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

Yep I waited 12 hours in a and e with pancreatitis , witnessed someone being pepper sprayed , various people there just socialising BUT once I was seen my care was second to none and I’m so grateful they saved my life . One week later I was home with my family, blessed and most grateful

Please excuse the spellings and bad grammar, am fighting with this keyboard.

But wait for all the responses that it’s the nasty Tories holding the purse strings. Nothing about Scotland having devolved tax raising powers…

I can't help but think that the NHS needs a Royal Commission (completely independent of politics) to review what it is for.

It can't be all things to all people unless we (the taxpayers) are prepared to pay huge amounts of tax. It was founded on this basic principle “Not only is it available to the whole population freely, but it is intended . . . to generalise the best health advice and treatment.” However, time and medical science have moved on.

It now provides for things such as IVF, organ transplants and gender reassignment, it provides care and drugs for people with terrible diseases and extends their life. Some of these things could not have been dreamed of when it was inaugurated but the NHS has adapted to provide for them. It cares for people when they have no hope of survival.

All of this takes money and resources.

Should the NHS continue to provide drugs such as paracetamol, free to people when a pack costs pennies at the supermarket? It won't be costing the NHS pennies when the time to order, verify, store, distribute, prescribe and dispense is considered.

Should the NHS provide free care for those injured playing professional sports when there seems to be an obscene amount of money in some sports?

Should it spend money on more and more managers, all of whom can, I am sure, justify themselves but who face no real sanction if they fail? Look at the situation with Lucy Letby, concerns were raised but disregarded by managers who then simply moved on to the next job.

Someone needs to be brave, appoint a commission and enshrine in law the findings.

Above all, the NHS should not have any involvement at all from politicians of any party at all. The government of the day should allocate 100% of the NHS budget to the care of the NHS Chief Executive and let them get on with their job and stop getting involved in things they don't understand!

Rant over!

Probably get deleted but I have always thought that drunks/drug addicts should NOT get to take up so much of NHS time and resources. Not sure what the alternative is, but there are many more deserving cases waiting to be treated.

@Fernsfernsferns

that just the stuff I know about. Property mostly.

Towns in the south east I know well and so if I know where they live and how long they’ve lived there and that they’ve likely paid the mortgage off then it’s easy to guesstimate what their home is worth.

pensions i know less about but they all seem pretty affluent so more of an educated guess apart from close relatives.

Your Tories have no ambition to do that. They chose not to process these people offshore and closed down every 'legal' avenue. They have also chosen not to process these people when they arrive. Before Brexit we could send many of them back to France. The Tories are also happy to keep you angry as they understand all to well that pontificating angry people tend to vote tory. They are also feeding public money into cronies pockets via the hotels they are using. If you then do add say 100,000 to the population then that increases it by one extra person per 680. However to not, your tory party is letting in 1 million per year, mostly from India and Africa to take up qualified positions after the exodus of EU workers. The problem with the NHS lies squarely on the heads of the Tories who have not only forced NHS money into private pockets, they have also chosen to rearrange the management down to the point of micro managing it and we all know how incompetent they are at management. The covid enquiry tells us all we need to know about that.

I have been very lucky as I’ve never had this experience.

But there needs to be an urgent plan to get the NHS on its feet.

I definitely hope the current government are out at the next election but doesn't Wales have similar if not worse problems and their NHS is devolved?

I have thought the same, and heard political analysts say the same too about who can make the change

This GE was a good opportunity but I think Labour really don’t want to take any chances after being out of power so long so it’s really ineffectual policies that are window dressing.

I’m not sure if there needs to be a reform but the idea we should be more aware of the cost of healthcare is a good one

Various things that other countries do, or could be a starter

• a small payment for use
• a tax rebate for private
• a lump sum when you die, separate to IHT, can’t recall mechanism for T May tax but remember how lambasted it was ‘dementia tax’

I don’t think any of those would get the votes

I think people see the solution as no change to what they pay just somehow the NHS is fixed even though we get older and need more complex care

Tbf (and sorry haven't RTFT) I went to a&e recently with potentially life threatening symptoms. It was a strike day and primary care were despo to stop me going (unless I had to which I did). The wait was 3hrs to have a surgeon assess me which really much faster than I anticipated. I do sometimes wonder if the fact the NHS is overrun in some areas makes other non-oversubscribed areas think they are too.

The NHS is unable to cope with an ageing and unwell and unhealthy population. So much morbidity is linked to lifestyle or exacerbated by it. Until folk adopt healthier life choices demand for health care will simply keep rising and no government will be able to fund it.

The thing is it's not just money. It's gross incompetence.

They have made incomprehensible decisions left, right and centre which have wasted what money there is. Right from the start, Alan Langley's hubristic reforms. "We're all sick of experts" could be the Tories mantra.

Alienated front line staff like "junior" doctors who in reality run the place. Paid millions to management consultancies who sell them ideas through private dinners at no 10.

Ideologically they wanted to run it down and have taken a hatchet to it. They have spent years refunding it - you throw around numbers like they are meaningless but we spend a low proportion of GDP. COVID cost a lot but look what it was spent on - corruption involving anyone with a Tory minister on speed dial.

Interestingly they have also trashed large parts of the public sector elsewhere. Education. Brexit/trade. Local government - they have also withdrawn money from councils leaving social care to be backfilled that via the "NHS" pot.

You only have to look at any of the COVID inquiry to see what a shambles they have made of running the country.

The people blaming the Tories need to look at what Tony Blair did to the NHS starting private partnership which has cost hospitals dearly, having worked in the NHS what it needs is good reorganisation, less managers more staff on the front line and getting rid of waste

This is so so sad I am glad your mum is ok ♥️
I agree 100% the staff are so stretched x
i had to take my mum who fell and broke her wrist and smashed her poor face up to an urgent care centre a few weeks ago. People there who could have had a plaster/paracetamol/seen their GP (apologies for those who can’t see a GP as I have experienced this too lately) was crazy. I am so sad our wonderful NHS is in this state 🤦🏼‍♀️

@ElisabethZott Sorry for your mum's experience.
I am a frequent-flyer due to non diagnosis of a serious underlying condition.
My visits are identical, the only difference being the length of the wait that moves me from being fixable in A&E to requiring a week as an in-patient.
Last visit started with 38 hours in a variety of chairs. Fellow victim with a nasal-feeding line began to vomit, I had the temerity to say "Excuse me" to a nurse who responded with a curt "No!".
Many staff are wonderful, sadly not the porters, HCAs, nurses, sisters or doctors who have lied to me in the course of my past 3 visits.
Simple systems could greatly improve matters: ranking patients by need, risk and whether they have been in for similar matters before rather than a simple first-come, first-served basis; simple visual ways of recording when medications is due and analysing the outcomes from diagnosis to discharge.
I can't complete my complaint until three more appointments have been rearranged due to the apparent absence of any kind of admin system.

Was there a cost-free alternative available? What have the Tories done in the last 13.5 years to remedy matters?

Only managed about 4 pages so apologies if this has been said multiple times but it certainly wouldn't hurt if we stopped endlessly spreading covid around and around. Especially when hospitals are already so overcrowded! At the very least they should reinstate mandatory masking throughout hospitals, with proper respirators not surgicals. Make it safe for people to get the help they need.

@artsperson To do that people need to NOT be cash poor OR time poor Have you seen the rules on the distances the JC stipulate that you need to travel to look for work? I saw a programme on council housing on channel 4 a few years ago. After being allocated a property a tenant had to walk FOUR HOURS to her supermarket job And same when she had finished Not surprisingly she didnt have time to cook from scratch

I’ve done a&e twice in the last year. 1st was last November when my 14dd took an od. We were in there for 17 hours. No bed, just had to sleep on the chairs once the waiting room cleared up. 2nd time was myself and I called 111 who told me to go to a&e. Spent 11 hours there on drips in the waiting room and then sent home at 1am even though I still had high blood pressure but there just wasn’t any room for me. It’s disgusting to see the elderly stacked up in the corridors and the paramedics waiting for hours to hand over patients. It’s no wonder there’s no ambulances because the system is fked. There should be a better way of admitting patients coming in via ambulance

One of the problems with taxing property using national values, is that a £1m house in zone 3 London can be a 3 bed, 1930s terrace. In the north of England it can be a 5 bed house in an acre of land. People who bought houses 30-40 years ago, in the SE, might be rich on paper, but are unlikely to afford a wealth tax based on the value of their house. Are people saying that those in the SE must leave their modest houses to pay for the needs of people in huge houses?

I think the NHS is no longer fit for purpose. It has outgrown its original remit and the types of treatment available today are beyond the dreams of those who set it up.

Labour, Conservative and SMP are all prone to short-termism in order to get elected.

Labour PFI policy - kicked costs down the road for the next generation/government.
SNP increased spending on Education ( free university ) the money came from somewhere.
Conservatives - cut places for training and cut spending in real terms.

They all stink as much as each other.

We need to take the reform of the NHS out of the party political agenda, so that short term wins don’t override long term needs.

Set up a cross party (with real experts added in) to come up with several long term solutions. Get them all fully costed and then have several methods of funding them.
Hold a referendum that subsequent governments must stick to, with an agreed (by law) mechanism for increasing costs.

one thing to remember is that it won’t be others who pay the tax to fund a health service - it must be everyone, according to ability to pay.

True. But lots of people with time and money choose unhealthy lifestyles.

I had to take my other half to A and E last monday Lunchtime with suspected Food Poisioning it was horrendous very busy we were told to sit down and someone would be with us an hour later still sat there we spoke to Elderly Couple next to us they had been waiting 5 hours already with suspected broken shoulder half hour later my OH was called by nurse to have vitals checked he is told need doing every 1.5 hours then about 20 mins after that a Dr came in and called him about 2 secs later he was back then sat around another hour called into another little cubical Vitals taken then back into waiting area All the time it was getting busier and busier about 3 hours later he was called over by original nurse had to do a Urine and Feaces sample for testing and blood test another 2.5 hours later he is called in by a different dr have resaults he does have Food Poisoning and he is very dehydrated and needs treatment asap then he comes back into waiting room and we sit there for what feels like hours they have a complete staff change at this point OH has had enough he hasnt slept all week he is tired feels rough I go over to a nurse and ask if he has been forgotten and suprise suprise he has WTF the nurse then says they are admitting him they have a bed about an hour later he is called and we are taken to the A and E triage part he is shown a bed in a corridor and told only tempory after 2 hours he says he wants me to go home and rest and he will call later it was about 10pm now at 3am he calls he is still where i left him he hasnt been moved all i can hear is someone shouting I presumed it was a lady we had seen earlier who didnt wanna be there but nurses wouldnt let her leave and security was called

Fast Forward to 10am Tues morning bearing in mind OH has basically been ignored all night on trolly in corridor no food no water nothing he is told they have a bed on assessment ward at 12.15 he is taken up and put on a drip he feels so ill he just wants to Die he said at that point at least he is finally getting some treatment later in the afternon he even managed to eat and drink something the following day he is taken to a Gastro ward where they finally tell him what is wrong he has a very dangerous bacteria in him he is put on another drip and then moved in Gastro department to isolation

At lunchtime the following day he calls he is being discharged WTAF hes had no antibiotics proper treatment but apparently the bacteria will leave his System after another 2 weeks so i go pick him up he has some pills to bring home for the Toxin Rash he has on his arms nothing is said about bacteria
we get home and he goes to bed as he is so tired since then all he has done is sleep and sleep and eat occassionally he said he feels so ill

we called 111 last night for advice Dr who called back was useless said she would sort out for him to see own Dr today
i called Drs to ask at Lunchtime they didnt know anything about it he was eventually called by a nurse at 4pm today who said cant give him any antibiotics as they will make things worse he just needs to rest

The NHS is dying
it’s a complete shit show
waited 13hrs in A&E with my elderly mother who had to sit in a chair. She was admitted and was dead in a week! The care she received was an absolute joke.

I feel like there could be a bit more tax but all the better if it was a swap for better health

If the population started to take more responsibility then people might feel ok about paying a bit more