AIB to ask why people expect/feel entitled to 'first class' treatment by the NHS?

[depressedhealthprofessional]

I ask because, having worked frontline in the NHS for nearly 20 years it feels like peoples expectations are becoming more and more unrealistic and out of step with the reality of what can atuially be achieved within the resources available (limited and shrinking in real terms each week)

I can honestly, hand on heart say that I have yet to meet any health professional who has 'survived' more than a few years in direct patient care who does not give more than 100% each and every day. yet all I hear is people grumbling and complaining that the NHS did not get this or that 100% right. I am not saying that we get it right absolutely all the time but for gods sake, if I have to hear about someone moaning about the quality of the mashed potato on the ward , the fact that the home help (provided by the NHS/social services) is refusing to wash the net curtains, or that it took (gasp) more than one investigation to find out what was wrong with them (they don't know what they are on about'/they are incompetent/ they are wasting my time') I am going to scream. It isi just so soul destroying that the nhs saves and improves the lives of countless millions each and every day yet all we get (in the main) is negative pres and individuals having no idea of what we are up against and just how damn hard we work.

I bloody challenge them to get on and step into our shoes!!

Rant over!!

The principle of "First do no harm" should be reinstated.

yes and compared to what we could be paying its nothing really. I can pick up the phone and get a GP appointment or rock up at A&E and get major heart surgery for a small monthly payment. Im happy

Premiums for private health care insurance don't cover the cost of of treating long term expensive conditions. Chronic dialysis, for example, isn't covered by private insurance policies. Private providers can - and do - choose to treat straight-forward cases only, which reduces the cost per patient when compared to the NHS. Complicated cases are frequently transferred to NHS care.
So visit your GP 4.5 times a month but better hope you never get cancer, IHD, CKD...although of course these are amoung the most common causes of death...
If you're not currently a heavy user of NHS services then of course you're paying in more than it would cost to get the services you currently need privately. The balance would be the other way round if you had any kind of chronic illness or were, perhaps, elderly.
How much does it cost to give birth in private hospital?

He asks the smoking / drinking question because he gets performance pay for addressing these issues. Just as he also gets performance pay for a meeting a whole host of other targets - none of which are remotely connected to the condition you presented with.

GPs are a business -within the NHS, so crap GPs are protected. If everyone left our local surgery the surrounding GPs would have too many patients and close their books to new patients. Piss poor GPs should be allowed to wither on the vine - not be supported by public funding.

Obviously, Ive had very different experiences of the NHS. Im biased, they have saved both my life and my fathers life and I cant thank the doctors and nurses enough. Im also a nurse myself and the mash potato was shit but who cares!!!

you said in your op that you were tired of people grumbling about the nhs and that it took more than one investigation to find out what was wrong with them and how we didnt understand just how damm hard you worked and then people post about what happen to them and you say things about the food and how this has given you anxiety and depression but you fail to see the many many people who have been killed by the nhs incomparable or left permanently disabled or not been given the right treatment because it was expensive

you were the one who brought up how its affected you and when i state how its affected me i am b laming every person who works for the nhs? infact i could blame a couple hundred for dramatically shortening my life but that was in fact stop your rant about how we apparently arent thankful enough for your hard work and the fact you feel sore after a days work so forget the fact people die because the nhs is incompetent lets feel bad because your sore at the end of the day

Wet I agree, but if people such as yourself don't vote with thier feet then that will never happen!!

I don't think it would be too difficult to extend insurance to cover those conditions if the NHS did not have a monopoly on their treatment. They manage acute and chronic conditions quite successfully in other countries with insurance based health systems.

As for giving birth - I asked GP if I could give birth in private hospital locally. Answer - No. all local maternity services were NHS only. If I wanted private I'd have to go to London (this was years ago and things may have changed).

I looked into private insurance and no bugger would have me. Or they would but not cover me for the chronic condition that I need treatment for.

Same with life insurance and critical illness cover. I'm too risky and too expensive apparently

savlonqueen, I am deeply sorry to hear of your experiences and I do hope you are taking action against those that are responsible

Savlon, I am not ranting......just telling it like it is.

And I have not attacked anyone on here (like you have me).

When I said I was sorry for your predicament I meant it (whatever that may be).

I am not execting any sympathy for being 'sore'...... but giving an example of how the job does impact on me, on most of us, we are real people too and an also be damaged by the system.

Yes , things go wrong, people die, millions have also been saved and lived prolonged and made substantially better by the NHS and the individulas working in it. Its very wrong of you to dehumanise the people who i am pretty damn sure have (mosly tried their best to help you within the contarint of an imperfect NHS.

I am sorry but just no, i refuse to accept that the doctors tried to help me they diagnosed me and then waited 18 months and repeated the same test numerous times because the medication that would of extended my life was expensive and then when i eventually did get it im pretty sure they realised i was not going to be alive long enough for it to be that expensive although the doctor did ask for my permission to write it up as a case study or something like that and then got annoyed when i declined because i should of been honoured because im such a rare case

bellesbelle: theres no point they said it was in my best interests for them to be sure they had the diagnosis correct and frankly who wants to spend years for them to pretend to apologise im sure my family will do it after im gone but who wants to be doing that while your dying

Some hcps are incompetent.

An example of mine;

Started suffering with abdominal pain. Period pains at first. Kept thinking I was due to come on. Didn't happen. Over a few days it got worse. It progressed to what felt pretty much he same as labour contractions, but worse. I was in agony. I couldn't get off the floor.

My mum took me to the local hospital.

I was left bending over screaming and crying sitting on a metal bench for 6 hours in excrutiating pain. They wouldn't even give me a paracetamol.

They tested my blood. Told me I was fine and there were no signs of infection anywhere. Sent me home.

OH took me to his parents. I spent the night literally screaming and crying. He took me to a different hospital. They imediately discovered I had a severe infection in my womb, the result of an incomplete miscarriage (had no idea I was pregnant until then).

How the fuck did the first hospital miss this? And why was I left in the state I was with no attention or pain relief?

I also had an ectopic pregnancy, and I didn't know I was pregnant then either, the gynacologist who saw me told me "you probably just have clamydia like everyone your age" and when I said I don't, I'm in pain, pkease do something for me he told me "the only thing we've not tested your blood for is pregnancy - but its impossible to get a negative result on a urine test if you were pregnant" if that isn't incompetence I don't know what is?

OP: get out if you can.

It pains me to say this, but I really mean it.

I have spent far too long in ward based nursing. I am
Burnt out and have nothing left to give.

I used to have such grand ideas about what I could achieve and the difference I could make.

Turns out you can't.

Get out while you can before it destroys you. Sometimes
I cry when I think of the person I used to be.

well this has depressed me now!

In what way?

Hard to explain really, all the distressed patients and staff, and such a negative view of it all

There are always going to be negatives, every service has negatives. There are brilliant, amazing things done by medical professionals, and complaining about the negatives is not equal to dismissing that.

If negative experiences were ignored, then the developments and improvements that enable the countless positives would never happen.

Midnight,I know how you feel, believe me, but whenever I feel like I can't make a difference I remember something I once read, which goes something like this
'A man was walking along a beach that had been covered in thousands of starfish that were drying out in the sun and he was throwing them back into the sea. Another man approaced and asked him why as he couldn't possibly save them all. The first man replied as he threw another back into the sea "Well, I made a difference for that one"
I helps me in the darker times.

Ok you are being unreasonable of course people should expect first class care
however surely you realise the guy complaining about the mashed potato is one reason (albeit a teeny tiny one) contributing towards why people get second class care.

Of course IRL there are loads of professional wingers and the NHS gives them a field day but have you read that thread I assume you are referring to? People are talking about piss on wounds, lack of diagnosis and failure to provide life saving treatment not the colour of the curtains.

Ok, I'm sorry, but I do expect first class treatment from the NHS.

I don't expect hotels, I don't expect to have people at my beck and call. I don't expect to be seen in 5 minutes and I accept that each hospital/GP/medical center has hundreds, or thousands of people to provide a service to.

I expect the NHS to make me better when I am ill. I expect them to guide me through things such as pregnancy, disability, and mental illness.
I expect to walk into a GP's office and tell them what's wrong, and for them to have a vague idea of what might be going on. If they're not sure, I expect them to refer me on to someone else who is more specialised.

If I am in hospital, I expect wards to be clean, staff to be pleasant and to keep me informed of what is happening with my body. I don't expect gourmet meals, but I do expect to be fed.
I expect to be able to call on a member of staff when it's 3 in the morning and I'm scared of what will happen to me.

The postcode lottery with the NHS is ridiculous. I have been diagnosed with two seperate things in the past year. One got worse when I was visiting family, and was quickly sorted through an emergency operation that my "home" NHS refused to do. After moving house (and GPs, and NHS regions), it has taken me a month to get a scan here that took me 6 months previously.

Treat us fairly, treat us like humans, make us better. That's all we want.

I am sure some people expect too much. I personally woul have liked my sister's cancer to be diagnosed before her post Morton.

afternoondelight - to pick up on your "postcode lottery" point. It is, as you say, totally insane.

2 years ago, I had a serious issue that needed dealing with very quickly. (Suspected cancer). Because of where I live, I was seen by a consulatant, diagnosed and operated on in 3 weeks.

If I had lived 2 miles down the road, in a different "area", even though I would have used the same healthcare trust, I would have had to use a different hospital and there, the wait for the initial consultation to tell me something was wrong would have been 2 months. The wait for an operation to fix the problem would have been a further 4 months.

How is that right?

The NHS brain damaged my baby because of inadequate maternity care during delivery.

The NHS has failed to look after her, or me since. I have to fight tooth and nail to get access to basic therapy which will give her the best chance of living some kind of independent life when older. Even when I get services for her they are taken away within months, and the therapists change constantly so there is no continuity, distressing for my child and myself as we yet again relate the story of how the regions best hospital almost killed my child.

In fact I would really like to know why I didn't get the treatment others got when my baby stopped moving, a crash section would have saved her, the induction really did kill her for a short while before the nicu doctors brought her back to me.

We pay privately now for some treatment, we have to, there is no money for my child in the NHS that I pay towards. I am not asking for first class treatment, just some treatment would be good. In addition I have to relay my child's story every time we are taken in (usually by paramedics) only to be met with shocked faces and a look of horror at the fuck up that was my maternity care. I had a superb pregnancy, I am fit, healthy, I wash my hands, never overuse ABs and also follow ward protocol.

People have a right to expect a good, safe standard of care delivered by polite and professional staff. I have lost count of the times I have become irate at colleagues who 'couldn't be bothered'. It is bad for the individual patient and bad for the NHS as it wastes money.

On the other hand some people do have unreasonable expectations. For example the man who made a complaint that he was offered an appointment at 11:30 as he didn't want to wait that long even though the appointment had been offered at 10:15. Or people who become abusive because they are not prescribed antibiotics for a virus.