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Original poster

Horror I witnessed last night NHS

811 replies

ElisabethZott · 05/11/2023 07:47

At 3pm yesterday I took my 88 yr old mum to hospital as she had an unexpected, sudden anaphylactic reaction to one of her meds and her tongue and throat swelled up to the extent she was struggling to breathe/talk/ swallow. I drove her there because I knew the ambulance wait can be hours.
I witnessed pure absolute carnage. I worked for the wonderful NHS for 30 years and yesterday I had first hand experience of the struggles the poor staff. I have never seen such a horrendous sight of so many trollies with extremely sick and dying patients lining the corridors. I couldn’t begin to count them but there were dozens and dozens. It’s only early November, I can only say, for your own sakes, unless you have a life threatening condition, do not go to A&E.
The staff were absolutely brilliant but there’s not enough of them. The care and kindness they showed us amazing. DM didn’t join the trolley queue as her airways were compromised so we went to the observation ward where she has stayed on a trolly overnight. All A&E wards were rammed to capacity with people not even having their own bay, they were just squeezed into any available space.
Once mum had steroids and anti histamines and she stabilised ( because they were working at full speed to treat other patients) the staff simply didn’t have to time or capacity to help mum. She was offered no water, no blankets no food ( her tongue swelling had gone down a little and she hadn’t eaten all day ). You can see by the tone of my post I am no way being critical of the fantastic medical team , they were pushed to the limits. I don’t really know the point of this thread except to say I am so worried what’s going to happen when winter starts properly.

Thank you NHS but you too need looking after too because you are really broken and sick

OP posts:
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7
Dumbndumber · 05/11/2023 11:24

It's not just the tories, it's the government in general. Labour were no better last time when I was one of the ones who voted them into power (they started private contracts).
My experience of the NHS has been awful. Their negligence lead to my father's death about 2 weeks ago.

cardibach · 05/11/2023 11:25

EasternStandard · 05/11/2023 09:57

If you want the same line down how much more funding and where from?

Show quote history

Maybe look at how it was achieved last time?

BungleandGeorge · 05/11/2023 11:27

People will come on to say that it’s all about too many managers, or people attending inappropriately but really those things are not the major issue. The major problems are;
lack of staff due to poor pay and conditions and Brexit
poor funding compared to other health systems
use of expensive private services to plug the gaps due to the above eg PFI hospitals, easy and profitable services being sold off

its all due to the governments ideological policies. And I’m not sure labour are any better. Education, health, public services need to be more independent and decisions taken for the good of the users

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

General health
Lastchancechica · 05/11/2023 11:29

ElisabethZott · 05/11/2023 11:11

@YireosDodeAver I was there most of the night and witnessed just one drunk woman who was arrested and taking to police cells. The rest of the patients looked really, really poorly, a lot on oxygen. There seemed to be a lot of people with respiratory problems

I am going to say this and be torched alive.

The new strain of covid is totally debilitating healthy young people this time around. We were ill for six weeks and couldn’t breathe, function. Even healthy teens. Most of my friends have had at least one family member needing medical intervention because of it.

What you are seeing is the tip of the iceberg and it’s going to get really really bad this winter. If you are in any way old, frail or vulnerable the new strain is going to be a challenge. I have been worrying about this for months.

There appears to be a news black out on it, or some watery reference to the new strain presenting differently. It’s horrendous and if you or your family are entitled to a vaccine please do, and minimise the suffering for yourself and the hospitals collapsing over the winter.

EasternStandard · 05/11/2023 11:29

cardibach · 05/11/2023 11:25

Maybe look at how it was achieved last time?

Show quote history

Have you looked?

It is a good idea to look at that realistically but you’ll need to be realistic. You had PFI

No one is going there again.

We still owe billions for off gov book borrowing which is still tax payer funded. You won’t get that again.

UndercoverCop · 05/11/2023 11:31

It's failures and under funding in other departments making it worse, MH crisis a&e because trying to get a MH appointment is impossible, chronic infection feared to be turning to pneumonia a&e because the next GP appt is in 4 weeks so the receptionist advises a&e, adult social care aren't resources to do the discharge assessment and then there are no suitable supported accommodation spaces so a bed is blocked. The NHS A&E is the part of the system that can't say no sorry we're full, so it all piles up there and that's without 111 sending every other caller to a&e

TripleDaisySummer · 05/11/2023 11:32

I can only say, for your own sakes, unless you have a life threatening condition, do not go to A&E.

Dad doesn't want to go to A&E - but the District nurses and GP have a tendency to wait and see and thoroughly documented a decline due to infection and not treat then want to rush him to A&E when it gets critical. It's odd and very frustrating.

NHS needs money which mean more taxes on is all and it needs massive reform - every family member who had anything to do with it in last few years says it needs both - it's not just money though amount of money it needs is massive.

I think Labour are a better bet for that than Tory - despite living in Wales and knowing how badly Welsh Labour run things - but seriously doubt it will be good any time soon but continue to be very patchy - because we have more old people needing more medical help than in mid 90s with New Labour and there is less money.

Lastchancechica · 05/11/2023 11:32

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/generalhealth/4907249-what-is-this-virus-from-hell?page=8&reply=130254346

This is why there are there are so many respiratory patients…

Soapyspuds · 05/11/2023 11:33

It will be interesting to see who people blame 3 years after Labour win the next GE and nothing has improved.

MrShady · 05/11/2023 11:34

Flipdiddle · 05/11/2023 11:04

I feel sorry for the NHS

faced with treating one obese person after another with dodgy knees or difficulty breathing or heart issue or this that and the other

when all it would bloody take is for them to take ownership of their bloody health and look after themselves a bit more

You're making it sound like every obese person is shoving down food and not moving or exercising and all their health issues are caused by their weight

I have hashimotos, am neutropenic and have endometriosis and would have all of those still if I was slim. Yes I'm obese (size 16) but I exercise hard within the limits I have (all 3 of those conditions cause insane fatigue)
Am perfectly capable of doing a 60-90 min spin class

Obesity is much more complicated, long working hours and daily fatigue don't help

UndercoverCop · 05/11/2023 11:35

@Petallove

It’s ridiculous that gps are not open at weekends. That is half the problem.

Ours actually is, is open until 7pm 2 nights, 8pm 2 nights, full day Saturday, 9-3 Sundays (England). I feel very very fortunate.

Lastchancechica · 05/11/2023 11:35

Soapyspuds · 05/11/2023 11:33

It will be interesting to see who people blame 3 years after Labour win the next GE and nothing has improved.

Quite - if anything things are likely to worsen as Labour will sink the economy and over borrow leading to even less money for the NHS. At least there are plentiful jobs and the economy is stable.

MrShady · 05/11/2023 11:35

I should add I wasn't able to exercise at all because of an allergy but the NHS prescribed me a drug despite the insane price of it so I can actually exercise and have a life

SirChenjins · 05/11/2023 11:35

JockTamsonsBairns · 05/11/2023 11:15

Not the experience of my friends and family at all. Although I can only speak for Ninewells and PRI.

Also, health in Scotland is funded via Westminster.

Show quote history

30 years of working for NHSS and I can assure you it’s just as bad. Westminster doesn’t fund NHSS - the SG decides how much to allocate to the NHS and other devolved services. The SNP are solely responsible for the NHS here.

cardibach · 05/11/2023 11:36

Electro79 · 05/11/2023 10:18

Unfortunately the NHS can't be fixed by either the Tories or Labour, I've been a contractor to the NHS and witnessed the core reasons for failure, and they are not easy or paletable to address, you can divide the issue in two.

1/. Lack of enough medical staff, equipment etc to do the job efficiently and provide a good level of care.

Equipment and buildings can quite quickly be addressed, costs money, but doable. However trained, good quality medical staff are harder to come by.

2/. An absurdly large, largely pointless and vastly expensive administration.

This is a sort of self fulfilling, self replicating behemoth of managers, middle managers and other assorted fuckwits, they cost us billions and do very little - This is the really hard bit, to fix the NHS you need to stream line the admin and it will result in hundreds of thousands of redundancies and people out of work.

Pouring in more money doesn't fix the problem, as part 2 of the problem absorbs a large ammount of the funds to grow itself, I liken it to giving money to a poor african country, where the dictator pockets most of the funds and the people see very little.

Money poured into the NHS doesn't find its way to Dr, Nurse, Patient, it just germinates more fuckwits, Core Strategy Managers, Patient Experience Managers, and heaven preserve us, the cess pit of them all, Human fecking Resources.

You’re talking nonsense about management. Management makes up 2% of the NHS workforce, compared to about 9.5% of the general workforce. The NHS is not overmanaged.
you are correct that there are staff shortages and it will take years to train them. Now, just think for a moment - who has been in charge of numbers trained for the last decade or so? Why are we short? No, voting them out won’t solve the problem immediately, but they are making it worse so and at least we would be able to start on solving the staffing crisis.

cocksstrideintheevening · 05/11/2023 11:37

J3llycat · 05/11/2023 07:50

We need an election now, if not sooner. Hope your mother is feeling better 💐

Can someone tell me please how labour will fix it?

Lastchancechica · 05/11/2023 11:39

cardibach · 05/11/2023 11:36

You’re talking nonsense about management. Management makes up 2% of the NHS workforce, compared to about 9.5% of the general workforce. The NHS is not overmanaged.
you are correct that there are staff shortages and it will take years to train them. Now, just think for a moment - who has been in charge of numbers trained for the last decade or so? Why are we short? No, voting them out won’t solve the problem immediately, but they are making it worse so and at least we would be able to start on solving the staffing crisis.

Show quote history

In my personal experience all of the British trained medics go straight into private practice doing the bare minimum NHS work. The NHS is left to overseas medics looking for visas and lives here. The disparity in conditions and pay is substantial. Unless you have a comfortable work/life experience you are going to move elsewhere as soon as possible.

Sethos · 05/11/2023 11:41

vdbfamily · 05/11/2023 08:25

This is not even ' winter pressures' any more, it is all year round in some places.
The problem is not A&E but the flow through the hospital. This is getting worse and worse.
In many areas, patients no longer have access to social work assessments whilst in hospital so if they need support on discharge and have no family to provide that, they have to wait for' health' funded care short term until they can be assessed by ' social care' at home, to see if they can afford to pay for their own care.
In our area, even if a patient already has a social services funded package of care, if they need an extra call, social care will not increase the package and they have to sit and wait with everyone else for a health funded package, to be reassessed once home!! This is a total bottleneck which means everyone sits in hospital beds waiting for the same limited care, which then gets reassessed when home.
The amount of families and patients who will choose to remain in an acute hospital bed awaiting a few weeks of free care rather than speak directly to an agency and arrange their own discharge is astonishing. And then they get cross with the ward when their relative gets a hospital acquired infection and does on the ward.
There are also many families who block the discharge of their elderly relative, usually parent, by refusing to engage with any plans as they think it is time for them to go to a care home, even when the relative has capacity and does not consent. At any one time in my hospital, there are several patients for whom this is the situation.
Yes....I do realize that politics plays into this too but my request would be that we're also take some responsibility to become part of the solution ourselves. There is only so much money can buy.
Try and have these conversations with your families. If you have a parent that is really struggling now, make a plan with them before they have a crisis. Arrange through the GP for a community Occupational Therapy assessment to look at making them as safe and independent as they can be at home and advise re care package if required.
Ask social services to assess their needs and see if they meet criteria for funded care whist they are NOT in hospital.
If they are in hospital and have over £23.500.00, just arrange the care privately and don't encourage them to block a bed just so they can get a few weeks free care. It may be your parent stick outside hospital in an ambulance next time whilst 10% of the beds are occupied with well people waiting for their free care.
And even more radically than all of that, maybe, of you have the space, take them back to your house to recuperate for a few days, or move in with them for a week or 2 to keep an eye and help as needed.
Yes, we all have busy lives but there is such an expectation that the state provide everything in our culture and it does shock me. Our staff from Indian and Philipino and other cultures where their elders are honoured and respected, are often horrified by the way our families do not look after each other.
Please make a plan and take any preventative measures you can to avoid unnecessary hospitalisation. There are enough beds to treat the sick in this country. There are not enough beds for the NHS Acute hospitals to be treated like hotels. Personally, I think if well patients were charged £500 a night to stay in hospital once they were fit to leave, they might find a solution a bit quicker.

Spot on.

dickdarstardlymuttley · 05/11/2023 11:42

BungleandGeorge · 05/11/2023 11:27

People will come on to say that it’s all about too many managers, or people attending inappropriately but really those things are not the major issue. The major problems are;
lack of staff due to poor pay and conditions and Brexit
poor funding compared to other health systems
use of expensive private services to plug the gaps due to the above eg PFI hospitals, easy and profitable services being sold off

its all due to the governments ideological policies. And I’m not sure labour are any better. Education, health, public services need to be more independent and decisions taken for the good of the users

There needs to be a national conversation about what the public want from the NHS

PaminaMozart · 05/11/2023 11:42

We also need to take more responsibility for our own health. When more than half the population is overweight and obese for example that puts massive pressure on an already overworked system - but no-one likes to be told that.

Very true.

Not only would this ease pressure on the NHS and let HCPs focus on people who have accidents and unpreventable conditions, but it would increase most people's quality of life tremendously.

The amount of self-harm so many people inflict on themselves by not taking care of their most precious possession - their health!! - is incomprehensible to me.

J3llycat · 05/11/2023 11:42

@SalviaDivinorum and if you think voting tory will change anything after they've had 13 years to turn it around you are deluded. After the pure madness we've all witnessed, I think voting the same people again for a different outcome is quite literally insanity. Do not forget the who ultimately funds the Senedd. We need a party to outline true positive health and social care reform which doesn't play into the hands of private pockets. I think the tories have demonstrated they are not capable of this task.

Nippi · 05/11/2023 11:47

TheRealLilyMunster · 05/11/2023 08:34

The NHS is broken all the way through, but added to that pressure is the fact that a lot of people insist on seeing a medical professional for every single little thing.

I work in a GP surgery, and you would not believe what some of the ridiculous things A&E discharge papers say people attend for.

In primary care, I can't tell you how many people call insisting their little Billy is seen immediately because he has been sick once, or a grown adult insists on an urgent appointment because they have a splinter in their finger.

There seems to be no common sense anymore, with so many people unaware of the basics of looking after themselves without rushing to call the doctor at every sneeze. Perhaps at school they should teach the basics of what to do when you have a cold.

No wonder there are no appointments left for the people who actually do need to see a doctor.

You only have to read posts on MN to see this. Minor, trivial conditions and people wanting OOH or A&E because they can't see a GP instantly. Common sense over health seems lacking in many cases.

Having said that it's one part of a problem with multiple causes. Poor recruitment and retention of HCPs is a huge part. Management of hospitals, failures in primary care, huge increase in demand, social care inadequate.

A new government could throw billions at it and not much would change.

Leakyboot · 05/11/2023 11:48

There's never been any workforce planning in the NHS. Ever. I remember going to a meeting with the DH and the BMA. A colleague (NHS consultant) pointed out that planning what you wanted a service to look like in 5, 10, 15 years whatever and then educate the right number of people to provide that service, would be the way to go. There was much shrugging of shoulders and 'it's too hard' was the response. This was when John Reid was heath secretary (Blair era). Nothing has changed.

BarqsHasBite · 05/11/2023 11:51

TheThingIsYeah · 05/11/2023 08:12

First reply was straight in there with "Thank the Tories"

The government spends about £200bn a year of YOUR money on the NHS. Do you think an extra £50bn will fix it? Or £100bn?

If so, great, but be prepared for some hefty tax hikes after the next GE.

Edited

Don’t forget the extra £350million a week that they’re spending post-Brexit! 😃

cardibach · 05/11/2023 11:54

EasternStandard · 05/11/2023 11:29

Have you looked?

It is a good idea to look at that realistically but you’ll need to be realistic. You had PFI

No one is going there again.

We still owe billions for off gov book borrowing which is still tax payer funded. You won’t get that again.

Show quote history

PFI wasn’t a good policy. It also wasn’t the only thing that was done. Sufficient staff, reasonable pay and conditions, enough facilities/supplies. Yes, it’s pricey. But it’s worth it.

Swipe left for the next trending thread