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

Sadly so true, too many who live near a hospital will just walk in to a and e rather than going to pharmacy or doctors. Yes I do know this first hand, have done for many years. My last experience was a woman bringing her whole family of 6 kids in to report her child had a cough and they took up half the waiting area so those of us accompanying loved ones with serious complaints had to stand.

100%. Doctors and nurses are paid much better in other countries. Why anybody would stay and work in the NHS is beyond comprehension. Both of my parents were doctors in the NHS and moved to America after they finished their residencies. Best financial decision they could have made.

yes who can we vote for none of them are any good i wish we could vote for Richard Tice he would definitely do a better job of it xx

20 years in the nhs. I've seen massive rises in mental health and more and more people who fail to take responsibility for their own health, rise in alcohol abuse and drug taking.
Patients who don't attend appointments despite reminders (including phone calls may I add) and then rock up to a&e for a problem that could have been assessed had they bothered to attend. some of these people don't even work or have carer responsibilities so it's not like they need an excuse.

Couldnt agree more. This country is over populated, no housing, and running out of room to build more, schools are so full that our childrens education is suffering, gps and hospitals cant cope. The roads are busy. The government needs to crack down .

I have joined Benedan health for this very reason. Well worth £12.80 per month!

@SweatyyBettyy what coverage do you get for that? Are you young?

Problem with this is, it will be the workers (ie tax payers), that will have to pay the small fee. Whilst the non workers (the non tax payers), will get if for free. The workers will be screwd again. We all have to pay or nobody does.

And this is what £2.6bn of NHS funding is on also being paid on each year:

Repeated failings in NHS maternity units cost NHS in England £2.6bn a year in damages

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/31/parents-of-babies-who-died-or-were-harmed-in-nhs-care-demand-inquiry

So what's the excuse in Wales where Labour are in charge ?
Genuine question - what will a Labour government do better ?

@UndercoverCop from day 1 you get gp appts and physio. After 6 months you get up to £2500 for diagnostics and surgery on their approved list. They don't do complex surgery. They work with the NHS. So they step in if you have to wait more than 5 weeks for diagnostics/procedures. They only deal with 1 problem at a time. I work in a gp practice and know that all hospital departments have at least a 1 yr wait across the board. Scary times :(

this.

Sadly it isn't just chronic underfunding of the NHS that is causing all the problem it is chronic underfunding of social support too. So much of what the NHS is dealing with relates to poverty - obesity, alcohol and drug dependence, mental health issues (I know this isn't just related to poverty but it is the most significant factor). GP services are broken because of it, A&E is broken because of it, it is all so tragic. And as pp said the Tories are deliberately screwing it up so they have the excuse to privatise it. But if we want the society where we want a fit for purpose and where people get the support they need to the don't say the NHS it has to be funded by taxes and no-one wants to pay them

The percentage of GDP we spend on the NHS is more than is spent on healthcare in Italy and Japan and in line with spending in France and Germany but less than the % GDP spent by the USA.

We don't need to spend more money on the NHS. We need it to be better managed. Whenever I have gone to a UK hospital i have been plenty of overstaffing (nurses chatting for over an hour! And only occasionally checking patients).

It needs to spend what it has better to begin with. We spend 12% of GDP on the NHS.

The EU average is 9.9% of GDP spent on healthcare. We spend 25% more than the rest of Europe on average as a % of GDP.

I repeat the NHS is badly managed and needs to spend money more wisely.

Having been there around 11pm at night before, the nights are particularly busy, and the nurses words were ‘you’d think it was a third world country’! It was a full moon too and I know having worked in the nhs myself that nights with a full moon are always particularly bad.

Yes, Wales has a huge problem with our NHS and its been under Labour control for the last 24 years. Whilst I know they can only spend the money they are allocated by Westminster they continually waste huge amounts of funding on things - £33m on signs for the new 20 mile speed limit and £135m on by-pass plans which were never used.
£168 million could have made a huge difference to the Welsh NHS but unfortunately we have muppets in our devolved Labour government,

@SweatyyBettyy that's good, I just had an op privately and the care was wonderful. The staff had time space and resources. I don't believe the staff themselves are any different just a much better working environment. I think I'll look into it

Totally concur @ElisabethZott I was shocked when we had to use A&E, it was like a third world war zone that you see on the news, most of the staff were great but you could tell some were completely worn down and so was their compassion. One woman was howling in pain, another weeping. There were several very, very old people dying on trolleys in the corridors, people with obviously broken limbs and bloody wounds in anguish. Then there were also a few with mental health issues, one man who had already been talked down from a bridge over a railway line. There was no confidentiality, no privacy, one woman was desperate for a pee, but couldn’t walk so she had to suddenly squat, I was utterly mortified that her dignity was stripped for the lack of help. I could go on, it was nearly 5 hours of witnessing a desperate situation before we were transferred to a different hospital and specialist ward where the care was truly fantastic. I echo the calls for a GE now. I’ve lived in U.S. we must not allow private health & insurance to become the norm here.

My husband was taken to A & E on 23rd Oct. Yes, a Monday. He had sudden severe pain in his back. I was (rather ironically) visiting a sick friend, so a neighbour took him in at about 3pm and I arrived to survey the scene at about 5pm.

It really was like a war scene. Mostly elderly people, and no, I didn't spot a single person who looked as if they shouldn't be there. My husband thought he had been triaged, but when he passed out from pain at about 6pm he was, after some discussion, taken through to be triaged properly. While he was unconscious my leg was braced to hold his head above the floor - I'd sort of caught him as he fell. He was accused of feigning unconsciousness and holding on to my leg until I pointed out that the arm the stupid staff member thought he was using to hold on is in fact paralysed, as shown in his notes.

I would estimate there were approximately 200 people waiting to be seen. There was nowhere to sit - not even any space on the floor. Announcements were being made saying that only those waiting to be seen were allowed an actual seat. I saw several puddles of urine - the toilets were at the very far end of the area, and my belief is that some people were too scared of missing their turn to visit these distant facilities in time.

When we arrived at the treatment area, there was a very long line of trollies. Staff admitted that my husband should be lying down, but there were no trollies available and no space. We were returned to the waiting area. Husband was promised pain relief before I arrived. This was eventually forthcoming (even staff members were incredulous) in the form of one small paracetamol tablet at approximately 8pm.

We were finally seen and discharged around midnight. Husband was taken far more seriously once they actually got the results of his blood tests! Staff were kind and helpful , but it was a real illustration of how the Tories are running down NHS services to justify selling them off.

I'm not really sure this is true...

See: https://www.ft.com/content/7a558711-c1b8-4a41-8e72-8470cbd117e5 "The natural population of the UK will begin to decline by the middle of the decade, leaving the country dependent on migration to increase the working-age population, according to new data."

And: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/29/more-90-primary-schools-in-england-to-close-or-face-closure-for-lack-of-pupils

I completely agree, but there is a added pressure from the lack of available GP appointments and more recently the lack of nhs dentists is having a detrimental effect on A&E as not everyone can afford dental treatment.

He was accused of feigning unconsciousness and holding on to my leg until I pointed out that the arm the stupid staff member thought he was using to hold on is in fact paralysed, as shown in his notes

How is money going to help attitudes like this.

You are so right! I never go to A&E unless I am having a real emergency! I too worked in Arrowe Park Hospital in the A&E dept. and I loved it but I was on the nurse bank meaning that I could choose when and where to work because I trained in Brighton and when I applied to work in Arrowe Park Hospital I was told that they only gave work to their own students 😞. They are practically begging me to work there now! Unfortunately I would take a position in a flash but I can't because I have been diagnosed with brain cancer and I have got really severe short term memory problems, plus I can't drive due to risk of having siezures - so once I have been siezure free for a year which is soon I can drive again!😆👍

2 totally different experiences of A&E recently. Broke my shoulder on a Sunday morning, quick call to 111, arrived at hospital fully prepared with book, fully charged phone etc expecting to be there ages for sadly obvious reasons, didn't even get to sit down on arrival!
Straight through to minor injuries/xray/minor injuries & discharged with sling & painkillers within 90 minutes.
Brilliant staff, amazed at how quick it was.

6 weeks later, had to take a friend there on an evening with suspected Achilles damage, waited 4 hrs before being sent home as minor injuries wasn't open til next morning & then came back at 9am waited another 4 hours before being seen, Wait was so long the lovely nurses brought out a tea tray & biscuits & told us there were not any free beds in the whole hospital, nor were there any spare wheel chairs. Shocking, but not a single person complained in al the time. Its so appalling but the poor people trying to work with it have all my sympathy, its so wrong