A&E crisis

[mumsthewordi]

i am shocked to see the images from the wards, particularly impact on most vulnerable. Is this just the reality of a health crisis under any government, or do we think Labour have something to answer for?

My comments weren't just about the NHS but absolutely everything -NHS, schools, transport, trains, roads, local authority services have been pared to the bone. We patch everything and never plan for the future. Everything is based on results in 5 years time for the elections and nothing ever has a long term plan for renewal.

They said during the election, that sorting out the NHS would take 2 Parliaments, thats 10years...

You ve given them 6 months....ridiculous!

Surely you must have some awareness of how long it takes to train a HCP let along a Doctor... maybe you don't.

What are you talking about? Are we living on the same planet? They've been on the job 6 months; the Conservatives attacked the NHS for 14 years. Your posts are laughable.

@Alexandra2001
I've not heard any concrete plans

Have you ?

I have voted Labour in the past, not this time but I was very keen for fresh eyes and change.

They have been in for 6 months, how can they change hospitals in that time?

Let's judge them next winter

However I'm certainly not going to give them a decade, no!!

Because they want a life? Most people that work in healthcare work shifts, including evenings and weekends. What if nurses felt the same way?

If there are not enough, can they look into using AI to help. I’ve not had a face to face GP appointment since before COVID. It’s been a telephone appointment, where they can either refer or prescribe. Why can’t that be a set of questions that you complete online and then you can be referred to a specialist or prescribed the relevant medicine based on your medical history. Then you could get a date for your referral to the hospital or a time to collect your medication. They serve as a middle man a lot of the time. Not always, but a lot of concerns could be sorted this way.

I voted Labour btw. The tories decimated the NHS in my opinion.

Minister for Health comes from a family of criminals.

Yes the current nhs crisis is because of how Labour have run it for all of 5 mins and not remotely related to the years of Tory underfunding at all 🙄

That's not what anyone is saying , I can't see a single backer of the Tory running of the nhs in these threads

But what good does the blame game have now , it hasn't been 5 mins , in 6 months no real efforts have been made to showing commitment towards this not happening again

How many winters do you need like this to stop blaming the tories and start demanding if the incumbent government. We all know how dire the nhs is and how much investment it needs , that means day 1

I've heard more about VAT increase of private schools in the news than I have of Labour plans for the nhs - the latter affecting the majority

Rather than being so forgiving perhaps someone can tell me what Labour will be doing ?

@Alexandra2001

They said during the election, that sorting out the NHS would take 2 Parliaments, thats 10years...
*
You're happy with 10 years ?*

i think they will be, maybe not this thread which is sometimes due to how the op is phrased but 50 hour waits and strain on the system will be a factor for them

Labour sat down with the BMA and nursing unions and got agreement to end the strikes almost first thing they did. Surely that helps?

Or has everyone forgotten that.

The NHS, I think is beyond repair. I don’t think it can be fixed but I genuinely have no solution on what to do now. It needs more than just money. I am extremely thankful that our smaller localish hospital has a minor injuries and an out of hours clinic which I needed to use last week. I was in an out in under an hour last Friday evening. I can’t fault this at all however, if my illness was anything more severe,I know it would have been many hours at a&e.

I do agree that GP surgeries need to do more. Ours still hasn’t gone back fully to face to face appointments. I also agree there should be evening and weekend appointments which would have the potential to stop people abusing a&e. I’ll not write chapter and verse here but DH had a heart attack 4 years ago and has been seen by 3 hospitals, several cardiac nursing staff and has to fight for a check up/medication review - none of the people involved in his care have access to each others records.

Northumberlandgirl: I was afraid to post but had the same experience. I was a nurse and never nursed anyone with flu. Even if you lived alone, you just stayed in bed at home. Doctors and particularly A&E were for emergency use.

Too many people and not enough staff. I don't know, but it does puzzle me.

I suppose an aging population more likely to see complications from flu, the atomisation of families who are less likely to be around to look after their elderly relatives with flu and an anaemic GP service in some areas - would all contribute to more people ending up in hospital with flu.

But I'm a severe asthmatic, I was in hospital with the flu when I was 10. It's not a new thing.

Labour have been running the NHS in Wales for over 20 years. It doesn’t matter what superficial changes are made. You won’t improve healthcare until social care / housing /immigration/benefit system is improved. We live in system. NHS reflects that.

Yes, their plans will be published in April.

But the task is huge, i asked my DD yesterday whats the fix for the NHS... she is a band 6 HCP... "more staff, equipment, buildings, ambulances.. improve social, more of everything, treat staff better, too many leaving, off sick with stress and reduce demand, with better public health"

On social care, this where Labour can should be criticised, madness to have an inquiry not due to report in 3 years... bonkers and unfathomable why they are doing this.

I would like to know how many of the people in hospital with flu had the vaccine/ were offered the vaccine/ were unable access the vaccine.

This
I’ve also been sat there in kids A&E watching people come and go flabbergasted at what some people bring their kids for.
There is are certain people who have a very low threshold for when they go to the hospital or doctor.

And then there’s the issue of knock on effect of when people can’t get to see their GP they feel they have no choice,

you see both scenarios on here frequently

I work In healthcare and i remember in early 2018 going to a conference and the first speech was discussing the government’s plans to integrate/streamline/improve social care. That it would be run more hand in hand with the nhs as the govt said they recognised how one impacted the other. Of course there were no specifics, just lots of trumpeting about how this would save the nhs/healthcare. It was in all the national papers.

never heard anything about it again 🤷‍♀️

and here we are 7 years later and some bright spark is suggesting the same. You couldn’t make it up. I see these announcements and just think “yeah but nothing will happen”. I thought that in 2018 and I was totally correct. I’m sure the Tories will blame Covid for scuppering their grand plans but there were two years between 2018 and Covid hitting.

How can you tell what children are in for? Our triage is always done in a private room.

Every time we were there when my son was a toddler he was totally cheery and chatty in the waiting room. One time he had a broken leg, the other times he needed admitting because his asthma was bad. He didn't "look ill " though and his idiot dad kept whining that he was fine and we should go home

I think blaming people who present with trivia is just a distraction. I suspect that this has always happened and can easily be dealt with by effective triage and record keeping. Someone won’t present with a scratch if, after a 24 hour wait, they get a plaster. I also doubt that this is a new phenomenon or has changed much.

As for minor but worrying stuff, that is down to the collapse in primary care. GPs need to be brought back into the NHS and they need to be incentivised to see more people. Less record keeping might help here. GPS managed to be more patient focused pre internet and the constant tapping at a computer hasn’t helped medicine at all. That is compounded by the fact that records are often lost, fail to transfer and new histories are taken anyway.

I don’t blame anyone presenting with a sick child at A&E when they are told that they need to wait a week to see a GP. It is not for a worried parent to decide whether their child needs urgent treatment.

We need to treat this as a proper national emergency complete with extra legal powers, money to draft doctors into A&E short term etc. We are still one of the richest countries in the world but our medicine would disgrace far far poorer countries, unless you can pay for private or can manipulate NHS resources to your advantage (doctors, politicians, NHS workers etc).

The system has been failing for years. Investment was needed a long time ago, poor infrastructure/planning has only made things worse. For example, in my county there’s two A&Es serving over half the area. Both towns have seen a massive increase in housing/population but the hospitals have not been expanded so they’re constantly at capital. At the same time it’s become almost impossible to see a GP and patients are getting pushed to pharmacies who can only deal with select issues. Pharmacy First is only for seven conditions and the criteria for each is very strict. So if we can’t help the patient gets fed up and goes to A&E because it’s the only way they can see someone when, realistically, they don’t need to be there.

@BananaNirvana great to hear someone else saying this. I’ve spent the last year banging on about how everyone wants excellent public services but then mass hysteria breaks out at the suggestion it might have to be paid for (through taxation). The last election campaign was a masterclass in avoiding a mature conversation about this and I hold the mainstream media as responsible as the main political parties.