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.

I've taken bloods and run various clinics for donkeys years. The demand is incredible. I would still be there at midnight if I didn't shut up shop. My colleague is currently off sick with raised BP. All her patients need rebooking to me, except I don't have an appointment, for anything, for a month. And that's with urgent extras squeezed in.
Staff leave, can't recruit.

I got this on my letter for gynae too which is insane
Imagine if all of those actually attended or cancelled, that would make a massive difference to wait times surely

Yes it's normal. Not enough staff so not enough people being seen/ given a bed so ambulance crews having to queue outside.

I have cancer and waited 5 hours in a corridor with suspected sepsis from chemo last summer, and I was 'prioritised'.

We need more minor injuries centres though - There's always a handful of people waiting in a&e with sprained ankles or a small cut which could be sorted elsewhere. I injured my hand a few weeks ago and was advised by the pharmacist to go to a&e, which I absolutely wasn't going to do - found a local drop in urgent care and was seen and dressed within an hour!

You have to laugh at the naivety of posters who think a different government will solve this. They won't. The NHS is a black hole for money and as another poster has already stated the wastage in the NHS is unbelievable.

I addition who would want to work for the NHS now? I have three older teens and I've steered them very clear of healthcare and education as a career choice.

I'm sorry to hear about your relative and hope they are feeling better. It's been like this for a while now and will not improve because no government will agree the proper steps to improve it.

The Conservative government has severely underfunded the NHS and this has become the norm unfortunately.

It’s not difficult to grasp - they said it decreased slightly because of COVID, which is true.

Have a coffee and read it again.

The answer isn't to keep throwing more money in the general direction of the NHS though. It needs to be ringfenced to tackle specific issues eg:

• Placements to be paid/bursaries increased for medical/nursing/midwifery degrees or increase nursing and midwifery degree apprenticeships to be the standard to entice more young people into the field
• investment in appropriate social care/aftercare so patients can be discharged quicker, freeing up beds and ultimately those sitting in A&E can get admitted to a bed quicker, meaning ambulances back out on the road and responding to patients
• proper computer systems that are interlinked so that records don't keep getting lost between hospitals/GPs and back again leading to repeating tests/scans that have already been done

More Minor injury units need more IT, more X ray machines, more HCA's more Doctors, more Nurses, more buildings.

So more funding.

One nearby MIU has just closed because several members of staff have all resigned and gone to a private sector outfit, this about the 3rd time this has happened across a few MIUs... when they eventually reopening, they don't offer X rays and have more restrictive hours.

I live in Spain. My friend had a burst aneurysm at the weekend. The ambulance was there in 10 mins. He had brain surgery and has no lasting damage because of the speed of treatment.

The nhs is fucked. These are peoples lives

I don’t need coffee, thanks.

I’ll need the sources for the claim of decreasing population. And even if it did, then how relevant that in in the bigger picture of increasing population and increasing number of households that are net takers.

Because when there are more net takers than contributions, and the number of net takers increases even more, then it’s really hard to balance the book and throw even more money on the sacred altar of the NHS.

Do I want a well functioning heath care system? Yes. But I’m fed up with paying in and not getting what I need from it.

This is what happened the last time the Tories were in government.

My disabled brother has had multiple incidents of very worrying symptoms (passing out, abnormal and concerning blood test results, extremely low body temperatures lasting weeks). We've been to a&e multiple times in the last 6 months (both via emergency ambulance and walk in).

The NHS has shown little to no interest in finding out what's causing his symptoms. They treat the symptoms and chuck him out. We've spent hours and hours and hours waiting to be seen across several visits but he's never been admitted. I'm genuinely concerned that because he's older and disabled, he's just not a priority for them in their current ridiculously overstretched state.

It's simple ...pay nurses and doctors what they deserve and watch things improve. Because realistically working for NHS is shite!!! Crap hours and crap pay for tons of responsibility.

This.

Probably quite a few problems have been caused by the two main parties using it as a political football, and both are guilty of this.

Whenever anyone criticises the NHS we are always told that the only alternative is the American system, but several European countries have health systems that are way better.

As someone who is over 60 I know that I will need more and more medical care soon, and would be happy to pay more for it, but not until we have radically reformed the system we have.

I live in Wales, under a Labour government. The NHS is no different here than in England.

I won’t be voting Labour at the next GE. I won’t be voting Tory either. I’m politically homeless and I very much doubt I’m the only one

The last two points I agree with the first one not so much.

while there may be a moral argument for paying nursing and midwifery students I’m not sure there’s a need from an enticement pov……certainly not for midwifery. Midwifery courses could be filled 10x over, there’s a lot of applicants. Nursing courses are also generally quite full, although there’s been a dip the last two years so interesting to see if that continues or not.

with midwifery the number of places can’t be increased even though the demand is there due to there needing to be enough placement capacity.

The main issue is people leaving once qualified. It’s not training people up which is the issue. reasons why people leave need to be looked at. I suspect it’s a combination of the awful culture in the nhs, bullying and blame culture, workload, pay and inflexible shift patterns.

Wales is under labour and their waiting times are worse .

I think that most people are willing to spend more on the nhs IF it’s spent in the right place . Labour say they will improve it , but won’t say how much more we will pay in taxes to cover it .

there needs to be a complete overhaul on spending / waste / management structure .

And if you talk about money spent on DIversity etc , that will be worse under Labour as they will cover all the women with penises . How much for example has it cost for changing language in all printed information to cover diversity ? And that would get worse.

I say this as a definite floating voter .

Do you think that should have a two pronged approach? Improve job satisfaction/ have a buy out scheme . If the public have paid for your training you should pay some back if you leave ?

Have you not seen that this has been happening for years?

Ritual underfunding to try to make us all hate it, then the Private Healthcare bods will step in and make £££ out of our illnesses.

We must NOT let it happen.

You do know it is decided by the tories how much is allocated to all parts of UK . The tories vote on a sum , so then an equal amount is allocated to the rest of UK

People are being trained then leaving for the likes of Australia. I wish we could go back to the old way of nurse training, learning on the job, rotation around all specialties so they can work in all . There would then be many student nurses on the wards all at different levels and being competent in most things including basic care. Weekends would therefore be better staffed at weekends. This was how it used to be. No one died alone, the elderly were fed etc. Right now food is put out and no one can help, patients lying in soiled beds, patient falling out of bed and ages before staff come. I witnessed all this when my father was in a geriatric ward recently. Weekends and bank holidays are terrifying, bank staff with no knowledge of the specialties, numbers very low, a care of the elderly ward needs more than 5 staff! If I was working in these conditions I'd also go to Australia . God help us all. We'll all be seeing euthanasia as the better option for ourselves if this carries on

I can promise you the students very much consider that they pay for their own education. Over 9k in fees a year and 40 hrs a week of unpaid work on nhs wards for three years. I know and you probably know it costs more than 9k per year to train a healthcare student. But I teach such students and the if I had a £ for every time some student ranted at me that they’re paying £9280 a year for the course and they don’t think xyz is good enough I’d be loaded.

I think if they had to pay something back of they left there really would be a mutiny. Especially because the people who tend to leave after only a short time are generally having a nervous breakdown and can’t cope with the job.

It's been this way for a while - since covid really.

Lack of social care means trouble discharging - though from personal experiences know communication round this is dire to families also had family members back in with serious condition less than 24 hours after discharge - so bed in hospital are full - A&E has no where to put people so they back up meaning long waits and thus less free ambulances.

They do try things - Dad ended up on overflow from A&E ward for a week unfortunately no-one was in charge and the care was no existent and frankly it nearly killed him couple of times - only got bed as family reached breaking point and made a huge fuss. Originally intend for overnight or hours wait not set up correctly with enough staff. Even on wards care can be shockingly poor.

I think Labour with pump more money in and tinker - and little will actually change due to demographics and poor staff moral.

Decoart your comment about your Dad just made me cry. I'm sorry he felt that way. Heartbreaking.

You do know it is decided by the tories how much is allocated to all parts of UK . The tories vote on a sum , so then an equal amount is allocated to the rest of UK

England has nothing to do with healthcare funding in Wales or Scotland. Both Wales and Scotland are devolved and our own governments are responsible for our NHS funding. Labour have proved to be a total shitshow in Wales