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 don't believe the Tories prefer the USA model of health care. Could you provide some evidence for this assertion? Labour don't believe that the NHS as constituted is fit for the 21st century.

It's not banal to point out that their are relevant points of comparison between different health care systems that enable judgements of merit to be made. Try a thought experiment. If you had a cancer where would you rather live; Germany, Cuba, or the UK. Clue. Check out survival rates. But I guess you prefer opinion to information. Fine by me.

So what's the excuse in Wales where Labour runs it ?
It's in a far worse state than England is. I work in a hospital and there are multiple reasons things are so bad. Two many managers, too many high paying pointless jobs, too much wastage, money spent on useless items and I'm sorry to say it, but a lot of patients who are not entitled to nhs health care getting away with not paying.
I'm sorry if people don't like it, but that's the truth.

Im sorry but this idea of 'people claiming healthcare they haven't paid for' is just not true. I work in a hospital in inner London where we treat vastly more immigrants than many places and those who aren't entitled are not treated for free. There are reciprocal agreements with many countries and other people get billed.

My SIL is a also a nurse who worked in ITU throughout covid but because she's from the US she had to pay an NHS surcharge to be entitled to do so!

Not at all banal to point out that there are relevant points of comparison to be made. However, to claim “Treatment maybe free but it is rationed and uneven in quality,” as though this is a distinctive feature of the NHS, rather than a feature of all healthcare systems (as you yourself agreed, by saying it is “banal” to point it out), just demonstrates your opinion. So stop hiding behind your condescension and bias and just stick with the honest comparisons.

21st century conservative party thinking would appall Margaret Thatcher and I suspect most of the Tories of her day.
The modern interpretation is that anything that provides shareholders with dividends is somehow magic and drives correct incentives. The PPE scandals fit perfectly with this narrative.
In the US, insurance costs are astronomical, these are included in hospital and doctor's rates which are in turn passed on to the patient or their insurers. Higher costs mean higher GDP which is economic dogma and cannot therefore be challenged.
The Dutch system (as I understand it) has a single private sector supplier which applies for funding in the same way as the Department for Health and Social Care in the UK - a request to government which scrutinises the projected expenditure and agrees the amount of cash to release.
Their Healthcare and Social Care are joined up and work very well from personal experience.

Nope, most countries use a tax payer funded model and some in Europe have very close copies to the NHS.

OK. Last effort. This is hard yak. Look at relative points of comparison of health care delivery and outcomes between the UK health care system and those of other Western and Northern European systems and ask yourself where you'd prefer to need health care. I hope this is helpful. And stay well.

I'm surprised it was the same building TBH - our last two GP practises, my DP GP and my IL now send everyone to the nearest hospital phlebotomy department to take any blood - DP and IL rural my DP very rural.

It was worst for my DP - as their mobility and health declined - they had a set time to be there and the department was always late - in end they started using a private service that came to their house to get the blood as Dad was put on mediation needing regular blood tests.

Then many a time it hard hard to get any results given to you.

....and a poor condescending effort at that!

Why don't you look at how much the UK has spent on health per head over the last 50 or 60 years compared to other European countries? or how much a student pays to train as an AHP in mainland europe?

I totally agree. The system is set up to create jobs for everyone. It's not that it's efficient in any way. It's like the adage "too many cooks spoil the broth".
Now, the NHS has messed up big time with my 13 year old daughter. Brought her to A&E mid October with suspected appendicitis and turned out it wasn't. The paediatric surgeon on call palpation a mass in the lower abdomen just above the pubs. He didn't know what it was and I asked for her to be scanned. No, he couldn't do that, told me I'd be called to bring her in for a routine scan at a later date. 17 days later went for an ultrasound. A tumour was found, she was transferred to a specialist oncology unit in a central London hospital. By this time the tumour has grown exponentially to 2.5 kg. She ended up having a full lateral laparotomy instead of the keyhole incision that would have been possible. Lost her ovary too.

I was in my local plumbers merchants today, some talk was going on about the NHS. Apparently the local trust spent tens of thousands in one go on fittings and tools it never used, why? because the system means they have to clear out their budgets by the end of the year (rather than get a pat on the back for keeping under it) so they squander anything thats left on stuff thats not needed.
if that aint bonkers i don't know what is!

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My interest is in health care outcomes, not the funding of health care training. I trust this isn't too condescending.😉 Still wondering where you'd prefer to live if you were worried about a health care issue. Guess you'd settle for Wales rather than The Netherlands or Sweden. Good luck with that. Have a relaxing weekend.

There's some depressing anecdotes about poor health care. It would be even worse if vulnerable, elder patients were posting!

OK. Last effort. This is a hard yak 😘. You are not comparing, and cannot compare, healthcare systems in a vacuum. You have to understand the demographics of the different countries and how these affect outcomes. You also have to understand each country’s politics and political system. We are not Germany minus its healthcare, we are a completely different country which will have a completely different experience of the same basic “model” of healthcare, even should we ever embark on the colossal expense of revamping our healthcare system to copy another country. There is no way the Tories would ever embark on the vast expense of setting up a system anything like Germany’s, as they are only ever willing to spend money on facilitating private profit, and there are far easier ways of doing that.

The only genuine advantage of the German system is it takes some of the politics out of health, but it requires politicians to decide to bring the changes about in the first place, and such a decision would involve sinking colossal quantities of taxpayers’ money into wholescale administrative restructuring, including spending colossal sums on new infrastructure to back that up, diverting said money away from fixing existing infrastructure (which is essential to keep things going in the here and now), treating sick people and reducing waiting lists. Neither Labour nor the Tories have the political stomach to argue this will be money well spent and not just a way to spaff more money up the wall and bankrupt the country faster - because nobody is sufficiently confident that it will fix anything whatsoever. The Tories can’t even commit to building railway lines, let alone a whole new system of well thought out healthcare.

The fact is, all European countries are sitting on demographic healthcare timebombs, so we have really left it a bit late to pretend copying Germany will be the solution to our ills. In all honesty, I think most Tories privately think it would be better if the majority of people stopped tiresomely living into unhealthy old age and started to die shortly after retirement again, like the good old days, and they are running down our healthcare system accordingly, to the point that only the wealthy will be able to access quality healthcare and all will be right with the world again.

Ps same applies to the Netherlands, France and anywhere else.

joey 197820 I hope your daughter is doing ok and is on the mend love to you both 💕💕💕
so scary isnt it our government has run everything down to the point of no return what have we got no decent side to vote for if richard tice could take over im sure the country would be in a better state

I'm in Wales by the way.

I need a dentist. I have a tooth that's constantly cutting the side of my tongue and causing ulcers. Its making it hard to eat and I'm already underweight. One night it took me over an hour to eat a small dinner before I gave up. I do not have dentist. I asked the pharmacist how to get one and she said there aren't any. There are literally no dentists taking NHS patients in the entire county. She advised me to go private. I'm not sure what to do. I don't have private healthcare money. Its not an emergency - my tooth isn't rotten or falling out. I'm not in total agony. But it cuts my tongue and causes an ulcer on a regular basis and its going to keep happening. It was fairly shocking to me to just be told "there are no NHS dentists" but that's the situation.

My friend has a tumour on his spine. He has been messed around for years: assorted meds, operations booked then cancelled, long periods of silence with no information/appointments. In the end he booked to see his own NHS consultant privately and surgery is now booked on the NHS. Basically he paid privately to see the person who was overseeing his NHS care in order to get a consultation.

Well, news for you, health care training/staffing is crucial for outcomes, don't you realise this?
As is funding of building mtce & equipment, you wont diagnose early cancers etc if you don't have enough scanners/radiographers.

These things take many years to build up, the UK hasn't done this, hence poor outcomes, not least on a womens forum, maternity services, 65% have been found this year, to be unsafe, up from 55% last year.

We had the Tories in power for 13 years, they could have provided all of the above for the UK, had they wished.

To the pp with the tooth/ ulcer. A short term help could be othodontic wax. You can put it on the jaggy bit of tooth. Costs about £5 a box.

@Mountaindhew thanks, Googling it now

Regardless of which party is in power there are and always have been large differences between standards in hospitals all over the country No size fits all

This is increasingly more common. Personally, I would like to see the consultants who do it banned from taking another penny of NHS money. It is not a victimless crime.