

I definitely can’t complain about any of that.

I’m in Wales btw

Glad you got sorted, and continue to do so.

However, your post sounds like medical tourism and probably part of the problem.

The only people to blame here are the people sitting in government, the people the public voted in.

Almost everyone that works in the nhs is trying their best. I know this because I work within a specialised clinic with some fantastic consultants who work ridiculous hours trying their hardest to help patients who are referred into us. I have seen these consultants who are supposed to work Monday to Friday work at 11pm at night or 7am on a Sunday to ensure we are pushing things through for our patients.

While I appreciate not every area or consultant is the same we are fighting a losing battle. We don’t have the staff or hours in the day to keep up with the amount of work we have coming in. I myself have worked an additional 8 hours so far this week that I won’t be paid for (because my department can’t afford overtime currently) but it needed done and it’s only Wednesday. The NHS is scarily underfunded and understaffed

My disdain for incompetent GP’s, and the Nhs as a whole has been going on way before the Tories got in.

I believe we now have a two tier health system . Those who can afford to go private and those who can't will have to take their chances . I do think however once diagnosed and in the system the service and care are great .

Give it a rest fgs.

The NHS was never going to make every single person happy. There’s always going to be someone that finds or has a problem with everything but to someone it will be amazing from start to finish however it has dramatically got worse since the tories got in and you cannot say that isn’t true

I have severe long covid. bed bound for 2 years, extreme pain etc. and I feel completely traumatised by trying to get help through the NHS. I feel pretty phobic of hospitals and doctors now and have zero trust in them.

They were amazing when my dad had a stroke.
They are good now as my daughter has recently been diagnosed with MS.
But it's the same hospital for both: St. George's in London. Maybe it depends on where you are? I know my son feels like he's hitting his a head against a brick wall at times (though they were great when he broke a couple bones in a motorbike recently).

That sounds very extreme and was probably a result of an incredibly toxic culture within that particular practice. I have left medicine (as the system had collapsed around me and I no longer felt I could work safely and to the standard I demanded of myself with the resources available to me) and know many many gps... none have been struck off and none would work as yours did and we would report from within a colleague who did, but I can see how an isolated practice with a small number of burntout drs who have all given up could end up in that state.. it horrifies me that it could but I can see how, in very poor circumstances, knowing the mental.state of many gps... 99 % will have the integrity to keep going to their best ability or leave before they cant do it any more, but a few will fail.

Agree with you that it’s got drastically worse (as have most things including general quality of life) since the toris

also agree with @hattie43 on the 2 tier healthcare system of those who can pay and those who can’t and have to ‘chance it’ and o really think chancing it is quite apt here, it does appear you roll the dice with the quality of care you get from the nhs (if any)

Most of my personal issues happened under labour. My families issues have all been under Tory.

I actually think the system needs decoupling away from politicians from any side. Then individuals be held culpable for their errors - and the money follow the patient. If one GP is rubbish move - round my way, that’s not permitted. If one hospital can’t see you for 6 months, another hospital can take you. And so on.

Can’t be run as a private entity - nor as the nationalized system it is now - neither system works.

No. I'm currently in the middle of a mental health episode that has left me in a very dark scary place. I messaged them on the online system like you're supposed to and got a text saying someone will phone on Friday afternoon. There seems to be so much talk in society about asking for mental health support when needed but turns out no one is listening.

That was meant to say messaged them at the weekend