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

The last time I went to a&e the wait time was displayed as 23 hours for majors. Minor incidents were under 2 hours.
One poor gentleman waited, after being triaged, most of the night despite having been brought in by ambulance. At around 6 in the morning he had a seizure and the red button was pressed and finally he was rushed through on a trolley
His partner was distraught.

.

The NHS needs a major overhaul but it’s apparently sacrosanct the way it is so if any government were to look at reducing waste, privatising parts of it and freeing up money for urgent care by not paying for non essential medical care, there’s no way they’ll get in on the next term so they’re too afraid to touch it.

blame the tories all you like but as others have said it’s just as bad in wales and Scotland

This

And ♥️ sent

It's a but simplistic to blame migrants for overcrowding. Our town's population is becoming overcrowded. Our town was 14,000 in 2020 and in just 3 years it's up to 19,000 with no extra schools, GP, dentist, anything. It is not a 'foreigner' problem though, it's a result of WfH following covid. The majority of people moving here are from London (myself included), realising we can live in a much bigger house with good schools, less pollution, can still commute into London if needed. The dynamics of the country are changing rapidly but the government is 10 steps behind. Look at the users saying their hospitals are not facing the issues in the OP, it is showing massive mismanagement of funds and resources.

You're right OP - the NHS is a car crash.
And I'm sure there are many reasons why it has declined to this state, chronic underfunding for years, poor distribution of money in the system, ineffective management, waste, understaffing (and why that is a whole different can of worms!), ageing population, increased and expensive treatment options for more conditions...
I think all you can do immediately is take as much responsibility for you own and your family's health as possible, eat healthy, exercise, don't smoke, control weight and the safety net of private medical insurance. I'm well aware this costs money which many can't afford and is adding to the 2 tier system in the UK. I have hope that the next GE sees a massive restructure of the NHS and it improves but until then?

The projections are eye watering

So many things but a small starter stat for anyone interested is look up hip and knee replacements going up year on year

Hope your mum is feeling better today. Im a NHS director in a neighbouring area to you. I really don't think the public realise just how bad the NHS is.

The government has a lot to answer for. Stripping back all supporting services such as social services, mental health, etc, means people have nowhere to go until their health status declines so badly that they require A&E.

The backlogs from covid19 are ridiculous and should never have been allowed to happen in the later waves of the pandemic.

All we can do is vote for a change of government and look after the current staff in the meantime so we don't lose them

They might spend 200bn or whatever on our hospitals but it is very mismanaged. Our local hospital frequently posts a room full of band 8/9 and directors, having meetings and jollies, while you know very well that downstairs a couple of the lowest paid staff are run ragged trying to care for seriously ill people.

The reality is it needs significantly more funding AND reform.

so it’s not about which party runs it locally now.

either party must reform the benefits paid to older people and the taxes the wealthier and asset rich ones pay.

collectively they have not paid enough into the system and we are all suffering for it. So

• means test winter fuel allowance now. Deeply unfair that affluent older people get this. It’s effectively a state funding for votes programme from the Tories at this point.
• reform the triple lock on state pensions
• consider and bring in new taxes on affluent pensioners. Both assets and income. It’s crazy that pensioners don’t pay national insurance when they are the main users of the system.
• there’ll be more to do on property which could also encourage older people to sell up out of family sized homes in a timely manor.

it’s NOT about immigration. Or it is, but it’s not immigrants using the NHS too much, it’s British older people and their needs.

part of the problem now is lots of EU migrants that worked in the NHS have left creating staff shortages.

more immigration could help ease this though it’s politically difficult.

it’s also NOT about any one hospital closure. For the size of country we are we have too many small and local hospitals. Really inefficient.

the system would work better focusing in on less but larger more specialised and resourced hospitals but the local protests whenever that is tried make that hard to do.

So Labout gets in and poofff!! The NHS Iis magically transformed. How? Are they going to tackle the rot from the top down? Get rid of endless tiers of pointless management? Get rid of all the Shirkers?
Force GPS to actually see patients?

unless you have a life threatening condition, do not go to A&E.

Everyone should be able to access the healthcare they need in a timely manner.

And there are resources enough for everyone. The problem here is not the person sat in a&e with a minor (to you) injury, or the addicts or the alcoholics.

But until we stop policing each other and focus on the real issue we’re doomed to be stuck in the same situation century after century.

I hope your mum is ok, op. She was very lucky to have had you with her.

I agree that it was awful pre-Tories - I was in hospital being treated for cancer in 2006 and it was a shitshow. Delayed diagnosis, mixed ward, appalling food, cover-ups by staff, missing notes…I don’t think it’s going to magically improve when Labour get it, it’s a structural and cultural problem.

Who chooses which hospital ambulances take patients to? And why can’t they check first or change the destination to smooth out waits?
Obviously understand that some areas may only have one hospital and some conditions require queue jumping on arrival.

@tokesqueen Oh absolutely, I'm sure my GP isn't sitting there thinking, Shall I invite her for her MOT or shall I read another chapter of this novel, etc! It's not a willingness thing, it's a resource thing. When I went to a GP in France with an allergic reaction to cleaning products (!), the doctor who registered me spent 30 mins talking to me about my family history, current health, sleeping and eating patterns, shift patterns, mental state, took all my standard readings and so on and so forth - even though I explained I would be moving back to the UK in a few months, she said this was their standard approach for any new patient. I didn't even know the answers to some of her questions, as nobody had ever asked me them before! But that takes 30 mins, and I understand that UK GPs don't have that sort of time for their patients now. It's such a shame, as I fully believe that a close, consistent relationship over time is in itself a highly therapeutic thing - basically, a doctor who knows you and ideally your family well, can spot changes, consider you holistically, etc. But those days are gone.

It is not the NHS that is the problem

it is an increasingly unhealthy society, with an obesity crisis that leads to a multitude of health issues and addiction and mental health issues.

Society has changed in such a way as to make any national health service utterly impossible to function effectively

People are living much longer.

I was in A&E recently and I was the youngest person there (late 30s) by about 50 years.

It's absolutely chaotic. 🤍 thankfully no drunks or large noisy families at the time I went.

We need better social / emergency care for older people especially after a fall but itll never happen. its all so very sad

I work in the care sector and often go to hospitals to assess potential residents. At the moment we have a few empty rooms but are not getting referrals from the hospital discharge team as they have been told by Adult Social Care that there is a shortage of funds available for nursing home placements. Thus people are being discharged to their own homes unable to cope and no care packages are available.

I've seen it said in the press that nursing homes are full and that's why the hospitals are overcrowded. This is simply not the case. I'm in Cornwall and every home that I have friends working in have told me they have empty rooms.

Half the problem is you can't get a GP appointment yet most GP surgeries are not busy when I've gone in, meaning people head towards A&E to be seen.

My worst nhs experience in hospital (I nearly died not from what I was admitted with but being left with no water and no water to drink it myself) was right in the middle of a long labour leadership.

I don’t think politics are necessarily to blame after all Tory voters use the nhs just the same - and I’m not one (Tory voters)

Sometimes the system needs to complete do a 360 - it’s awful. There are no nhs dentists, I’m currently waiting for a heart appointment so far I’ve been waiting 9 months.

Yet got an appointment this week for youngest for paediatric. They have joint problems - she said I need to refer you to have insole fitted etc and then found out it runs in the family so it goes around and immediately says - actually I’ll do it now as the wait is another year etc and you know what you are doing. I’ve also seen bulbs in a hospital that are £2 having a bill of £240 to replace.

waiting 2-3 years for an appointment isn’t a new thing it goes back decades.

there is a lot of wastage in the nhs and councils as well as underfunding

there are also part of it that are shining examples

I know I will be probably rounded on - but I do have friends that are GPs and work 2 1/2 days or 10 sessions - 3 sessions a day so full time on £100 K as they have a share of the business and then do private work the rest of the time. And then you have GP who are salaried and work all the hours god sends for £40 K

but if we double the money to the nhs eg another £100 billion who is paying? Double everyone’s tax - people can’t afford to live as it is.

I don’t know the answer I really don’t. More money?

What you describe in A&E is another example of mismanagement - you say they were very good at dealing with the emergency, but not so at bringing water and blankets. By the point the emergency is passed and a patient is ready for blankets and water, they should be elsewhere recovering, as the emergency has been dealt with. But there are no beds elsewhere on a ward to send them to, because there are no social care etc beds to send the people on the wards to.

@MintJulia a nurse told me it’s waiting time/ trolley wait is much worse on a Mon and Tue as people tend to stay at home over the weekend and hope to get better and then realise they need help after the weekend.

Peoples experiences are obviously going to be different according to their hospital capacity and the size of population accessing the hospital.

I agree with the comments re funding to some extent, however we all should take responsibility for our own health. I went to the theatre to see a show last week and couldn't believe the number of obese people who were there, some couldn't even sit comfortably in their seats. Come the interval and a mass exodus for icecreams etc. That coupled with our increasing population is stretching the NHS beyond its limits. We should be doing everything we can to live a healthier life and take some responsibility for our own health.

@LakeTiticaca We actually need more management in the NHS not less. Studies consistently show that it is under-managed for an organization of its size, which leads to inefficient deployment of resources, lack of time to review and reform systems and processes (as we all know, you can't be in the orchestra and conducting the orchestra at the same time), without which people are only ever in firefighting mode, repeating the same actions even if they could be improved, etc etc. The weird demonization of the skill of management in this country does us no good at all.

I have had such traumatising experiences in both A and E and as a inpatient I have PTSD.

We have had amazing experience with our local hospital, my husband had a stroke, got an ambulance in 15 minutes, assessed immediately in A and E by specialist stroke consultant. Blue lighted to another hospital for specialist procedure to remove a clot from his brain and on a ward recovering all within 4 hours. He spent 2 days there and then was returned by ambulance to our local hospital for 3 days and this was during the doctors strike.