Horror I witnessed last night NHS

[ElisabethZott]

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

The main issue in the NHS is staffing, no one seems to want to invest in paying staff fair wages or in sorting out the fundamental issues that would help retention a hundred fold. Until that's addressed more money is absolutely pointless, Steve is spending millions on AI before there is even a cohesive, reliable and usable IT service ffs.

I phone 111 yesterday over 16yo ds who had been ill for 4 days with headache and stomach pain and then couldn't sit up for the pain.
The triage said that they had a huge number of calls, and it could be some time before They called back, probably 1-2hours. After 90minutes I got a call not from a doctor, but to reassure me that he was still on the list, and I would get a call, and check he hadn't deteriorated. The doctor called just under 2 hours from the original call.

They gave him a face to face appointment at 5.30 at the out of hours. I hadn't been there before, but they have good directions to follow.
As we walked into the surgery, he seemed much better and I was thinking maybe I'd overreacted. As we talked to the doctor he suddenly deteriorated by fainting and then vomiting. She spent the next hour really stabilising him and checking him as much as possible, and phoned the hospital. She offered an ambulance, but I reckoned we would be as quick by car.

We got to (paed) A&E at about 8pm.
It was as empty as I've ever seen it at any time, let alone a Saturday night.

He was immediately put into a cubicle, and a doctor saw him straight away. They tried a couple of things, which ended with him vomiting. They talked about admitting but, but decided to put him on a drip first and see if that worked. When he came off, they asked him if he'd rather be admitted, or go home and manage at home. He said home, so they told him they had to do checks first, but if he passed those we could go.
The out of hours doctor phoned while we were there to see how he was getting on and ask if we had any questions, or anything she could do.
We got home about 3am.

It was the best 111, out of hours, and A&E experience I've had in three children. (Ds is my youngest)

Stopping fraud in government? We all know how much money the Tories have funnelled to their own friends via fraudulent or shady means so far - that could have been used already.

The number of GPs has risen from 39k in 2000 to 55k in 2021. In proportion, that's far more than the increase in population.

The real problem is that the number of full time equivalent GPs has risen at a much smaller rate, which is because so many GPs are now working only part time hours.

No surprise really. Pay GPs more and they can work fewer hours but earn the same. At the same time, impose "tax the rich" policies, and GPs decide it's not worth working an extra shift if their earnings are over £100k as they face a 62% punitive marginal tax rate on the extra shift earnings (plus pension tax charges too!).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/462235/general-practitioners-employment-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

I also live in a town in Cheshire. I have never witnessed this, but perhaps I've never been during busy times, I don't know.

It is true, the NHS is on its knees.

I am currently on an " urgent list " waiting for a hysterectomy. There's nothing urgent about if, judging by how long I've been waiting, I'm sad to say.

So you really think a Labour Government will wave a magic wand and make it better overnight?

The problem is that the NHS is hopelessly disorganized. No-one talks to anyone else, and the paperwork is horrendous. I've had THREE recent experiences of this, where the wrong medication was dispensed, people got forgotten about - you name it. Fortunately, in all cases, the patients had assertive advocates or god knows what would have happened. This isn't a criticism of the clinical staff but of the cack-handed admin processes.

I was just coming on to comment that a friend who was in the forces said similar - that conditions in her army hospital in a Not Nice Place were far superior to her local A&E in the U.K.

Not saying that armed forces should have to suffer worse conditions of course, but it does put it into perspective!

That’s it? That’s what you’re relying on to fix the NHS?

You do realise Labour has donors aka ‘friends’, every party has waste. Go back to your PFI for billions in funds to private sector.

These are empty words, so much of it covers up the issue we face with a healthcare model set up at a very different time.

Plus the refusal to acknowledge how unhealthy the population is. No one posts about how to address our lack of health. And not ‘someone else’ has to fix it either.

Thé NHS was not originally designed to deal with the workload or complexity of cases that now exist. Modern medicine has made some incredible, miraculous progress but if we look at treatment of cancer, transplants, the financial and care burdens were not part of that original NHS vision. Equally, treatment of long term conditions eg diabetes with its possible complications, heart disease, dementia.

The NHS needs a complete top to bottom review and overhaul. The needs of the population it is now trying to treat has changed significantly, as has the scope. It’s not as simple as politicians driving it into the ground.

Absolutely!

OP I hope your Mum continues to recover.
It's shameful, in a rich country, that our healthcare has come to this.

Sadly it’s a perfect storm. 1) a victim of its own success: treating highly complex conditions with expensive treatments 2) desperately understaffed due to poor workforce planning 3) a political football: failure on all sides of the political spectrum 4)an ageing population 5) desperately underfunded and badly run support services such as MH, social care and GP services 6) an exhausted and demoralised workforce post pandemic where the “pyramid “ of expertise is the wrong way round. In other words lots of cheaper unqualified HCAs who are fabulous but not trained or paid enough for what they are doing. Not enough shop floor experienced nurses to role model good care. 7) Firefighting care: so preventative medicine can’t be prioritised as staff too busy firefighting the critical patients. 8) Poor management and wastage of resources on nonsense initiatives I’ve been a nurse for 30+ years and it’s desperate.

The NHS is a mess
People are living longer, mental health services are piss poor so once people reach breaking point to the extent that they’re sectioned or hospitalised, they’re discharged into the community with no help or follow on care and the cycle starts again
Social care is none existent which is causing bed blocking

You can’t see a GP, so people are gonna present to hospital because unfortunately people aren’t medically trained to know whether their condition is life threatening or not. We had a walk in centre in our area, they made that 111 appointment only, then moved the actual walk in centre right next to A&E, half the time they just send you straight through to the A&E or paeds where relevant. Throwing money at a failing system will not do anything, it’s time we as a collective admitted that this NHS is not gonna improve and start looking at other models used by other countries, there’s no point in treating the NHS like a golden egg when it’s a complete sinkhole

I think it depends on the hospital. I had to go to A and E recently due to heart problems. Got there at 7am and was dealt with quickly. Was on a ward by early afternoon as I needed to be kept in overnight. I was well enough to go home the next day but they said that the drs. don't often do ward visits at the weekend so there are hardly any people sent home. It was only when I insisted that there must be a heart Dr. in the hospital and that I'd like to be discharged that they got him to come and look at my notes and for him to say that yes I was well enough to go home. Otherwise I would have been in kept in until Monday when someone else in A and E could have needed my bed.

There are incredible developments. The NHS is successful in that way. But it brings the problem how how to fund expensive care.

Plus other health issues you raise

Idk what the answer is but starting with some realistic thinking based on facts is a start

I reccommend sending a photo when asking for a GP appointment, not a selfie, but of the 'area' that is bothering you. I did and had a face to face...not with a gp but a practitioner nurse. Better than nothing.

We have a walk in centre here and it's very hit an miss unfortunately. I went last year with what I now know was a Bartholins cyst and the nurse was asking me questions in the waiting room in front of other patients and got the arse when I said I wanted privacy. She then told me there was nothing they could do and sent me to A&E where I was asked what I was doing there as I should have been at the walk in centre!

I also went this year with a broken foot (I didn't know it at the time) and it was better, although I wasn't overly impressed at being told to walk to X-ray when I could hardly walk! If anything like that happens again I will get DH to stay with me - they still have signs up about no one waiting with a patient but after DH left I realised I was the only one stupid enough to wait on my own. To be fair I was only there a couple of hours and the nurse was great (unlike the obnoxious idiot in X-ray) but they need to understand people do need someone with them. Unfortunately we have virtual fracture clinic hear and it went downhill from then!

Would love to know which hospital this is. My strong suspicion is that jewels in NHS crowns are kept polished. And backwaters like our county hospital are the worst.
But all the same, nice to hear of a good experience

Yes. Would that it were as simple as merely changing a government.

@iloveeverykindofcat one bit of NHS not knowing what another bit is doing or has done seem part of the course.

Worse still IL and DP have found results just filed - no-one looked at them at all - everything been done but the last step - of looking and deciding if treatment is needed. Dsis has this pre covid for one of her kids - no-one look at x-ray and gave 18 month of treatment that had no hope of working with a slightly less common presentation that had actual need operation at later age with less chance of success - notes disappeared at mention of complaint.

Dad just gout out of hospital was told would have table anti biotics for another week - hospital gave none - GP and district nurse had no information about it and insisted not necessary - nearly ended up with Dad back in hospital - parents had to fight to avoid - and emergency prescription of anti - biotics was sudden,y rushed though - as the infection flared up.

Communication can be dire.

exactly this! a vote for the Tories at the next election will be the end of the NHS. Please think carefully re tactical voting to keep them out and do not believe their lies. Its all lies and spin

@3dogsandarabbit there are a number of consultants who think that all medicine needs to be made a 7 day service, it would make the whole thing a lot more efficient.

I agree the whole thing is badly organised, and causes a lot of waste. I also think that we need some more lateral thinking about how to deal with overworked/stressed staff. Instead of letting them go on into the sunset why not let them do a 6 month stint of low stress work. My DH recently had to wait a week for a blood test to test for something urgent, why not get blood test clinics staffed by nurses/drs who just need a boring 9-5 for a bit as a sabatical.

I'll be flamed but for a non profit organisation, which is what we all say we want the NHS to remain I think on the whole, the salaries/pensions/annual leave and sick pay are reasonable, it's the working conditions which are bad and need to be improved. The only caveat to this is junior Drs who I think need more rapid salary progression to make up for their 48 hour week.

I know this isn’t the point of the thread but anaphylaxis is a category 1 call and will be prioritised. Please DO NOT ask someone experiencing anaphylaxis to walk to the car to drive to hospital as this could be fatal. Lie them flat, or sitting up if they find it easier to breathe that way. They should not move.

@ElisabethZott you mention steroids and antihistamines but not adrenaline. Was this given? Allergic reactions can be unpredictable so I would urge you to make a GP appointment for your mum to get epipens (if they weren’t give to you in hospital).

I hope she feels better soon and that you are both over the shock.

That's probably because Scotland's population has grown at a much slower rate in recent years than England's. I've just done a quick bit of 'back of the envelope' maths and according to my calculations Scotland's population has increased by 8.6% since 1997 and England's by 16.65%, so that's almost double.

I was recently in a life threatening situation, I went via out of hours then the next day via my GP who called the hospital and had me sent straight to the surgical ward. The system worked as it was supposed to and although I was very ill I didn't need to go to A&E and if I had I may not have had treatment as quickly as needed it.

The baby boomer generation have not paid in enough to support their collective health care and social care needs, no.

neither did the generations before them. If you think about it, when the welfare state for this started in 1945 it started providing free care and state pensions immediately.

to have had any hope of ‘paying enough in’ the system should have only started paying out once those first paying in reached retirement age.

the state supported my grandmother on a final salary index linked pension (teacher) for 32 years of retirement. She spent the same number of years working. No way did she pay in enough for that. She died aged 92 in the 2010.

when state pensions were brought in most people died in their early 70s. Lif expectancy is now well into the 80s.

so the whole system has been in deficit for a long time. Partly a consequence of the NHS treating people and helping them live longer lives.

Baby boomers paid in all their lives but there’s also the question of whether they have paid ENOUGH to cover the costs they are and will generate.

the simple fact is that they haven’t.

this has been known for a long time. Read the Dilnot report from a government commission on health and social care costs published more than a decade ago which set this out clearly.

Dilnot suggested increasing inheritance tax with a cap system to pay for it.

but it’s wildly unpopular with the boomer generation.

Theresa May out some of these plans in her general election campaign in 2018. And did very badly.

boomers think working age people should pay for them. But here simply aren’t enough of us, - when the welfare state stated there was something like 30 workers for every retired person. That’s dropping rapidly and will get to about 5 working people for every pensioner at its worst point.

clearly that’s unsustainable and the tax burden on working people is already at an all time high.

it is very unjust.

but basically either boomers pay more tax or they get crappy health and social care.

we need to have a grown up conversation about how to support the years from 60-90. Full retirement support by others just isn’t sustainable.

we need to start thinking of it in phases, with a longer shift from working full time to fully retired. So older people pay in for longer.

and affluent pensioners should be taxed more on the pensions they receive (higher if retiring early too) AND their assets. Houses, holiday homes. Especially in the south east if you want to sit on all that you should pay more tax on it.