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

At the end of 2021, the Welsh government gave £155 million back to Westminster because they couldn’t spend it.

How can you claim that they don’t get given enough?

The Tories are definitely to blame. They are bleeding the NHS dry so that they can sell it off. They are a disgrace and should be booted out at the next general election which, incidentally, needs to be soon.

I don’t really know the point of this thread

I know exactly what the point of this thread is.

It annoys me that during covid people couldn't use A&E willy nilly, but now restrictions are lifted every little snuffle, cut, toothache etc are using the service. There needs a very strong message that injuries that shouldn't use A&E are restricted.

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

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

• a small payment for use
• a tax rebate for private

The concept of the NHS is not compatible with today's society, but who is brave and clever enough to rectify the situation? I see no contenders.

Let’s not forget to factor in the 10 million rise in population over the last few yrs, the difficulty still in getting a GP appoint. when it’s needed, the health tourists we seem to be incapable of turning away, oh and don’t forget the massive pot of money the NHS pays for diversity managers. It’s broken beyond repair.

My nan got wanked on thanks to the NHS's lovely woke policy. They give a shit about feelings, but not about safety. I hate them.

I went to visit an elderly relative in hospital yesterday. The ward was well organised and staff were kind and attentive, but one poor elderly gentleman was on a trolley in the corridor, presumably waiting for a bed to become free. If social care had better resources, patients could be discharged in a timely fashion.

Whether you believe the Tories have mismanaged the NHS or not, it's more fundamental than that. With an ageing population, longer life expectancy and increasing dependency, the NHS simply cannot deliver a decent standard of service in its current form. The consultants I know are the first to admit this.

Talking about PPE contracts and mates' contracts may be satisfying but it's not going to fix the NHS. Neither is Labour because it's not possible without major reform and probably a move to some kind of part-pay for those who can afford it. We need to stop treating it as a sacred cow and be honest about better alternatives that work in similar countries to ours.

Yes it might take a decade to transform the healthcare provision but at least it's a step in the right direction.

A couple of years ago before my mum died I had to take her to a&e on new year's day as she was having difficulty breathing, luckily she was seen, assessed and moved to a ward after around six hours, i say luckily but she was stage four with lung cancer at the time. The staff were amazing despite been under tremendous pressure, the point of my post is that 90% of the people in a&e that day were people who were hung over, they needed sleep, paracetamol and hydration, the staff clearly couldn't show their frustration but it was obvious from their manner with some of these people. All the people who were in a&e during my wait with my mum were discharged after been observed for a couple of hours which proves the point they didn't need a&e. As I was sat there with my dying mum who was struggling to breath all that was going through my mind was what a complete waste of resources and time.

It was a Labour Government that privitized GP services.

My Dad was admitted to A&E and went to the resus bay as he couldn’t breathe and was in extreme pain. Despite telling me the following day that they knew he had sepsis they just left him to die. I’ll never get over the fact that I was with him, thinking they were doing their best only to find out later he had sepsis that they simply ignored. No negligent solicitor would take on my complaint because dad was old and ‘wasn’t worth the work involved as there would be very little compensation’, despite agreeing there was definite negligence 😢.

If it costs £3m to train a doctor and they take our training and then bugger off to Australia or the USA then shouldn't they have to repay say 10 x their training or £30m ?

Reduced by 5% for every year they work in the NHS.

They are still free to go after 20 years but we cannot be training them only to see them swan off after training.

Same with nurses.

@Spudlet could you also add the many millions of heavy drinkers, drug users and people who use and abuse our NHS just because it’s there and they can. Entitled and selfish people who shouldn’t even be there are clogging up the system day after day and leaving no room for the people who really need it. There’s a reason it’s called A & E and for many of these people it’s not an accident or an emergency. It makes me livid. Why can’t they have a sobering up pen? Chuck them all in there and just leave them. They don’t deserve our time and energy. And we’re paying for it all. If we cracked down on this we could save millions and free up vital space for real emergencies.

The Welsh Government didn't 'give it back' - it was seized back by the UK Treasury. The Welsh government had applied to reallocate the funds from their revenue account to their capital account to cover a £149m overspend in their capital account which was earmarked for improvement in infrastructure. The UK treasury refused to allow them (even though they'd agreed similar requests many times before) and seized the money back.

It's almost as if the Westminster government wanted the Welsh Labour government to look bad 🤔

My sister went to A&E last week with her husband who had chest pain/ angina. He had to wait approx 2 hrs.
the waiting room was packed, large families, often 6 or more with casualty, sat/ stood everywhere, no seats for elderly people, most sat on floor.
staff came out today wait was 10hrs, if you don’t need to be here, please go home and self manage. 90% of people left!!!
suddenly waiting room was emptied
whatwere those people there for in first place
self manage yourself, see pharmacies, speak to MIU
Dont go to A&E unless you really have too

I hope you haven't a vote.

What do you think will happen when you basically tell highly intelligent students "You will be tied to the NHS for 20 years AND have 10s of '000s of personal debt.."
..think they will want to become medics? Nope.

Same with what the Tories are doing with Ambulance staff and soon Nurses... "You cannot go on strike or we will sack you"

Thankfully Labour have said they will repeal these draconian laws, they belong in China.

I’ve been a nurse for over 40 years. This breaks my heart.

And should we compensate all the countries of the overseas doctors and nurses, of whom there are many?

Some doctors are drawn to more lucrative work after qualifying (Harry Hill, Adam Kay etc). This tells us that we need to train significantly more doctors than we think we'll need.
Nurses used to be trained vocationally, with many healthcare-related skills but little that was obviously transferable to outsiders. Forcing them to get a degree has given them manifestly transferable skills, so that rather than doing awkward shifts, they can easily switch to less inconvenient roles.
It's nice to have people with vocations but it's foolish to rely on their better natures if you're not going to reward them appropriately.

I've seen this too. I have a sick child and we have to go sometimes. We were in a que of my 16 ambulances last winter waiting to be checked in. We all need to wake up

I have a long horrible history with NHS due to conditions born with and developing other diseases ( all mishandled and/or misdiagnosed along the way and neglected) but I’ll stick to the topic of A & E. Many visits over last 20 years some seen quickly but many 8/10/14 hours or so, anyway here’s a select 3 items: 9+ hours waiting to see an initial person from being unconscious with a resulting head injury from passing out & with throwing up once conscious then told I need to be admitted but will need to wait for bed, waiting for my bed following a near fatal asthma attack in a chair for several hours while being sexually harassed by a drunk man with a belly ache and on finally letting a nurse know what been going on shouted at that I could leave the ward since I had the problem, I’ve experienced the waiting in the corridors on trolley myself in giant queue with paramedics unable to leave you, on a trolley id then been pushed off quickly and ground to a halt with jolts that made me open my eyes to not finally getting seen by doctor but an over crowded A & E worth of eyes gawping at me. My breasts were exposed as pyjamas had been opened for heart wires, after some time I felt movement again turned out they’d stepped into an office to discuss what to do with me. There’s no dignity a lot of the time to add to the other distressing elements.

The tories certainly are ruining the NHS, but this wasn't my experience last time I was in A & E. This was a small, Brighton hospital. I was by far the person who required the most help as most of the people sitting there looked perfectly healthy, they were watching tv on their phones/tablets, listening to music, talking to each other, etc, yet I still had to wait 6 hours to be seen while I was literally holding my face together after some pretty severe dog bites which were prone to infection. When I asked the nurse who "checked me in" after waiting over an hour why it was taking so long, why patients weren't prioritised and why it was such a shit show, she just shrugged. Worst experience ever and definitely not only due to Tory fund cutting, definitely aided by incompetent staff and free loaders taking advantage of the system.

NHS f**d and no possibility of improving anytime soon. It takes around 14 years to get from lA levels to consultant and why, i ask myself often, would any very bright youngster want to do all that work to work in this NHS.

Also… it’s trolleys not trollies!

Sadly, your experience more closely resembles mine and other experiences I've heard. The NHS is a shit show, after my one and only A & E experience in the UK I purchased private healthcare so I never have to step foot in another NHS hospital again.