Wtf is going on with the nhs, is this the new normal?

[letdownchristmas]

I was in A+E with a relative yesterday with a suspected pulmonary embolism (has a history of this ) although luckily turned out to be all clear. We got there by ambulance at 3pm yesterday and was on a trolley in the corridor until 9pm. There were 15 people in the corridor on trollies with ambulance crews waiting to be handed over. All I could think was how the fuck are there any ambulance crews left on the road when they are all waiting in here to hand patients over. I was told that that this is a fairly normal day now. On the electronic board I could see that there was a 42 hour wait for an inpatient bed and only 56% of people met the four hour target. A 7 hour wait to be seen for walk ins. It honestly frightened me as to how the nhs is going to survive another winter.

Yes this is the new normal. It won’t get better.

This is it, now.

Yes it is. They have nurses doing obs in the waiting rooms. We’ve had patients come to us who’ve been on a trolley for 24 hours. Our A/E is that short staffed that our managers (crit care) were asking if anyone wanted a six month secondment on A/E, obviously nobody was that enthusiastic….

Surely this isn't sustainable, it honestly felt like we were in a developing country not supposedly one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and this was just an average Thursday afternoon.

Yes.

I have friends who have cancer, they spent a whole weekend on a trolley in A and E.

It does seem to be the new normal,

If people stop voting Tory, it might.

Since the Tories have been in power, patient satisfaction with the NHS has decreased from 70% to 29%. Over 14 years.

Stop voting for them.

I can't blame the staff they are doing their best in unimaginable circumstance's, but no wonder they are leaving in droves.

I’ve never voted for them in my life and never will. Maybe my glass is half empty with having worked in the nhs for 15 years but it’ll take a miracle to turn it around!

It’s not even new, until you need to use the NHS you don’t realise how very fucked it already is.

Yep, it won't get better. I have worked in the NHS for alot of years.
Lots of funding comes into the NHS but it is spent in ridiculous places, not where it is needed on the ground. Too many 'managers' sat on Teams talking about pronouns and diversity etc. The population is growing by a million a year. Scary times

It is the new normal, there's no 'flow' so no beds. No social care so no discharges no beds being freed up as people who are 'medically fit' but need care so don't leave hospital. You'll also see it on here "refuse discharge for your elderly relative who's not accepting carers!" It's not the only reason but it's a big one.

I agree it will take years and a lot of work to undo 14 years of damage.

But I disagree that means a 'miracle'.

The Tories want people to think it needs a miracle, because they want to privatise everything.

It will never be perfect - but it doesn't need a miracle to get better than it is right now. It doesn't need a miracle for patient satisfaction to increase from 29%. It's only been a few years since it dropped so low. It needs investment and hard work from those in power.

I disagree that it's at a point of no return after only being in this state for a few years.

This is what the Tories have made people think. They want you to be pessimistic about it and think that it can't be fixed.

Around here it is nearly impossible to get a GP appointment so people just go to A&E instead. The walk-in centre has actually been moved to the same place as A&E and you get triaged when you arrive to determine who you're going to see.

Oh and this! So many pointless band 8s!

@pinkpinkmushroom5 I so hope you're right

I don’t think the NHS has ever been one of the “best healthcare systems in the world” and I think this is part of the problem. When people think of it like this, it becomes a sacred cow and any political party that would try radical change would be shot down. There needs to be a cross-party NHS reform which looks at how things work in other countries (and not just the USA) and some tough and innovative decisions need to be made.

Radical change is needed

Who would you vote for

Bollocks has it been increasing that fast. It’s predicted in increase by 3 million in the next 10 years and % increase is predicted to be less in the next 25 years than it has in the last 25 years. In 2021 and 2022 the population actually decreased slightly but this is probably due to covid and won’t be part of the over all trend.

Well if you think about it the NHS started in 1948. That's 76 years.

Yes the population has changes loads and of course we can't compare it to 1948.

But we can compare it to 2018, when patient satisfaction was 53% - compared to the current 29%. That's 6 years ago. We are not all that different now to how we were then. Yet patient satisfaction with the NHS since then has decreased massively.

Covid has hit the NHS massively. Brexit too. And especially the Tories.

These are all things that have happened over a short space of time.

I cannot believe that something which happens over 6 years, to an institution which has been going for 76 years, is not to some extent fixable.

It's human nature to see a crisis, throw our arms up and go "it's broken!"

It's not broken. It's just in a bad way because the people in power have made a mess of it. Get different people in power and it can start to be mended.

I had a pulmonary embolism 8 years ago. I waited 9 hours, but the wait was fairly standard (in waiting room, triaged in), then once finally seen after all the waiting had the standard tests. At the time it seemed horrendous, I was coughing up blood and so scared but sat in this little plastic chair for all that time. It seems bizarre now that that was possibly actually’good’ compared to what happens now.

Yes it’s the new normal but it wasn’t like this under Labour. Vast majority of people were seen within four hours (look up the stats).
what the NHS needs is staff and the Tories have made a total mess of this by holding down pay, holding down medical student places and trying to use cheaper workers. It can get better

Probably more relevant is that the population is ageing. More people taking out than are putting in.

The GP appointments issue needs urgently addressing, because that’s having such a major impact on emergency care. It’s so bloody hard to get one! I suspect it’s also a postcode lottery. Where I live in London I have four hospitals within a three-mile radius and the waiting times are never as bad as what I read on MN for other areas.