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

Same here in Wales, run by Welsh Labour, but some posters seem pretty ignorant about the devolved nations. It's all the Tories' fault. Well yes in England it is!

To those saying ‘we need an election’, do you think Labour will solve this?

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.

In fact, it's worse than that. A GP friend of mine says she daren't mention weight unless the patient brings it up themselves, because she's so afraid of getting an official complaint made against her. So the obese patient consulting her about joint pain gets no advice or assistance with weight loss - which is what they really need. Instead, they get exercises and anti-inflammatories and walk out thinking that it's not their weight that's the underlying issue.

@EasternStandard hilarious that they identify as labour lefties when really saying what thatcher said when they think they are criticising it.

What have the tories spent the % missing on instead? Er paying off pfi at 80 billion for labour's 13 billion investment perhaps? Furlough and uc spiralling costs? The triple lock?

Solving the problem? Not in the short term.

Stopping the current trajectory towards privatisation? Yes. Totally.

A surprising number of no shows are not as you might expect, frail, elderly patients, or those who couldn't get through on the phone. They're across all age ranges, usually regular attenders who simply forgot or felt the appointment was no longer warranted and didn't bother to phone or cancel online the appointment they managed to book online.
I know this because over the last decade I've heard the same reasons from them when subsequently seen and questioned, again and again.
Very rarely are they in hospital (I often check). Extremely rarely are they actually dead.
It's also highly unlikely that a receptionist would not cancel an appointment when asked to do so. It makes their lives so much easier when they are like gold dust.

Some NHS services are better and cheaper when provided by private services though. For example in our area, you can order a sexual health test kit online. The swabs are posted back and results provided within 24 hours. That's preferable for many clients and is cheaper. But it's provided by a private company Should we force young people to go to a clinic or hospital to have a clinical employee undertake a test that can be done at home, just for idealological reasons?

Our health service needs to be smarter, and that might not always mean within the public sector.

I was in an and e last week and was horrified by what I saw. There were patients sitting on the floor, staff seemingly exhausted and often detached from what was going on around them, a constant influx of more patients and this never eased the entire time. At one point, I heard several staff say, there were 160 patients being treated and more than this again waiting to be assessed and treated.
Im unsure what the answer is as it seems almost un fixable and makes me so sad and terrified for the future. My entire family have serious illness and chronic health issues which mean our lives are entwined with hospitals. I dare not think about how these services will be in the future when we need care.
I’m just wondering if any of the top people who previously ran the NHS have, since leaving, actually spoken out about the crisis and what is needed to stop further decline? I don’t think Labour will have the money to throw at it but I cannot contemplate the tories still being in control of something they’ve decimated. But something has to change urgently.

It is a mess at the moment. A&E takes the brunt because other areas are failing. I had to take a child to A&E because he was in terrible pain, tried 111 but had a 20 minute wait to answer. That was on a Sunday evening. A&E was rammed. They saw to the child quickly and were excellent. The volume of people is worrying and I genuinely felt for the staff being run off their feet can only imagine how bad it is on a Friday or Saturday evening.

What about NHS in Wales? People jump to say tories but it is a complex situation and left councils are going broke so not hope there. Also, A & E is not available privately. I would not go to the NHS unless I have an accident. Weekends must be a horror specially on holidays when people drink a lot.

The NHS is a left wing institution. This is how left wing people perform! Trying to blame the performance of 1 million left wing staff on a couple of hundred right wing politicians is funny. Or a typical example of the lack of responsibility left wing people take for anything.

They'll all be part-time. There are now a majority of female GPs and in order to get a decent work/life balance, they don't want to work FT. It's the same with dentists - loads of female dentists but often they only do a handful of clinics per week. Back in the olden days, most GPs and dentists were men who all worked FT.

When I had a hospital consultant ask me to arrange some bloods to be done at GP. I rang the Gp surgery and the receptionist said if a hospital consultant requests a blood test then it should be done at the hospital because they have a bigger budget ! When I told the hospital consultant he said GP Surgeries don't like doing hospital bloods because it "comes off their budget" so now I just go to the hospital if consultant needs me to have bloods otherwise me as the patient gets caught up in their bureaucracy

@Whalewatchers
"Just get private medical care. That or move abroad. NHS can't be fixed."

Ah you're right, hadn't thought of it like that. Fair point I'll pack me bags

(obviously this is how the tories want us all to think so it makes it easier for them to completely dismantle in plain sight 🤩)

"The NHS is a left wing institution. This is how left wing people perform! Trying to blame the performance of 1 million left wing staff on a couple of hundred right wing politicians is funny. Or a typical example of the lack of responsibility left wing people take for anything"

@Anklespraying the fuck?

How do you think Labour will fix it?

Do you honestly think a change of party will bring about a sudden change in the NHS? How would that work? They wont be able to magically employ more staff, build new hospitals, cut waiting lists.

@EasternStandard why do people keep asking this? I don't know, I don't follow labour. All I know is this current government, clearly cannot and will not have the balls to attempt to fix it in a fair way for all, including those who work hard and pay taxes, so why vote them back in to do this job. How do you think the current government will fix this?

Calling for an election of blaming the Tories without offering solutions that don't include "more money" and "more staff" (neither of which are actual solutions without plans) is stupid. It's obvious those issues need fixing but it won't solve the NHS problems. If you want to fix the NHS feed back via the many portals they have on what they can do to improve matters. Better yet, work for them. Don't moan you can't get through to your GP and that they only have 2 receptionists (probably why you can't get through!) If you're not applying for the jobs.

Moaning is easy. Really easy. Productive and constructive solution focused complaining is more challenging.

Are you saying that it's the NHS staffs fault that the NHS is failing?

Those who keep posting blame the Tories might have an answer. Not as yet.

As for an actual answer to the NHS it’s a hard one, but I don’t think it’s bring in Labour and it’s fixed.

It may be social care and better population health. Maybe some charging to stop waste. Just any discussion that looks at numbers and reality of increasing complex care.

Wow so we have...

• it would be worse with Labour
• it's women's fault because they are all bloody part timers
• It's the NHS staff's fault because they are all leftwing slackers

I wish the above were trolling....

When I broke my foot (I didn't know it at the time) I was referred to the virtual fracture clinic as face to face appointments aren't offered routinely any more. I got a phone call a couple of days later from a nurse telling me I had fractured a metatarsal. That was followed by an email telling me I'd fractured three metatarsals and then a letter saying there was a minor fracture of my foot and a possible sliver of bone.

I received no answers to my phone calls or email asking for an explanation and ended up getting an ultrasound, MRI and further X-rays privately which showed three breaks but definitely not the metatarsals! I followed up on my email to the fracture clinic giving them the results of the MRI and I got a phone call from a doctor next day asking me to come in for a face to face appointment. When I went in I was asked why I was doing there! I explained everything again and the doctor arranged further X-rays as it turned out the original NHS X-rays were of my ankle and not my foot.

How much time and money was wasted and who is walking round with 3 fractured metatarsals thinking they've fractured their cuboid, navicular and heel bone because they were given my results?! Probably no one as they couldn't even get the X-ray right!

She may be in an area where experience tells her not to wait. I live in such an area. Rural, elderly, forgotten. I might have done the same rather than wait hopelessly - at at least keep the phone on and drive towards some kind of civilisation. I find these threads slightly frustrating because the poor services we pay up for are relative to the areas we live in. There simply isn't a level playing field

From our town's GP group website:-

"Weekends and Bank Holidays – Closed."

You can't get clearer than that!