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

I think the general consensus is for fining those who fail to call and cancel the appointment. Even if last minute. Theres many that just dont even bother to call. Unless you're saying you just don't turn up?

Fines are massively disproportionate if it's the same amount for people on the breadline and people who are comfortable. Tbh I am more worried about people poorer than me with similar issues.

In the last 3 months I have needed about 20 appointments because I am ill. The vast majority I got to because I am doing my best. On one occasion I turned up on the wrong day, and another (a hospital referral) I discovered on the day I had thought the appointment was that I had transposed the numbers of the date and thought the appointment was on 31/10 when it was actually on 13/10. I discovered this on 31/10. A few others I did manage to phone and let them know I wouldn't make it if I had the day right but didn't have the functionality to get myself out of the house. No I can't simply "be more organised" any more than a blind person can be less blind.

My daughter broke her ankle back in the beginning of October, she asked the doctor for a note for work ( her job involves her being on her feet all day ) the doctor said they don't issue them and to contact her GP for the note.
She contacted her doctor, explained the situation to the receptionist, who gave her an appointment for the 23 November!!
Daughter explained again that she didn't need an appointment, just maybe a phone call with the GP for the note.
Receptionist was adamant that she had to see the GP and the earliest appointment is 23 November!!
She explained the situation to her boss, her boss demanded a note.
Daughter's disciplinary for unauthorised absence is on Tuesday.

I've seen a lot of people very concerned with the wait times in a&e, which are awful, but they are not caused by too many people coming in. The problem is that wards can't discharge patients which means that a&e can't move anyone along, causing a bottle neck.
Yes, I do know what I'm talking about, I am a nurse on an acute specialist ward and roughly half our beds at any time are filled with people who are medically fit for discharge. We can't discharge until there is a safe place to go, this often means starting a new care package. In practice this can take weeks due to communication with social services of different areas, who all have different forms to fill in, separate ordering of things like commodes etc, often having to get key safes fitted. This is just for the simplest patient who needs minimal care!

The sad truth is that many people are far from simple and it takes a very long time to get everything sorted for a safe discharge, meanwhile we can't use that bed for the next person who is still waiting. This impacts all through the system.
Also, we always discharge patients with two weeks worth of medication and a copy of their discharge letter for themselves and one to their GP. I'm quite shocked that this doesn't seem to be standard practice.

Sure it's been mentioned already, but if you charged £25 at point of service a lot of people would walk away, especially the drunks

She was offered no water, no blankets

I would have taken my own. NHS is on its knees.

Feel so sorry for people trying to do their best at an utterly shit system.

OP, I feel for you. So sorry you are going through that.

Have you considered paying for private next time!

I've had similar, and worse. So sad to see.

We always go private if we can now. A doctor in the U.K. once told me that private health care in the U.K. is what you need to get care the same standard as the rest of Europe. People are very proud of the NHS because it’s free. I rather pay and actually get proper healthcare.

And also the very ill people for whom £25 would mean not being able to feel their kids. Their lives are disposable are they?

Maybe fines for any alcohol-licenced establishment whose supplies appear on the pre-A&E schedule of anyone who ends uo there due to excessive alcohol

Sick of hearing it's not just funding. It's management. Good managers need to be found and paid for and trained. Our local hospital only has one discharge nurse. And can't release people as lack of beds etc. lots of medically fit old people not getting released as either waiting for an op. Or waiting to come home.

The Tories have run the NHS for the last almost 14 years, as there are management issues, thats on them, so i love the argument that Labour can't do better.

On your specific hospital, there should be a discharge team, whose job it is to release patients but down here, its taking 6 weeks to get any sort of community care package in place, so they look for care homes... but they aren't being funded as they are all in private hands and need to turn a profit, so many close... planning app....for housing!
Then there is the waiting list for home OT assessments... 6 months.

So they stay in hospital if family can't have them..... my DD would often have to fend of extremely abusive family members.... one reason she left the NHS.... and for clarity, this abuse rarely came from poor ill educated folk but well to do, wealthy people.
Just the sort of people who have voted Tory time and time again, just so they think they'll get a tax cut.... hows that going?

Fixing all of this will take 10 years plus but at least with a Labour Govt there is a chance.

oh & pls don't buy the Wales/Scotland shite, these aren't separate countries, they don't have autonomy of training medic staff, capital build, immigration, long standing demographic/poverty issues and in Scotlands case, on Brexit.

Yes this seems to be where a lot of the problem lies

I’ve not experienced it with family members, so not sure how it works

Do some elderly get discharged to family members to their home? What determines that

I wonder if it’s the same in other countries, or a cultural difference means more people go to families

I've also experienced the opposite of bed blocking, hospitals trying to discharge patients who aren't ready.

DM was barely conscious and had kidney and heart failure and a doctor wanted to discuss discharging her in a couple of days. She was also blind. I refused to care for her and the doctor really wasn't happy but there was no way I would have been able to do it, she needed specialist care that I couldn't provide. She died on the day she would have been discharged.

The hospital also tried to discharge MIL after a fall and a urine infection. We were away at the time - she'd told us to go as she believed she was safe in hospital. She was in her late 90s and very frail but refused to go home. She went into a home after that which was the right thing.

Bang on. This is the problem at our hospital (the only option for anyone in Cornwall besides those up against the Devon border with Plymouth as an option). Which is why the sight of 25 or more ambulances parked up outside is coming, with the knock on problem that there are too few vehicles for emergencies.

My mother was a 'bed blocker' (awful phrase) and so were her ward mates. She needed two handed care to come home safely and (despite having the funds to pay) there was no one available to hire. Every day I did the weary care company ring around (in case the hospital was missing a trick) and it took weeks. In each case the care companies and homes (yes we were prepared for her to go into a nursing home if necessary) had the same answer: too few carers. The problem? Brexit. There was a problem pre-Brexit, but it has ramped up apparently. To the extent the care homes had beds not enough safe staffing to fill them.

The result for Mum was that she actually deteriorated further in a hospital pushed to even get her fed right. I still weep at the memory.

I do think that unless you work in a hospital or have had experience of elderly relatives in this situation it seems like an unbelievable state of affairs. But here we are. It's Kafkaesque, and the politicians do not care.

The Dilnot report in 2011 fgs nailed the problem and floated solutions. But no one has grasped it.

Of course one of the reasons it all takes so long is that there are no staff. Home carers are on poverty wages so of course there are nev enough of them, compounding the issue. Staff turnover is is insane because they leave for better paid jobs in hospitals (or shops) as soon as they can.
This won't be fixed without getting social care staff on an equivalent of Agend for Change so they have some prospect of progression/training and a wage they can live on.

We could also get HMRC to actually start to target tax evasion, especially in the black economy which they seem to ignore these days, i.e. "cash in hand" work, selling duty free fags and booze, small businesses not registering for VAT when they breach the (stupidly set) threshold, etc.

HMRC targets one industry after another. This is why Western governments are trying to get all money dealt with electronically, so cash will wither away and they can see what everyone is doing.

As for private health care, there are no private A & Es, the subject of this thread.

As for the working population can’t pay any more tax, yet pp in the NHS expect them to pay out £1 k+ a week, for their medically fit relative to go into a care home, to free up NHS acute beds; or magically take weeks off work, or neglect existing care responsibilities (like children) while they care for the relative at home?

How are Blair and Brown responsible for the current situation? The Conservatives could have changed the law at any time in the last 13.5 years if they had wanted to.

In most cases, much higher levels of taxation and/or a completely different system. Many countries with good health systems e.g. France, Germany, Canada, have a hybrid system where some things are covered by the state and others are covered by private insurance. But woe betide the government that tries to make any changes to the NHS model of 'free at the point of access' aka abused by all and sundry, because it's 'free' innit? The Tories know if they try and switch us to a more efficient system they'll never hear the end of it and Labour will harp on about how 'our NHS' is never safe under the Tories. But the NHS, as it was devised in 1948, doesn't and can't exist any more. Its remit has expanded and expanded, along with the lifespans and waistlines of the population it serves.

It’s been like this for a long time in North Wales.
This is normal for us.

its truly shit.

Wales is Labour. Done a lot of damage here, run by muppets.

The result for Mum was that she actually deteriorated further in a hospital pushed to even get her fed right. I still weep at the memory

MIL was discharged by the NHS and SS into a care home rated inadequate. The staffing was the legal bare minimum and they couldn’t give her food and drink. (Well, they gave it to her, but didn’t help her actually eat and drink it). We live 3.5 hours away, and are already up to our necks caring for two disabled DDs. She ended up back in the NHS aged care unit bed within 3 weeks with sepsis and the worst kidney failure, the ward staff told me they had seen - she died.

Warrants a complaint to the practice. It should have been obvious to the receptionist that this needed to be sorted out quickly without tying up the GPs time in an unnecessary face to face appointment.

And this is one of the problems isn't it? It's no longer a 'National' Health service. . All these stories are so inconsistent with one another that ifs hard to formulate national standards and solutions
Your experience sounds as traumatic as ours. If it's any solace we live nearby and that didn't help one jot despite the energy we put into it.

The winter fuel allowance is not £500 each and now you don’t qualify until 66. The amount you get is based on when you were born and your circumstances in the 'qualifying week'. The amount is normally £300 per household - shared proportionately between those members of the household who qualify. The last two years to date have included a 'Pensioner Cost of Living Payment'. This is between £150 and £300 extra depending on circumstances. Hostility towards pensioners is no reason to misrepresent the facts.

Means testing is a race to the bottom and increases massively the cost of administering some benefits. And what exactly are the assets you want to tax - their homes ? Many pensioners have lived in their properties for donkeys years, during which time they have appreciated in value, which they can’t access because they are still living there. Do you really think it appropriate to tax the homes in which they are living - given that they will inevitably have to sell them if they need full time care ?

Its never been a "National" health service - from inception the model was bastardised to benefit vested interests (Consultant and GP lobbies included) and anyone who has worked with the NHS can describe the battling fiefdoms and resistance to even basic modernisation of business practices.

A family friend who spent the first part of his career training and working elsewhere in Europe and the last fifteen as a consultant in a London NHS hospital said that the pandemic was the first time in his NHS career that he had met with any form of inter-fiefdom collaboration. Collaboration which was fairly normal in his home country.

Both the main parties have tried to change the model, Labour put a huge amount of money into the model but most of the core problems remained and have been aggravated by budgets. We do spend less per head than eg Germany but not compared to all the rest of Europe and per pound spent our outcomes are not as good. We still have shockingly bad maternity care, our cancer results are poor and our general public health is poor.

And of course "tax the old" won't help either. It would cost more to means test the winter fuel allowance that you would save and pensioners already pay tax on their income. The proportion of pensioners falling into top rate tax is a lot lower than the proportion of the working population. The average pension income is about 16k per year (state plus small private in most case). Letting pensioner incomes fall of course means more need pension credits and struggle to maintain healthy homes and lives.

Modern European style state backed insurance has avoided the NHS model for a reason - they provide better health care, more efficiently and effectively for most conditions. Free at the point of access is meaningless when the access isn't there or is rationed out of existence.

However its the run up to an election - I'm sure we will see many more of this "my leg was hanging off and I spent six months waiting in A&E whilst Angels smiled at me posts" from new and NC posters and the usual arguments will be cut and paste from both sides. Nothing will actually change whoever is in power unless the model is changed.