To ask what YOU would do to help save the NHS?

[TamiTayorismyparentingguru]

I don’t care if you’re an HCP or not, I don’t care who you vote for, I don’t care what you think about Brexit - all opinions welcome.

Opinions on practical suggestions on how to save the NHS only though.

Our local hospital is getting worse and worse with regards to staff shortages and waiting lists getting longer and longer. I will say that our GP is really great and we’ve never really had a problem with getting appointments etc, but as soon as you are referred to the hospital things go massively downhill. (We did have a GP misdiagnose/miss DH’s cancer which was pretty shit - but I wouldn’t say that was a particular problem with the system - more just one of those unfortunate things that happens, that really shouldn’t happen, but that are just a matter of course.)

The hospital is a different story though - wait lists for some departments are insane (current wait time for an initial cataracts appointment is 42 weeks and then up to 18m for treatment, paediatric dermatology is a min of 30weeks, paediatric podiatry is approx 30weeks also. I have been on a wait list for max fax for 14mths so far. I also had an 8week wait for an appointment at the breast clinic after seeing the GP with a noticeable lump.)

DH has also had to fight for every single appointment since his cancer treatment last year - instead of the 4-weekly appointments he’s meant to have had, most of his appointments have been 7-8 weeks apart and have been cancelled at the last minute (sometimes just an hour before) at least 4 times in the last year.

It’s awful and yet I do trust that the doctors, nurses, receptionists etc etc are all doing everything they possibly can.

What’s the solution?

And, I work where I work because it suits and I like it. If I schlepped into London, I'd earn double and get a car allowance and a swish office.

I don't know why I skim through these threads but I always do. Have read a few bits over the course of this thread.

I am very glad a lot of posters are not actually in charge of the NHS, that's for sure. Some of the better suggestions are already in place/being utilised though. As for the attacks on NHS 'perks' it would be nice if people decided to ditch the private sector and come to us for them, but I don't see many volunteers on here. We are very bad at attracting and retaining talent in the NHS. I love it, and I believe in it, but if they start lopping bits off the pension, annual leave, mat pay etc I will be far more likely to leave. I've got plenty of friends working in my line of work but privately, they have considerably less day-to-day stress and I'd say their overall package of benefits is better actually, the only reason I stay is because it is the NHS and I do love it. More fool me some days. Threads like this certainly don't do much for keeping morale up on the inside.

Most doctors who do private work do it in addition to their NHS commitments. The ones who should repay the cost of their training are those who emigrate. Just to add insult to injury, their student loans get written off.

"Anyone who attends A&E for non life threatening issues is directed to other providers after triage"

The uncomfortable truth is that this is dangerous. Lets take gallstones for instance. Its not seen as life threatening but can become life threatening as ive linked upthread. And even if not its EXCRIUTIAINGLY painful. When i was ill with this after losing all that weight (and it was due to the weight coming off too fast because i was told that by medics on a few occasions) and i had been shifted around like a bloody parcel after i was doing what the NHS has always encouraged people to do and lose the excess weight i would have started wondering why i bothered.

FormerlyFrik- I've worked as a nurse both in nhs AND private sector.

I'm also still in frequent contact with friends/colleagues in healthcare/residents and nursing care.

If a private residential/nursing home can't cope with perfectly normal and relatively predictable levels of sickness (EVERYONE gets ill sometimes) then it's being poorly run.

No, I think nobody should get 6 months full paid sick leave - and I say that as the sister, cousin and niece of police officers past and present.

@MorbidlyObese You got a letter?????????????? FFS.

Most doctors who do private work do it in addition to their NHS commitments. The ones who should repay the cost of their training are those who emigrate. Just to add insult to injury, their student loans get written off.

Who is working in all the private hospitals and cosmetic surgery clinics then if it’s not ex Nhs doctors? Their training is massively expensive.

Making even a few of them, who can probably easily afford it, repay it to the nhs would help

230,000 x 10 doctors repaying back into the system is 2.3 million which could help save so lives.

The problem in the NHS is that absences aren't managed, possibly because HR depts have caseloads of 150 employees plus when the optimum is about 70/80. Yet there is permanent pressure on the NHS to "cut backroom jobs".

Private hospitals are used by doctors doing private sessions outside the NHS in addition to their NHS contracts. There are no private hospitals staffed with full time doctors. Now that the NHS is stopping procedures such as tonsil removal, grommets, varicose vein surgery and setting the bar far too high for procedures such as cataract surgery, people with those conditions actually need private care if they can find the money.

It might be a god idea to avail yourself of some facts before spouting nonsense.

Also. I love the royal family but... why don’t they help our nhs and raise money for it.

The wedding money it has cost us taxpayers could definitely have been spent on the nhs

they could have done an exclusive magazine/paper deal to pay for their weddings since it was so widely reported anyways and we are all paying for megans wardrobe when she doesn’t even use British designers or give back to the uk fashion industry

They could do something like the do with invictus games to raise money just for the nhs

Yes there is pressure to cut backroom jobs. Like the three managers at my local hospital reaponsible for phlebotomy. 3 hour rates because there is often only one phlebotomist. That's what I call unnecessary backroom staff. Ludicrous and the music played while the titanic sank - in this case a grand piano in reception.

Nonsense. Lol

what about the cosmetic surgeons working privately full time in a booming industry here in the uk who were trained by the nhs. They go skiing or abroad at weekends they don’t pick up extra night shifts in A&E do they?

No they don't. Because A&E is a completely different specialism to plastic surgery and they don't have the skills. That would be like asking a cardiologist to pop along and do a quick C section. I have no idea why anyone would laugh at revealing such tragic ignorance.

My DBro does private work in his own time, not his NHS time.

A lot of doctors can only do that because they're allowed to work part time for the NHS, i.e. they work just 3 or 4 days for the NHS, giving them time to do the private work. The NHS are VERY accommodating (perhaps too much so) for senior doctors to work part time - at the same time, suffering long term vacancies because they don't have enough doctors to work all shifts required. It's like a catch 22 - if more NHS doctors were full time, the waiting lists would be shorter and there'd be less need for people to go private.

All this complaining about doctors/HR/admin/nurses. The real problem is the patients. Not that most choose to be a burden on the NHS but we are a lazy bunch of uncooperative selfish gits.
Too fat, too unfit, too unhealthy, demanding to be seen when WE want, missing appointments, whingeing about the care, wasting prescription drugs by hoarding etc, not looking after elderly rellies, not saving for our old age care. etc etc.
Just joking but we patients could do better!

" not looking after elderly rellies"

MN "We dont look after elderly rellies "

Also MN "you are obviously only looking after your elderly rellies so you can get the inheritance. Why dont you put them in a nursing home so they can get professional care"

I would ask the NHS to spend more time on initial appointments following a GP referral, rather than see me then add me to another waiting list for further treatment, because in the meantime I've had to waste my GPs time for ongoing pain management and repeat courses of antibiotics, been seen in A&E 3 times - each justified and requiring referral to the surgical assessment unit for minor procedures to 'tide me over', numerous chaser calls from my GP to get my consultants referral brought forward in the mean time, and then when I was seen he declared I needed an emergency admission for surgery on a weekend, when there was no beds on the ward I should have been cared for on. The amount of NHS time wasted in the interim between me first being seen and getting surgery to rectify the problem sooner could have all been avoided, freeing up all those people involved to deal with other patients. It's been quite an eye opening experience.

I work in another public sector where there is six months' sick pay. The way people are suddenly fit for a phased return on the day their six months' pay ends is nothing short of a miracle.

Indeed, whereas those companies that don't pay you for the first 3 days off sick and thenonly SSP tend to find sickness rates are nothing like as bad.

A standard consultant contract is 40 hours a week. Any less than 10 x 4 hour sessions a week, not only affects pay but also prevents pay progression, ie they will get no salary increase. There are also specialisms with no opportunity for private work, e.g. A&E and oncology.

Stopping consultants from doing private work wouldn't necessarily increase capacity in the NHS as many of them would leave. It would also mean that people needing procedures not available on the NHS would have to go abroad for them.

To be fair, MO, it's great for consultants, it's pretty rubbish for junior doctors.

DBro friends are quite derisory about my profession (law) - thinking we're all on £1 million PEP. They can't accept that most lawyers earn between £30 and £40k at all levels. (Of course, they all think they would be in the former category...)

I experience the same (as a qualified accountant). Likewise they think I'm coining it in, but I've never even been a higher rate taxpayer. I work out in a run down Northern town, and £40k or so is definitely the top for local practices. We got a cv from an agency a few weeks ago re a chartered accountant looking for a f/t job, with salary expectation shown as just £28k.

Not so long ago I almost threw out a prospective client (an NHS specialist working just 2 days per week on £40k p.a.) who expressed surprise at my charges (I quoted £200 for her tax return!) and went on a rant about how poorly paid she was being in the NHS and how she wished she could charge what I do "per hour". They live in a different world. And yes, this was the same run down Northern town where average full time wages are under £20k p.a.

Definitely time national pay bargaining was scrapped as doctors etc living in low cost regions are absolutely coining it in as there's no way they'd get anywhere near similar pay outside the NHS in the same areas.