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

This is what I don't understand. The "customer" is the same whether you're in Cleethorpes or Penzance, in that being the Govt/taxpayer and they're all supposed to be working under the same systems/rules, etc. So why the massive difference? Same with GP surgeries - how can they be allowed to "offer" such different standards and scope of services?

Why can't there be a "franchise" approach where you have consistency, i.e. a kind of McDonalds framework where you basically get the same wherever you go?

Populations are not remotely the same wherever you go. Central London bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Lake District. Hastings bears no resemblance to Guildford. Health needs differ widely. Some areas are considerably less attractive to career-minded doctors than others. Some areas are, quite frankly, more agreeable and less stressful to live in than others.

I’m sure the same service could be offered everywhere if it were as simple as going in to ask about your varicose veins and instead being offered a cheeseburger 😂.

But there's no reason why some still send appointments by snail mail, yet others use text and email or app, or why some give patients the ability to cancel an appointment by text/email/app but some give you a phone number that's never answered.

Places like Specsaver do NHS hearing aids to "a system" whereas different NHS hospital audiology depts have their own way of working, to provide the exact same hearing test/hearing aids, often involving several appointments when Specsavers do it in one.

I'm not talking about specialist/unusual treatments, I'm talking about the straightforward stuff that could be systemised if there was the will.

We still have the ridiculous situation where GPs can access blood tests done in some hospitals, but not in others, within the same trust. Madness.

It’s called underinvestment. The technology is old and creaking - worse in some areas than others, because, given the fact every area is different, they can’t all spend their budgets in the same way. There have been large scale cyber attacks against NHS hospitals, because some had technology and software so old, Microsoft had ceased supporting it years before. Problems with ancient and unnecessarily complex IT systems are a regular source of complaint.

That’s because if they don’t spend it all, they will get less the next year, as the powers that be thinks they don’t need it.

Education budgets also work the same way.

I have worked in both sectors.

People these days want too much Supermarkets open all days and hours

Consultants doing private work is not a crime, in any sense of the word.

If it was made a "crime" then most consultants would, like the Dentists before them, go and work in the private sector, thats worked out extremely well hasn't it?

The NHS hasn't the staff or the operating theatres to do the surgery required, so consultants go off and work in the private sector that has spare capacity.

So the solution isn't bans, its more NHS staffing and infrastructure.

*Muddle2000 · Today 05:34

People these days want too much Supermarkets open all days and hours*

Just to be listened to would be the minimum

I don’t think it is asking too much.

GPs need to listen and stop trying to save the NHS money by putting off testing as this is false economy

My local NHS trust send appointment letters out snail mail

The appointment will be for 10th June.
The letter will state when the appointment was booked, what day it was sent to be typed up what day it was typed up, the day it was sent to be posted and the day it was posted

Problem is that it might be booked for 10th June on 15th May But the date it was typed up reads 12th June and you receive it on 29th June.

Sat in the department waiting room when we finally got an appointment there was a sign saying that there were 240,000 missed appointments in that part of the hospital in the last month alone
Missed appointments cost the nhs money

You couldn’t make this stuff up. You do wonder why no one just stops this stuff from happening. When you ask why they send out appointment letters for dates that have already passed the reply is “That’s always what we have done”

Maybe the answer is to stop doing things you have always done it might just save you money.

Consultants taking money from 'private' patients to be seen sooner, before transferring those same patients to an NHS list is corrupt.
The two sets of patients should be kept separate and there should be no mixing - if you choose to go private to skip the queue, you should not be able to then take advantage of the free service ahead of those who could not pay to finesse the journey.
Equally, private hospitals that make mistakes in their 'cherry-picked' services and leave a patient requiring emergency treatment that they choose not to provide themselves should be charged proportionately - which to my mind is very heavily.
I have had private outsourced provision paid for by the NHS - the NHS accepted no ongoing liability for the work and the records are not available to my NHS consultants or GP.