to think the n.h.s is going to ruin for things like this

[diabeticsanon]

dm was in hospital and when she left was transported back with two hospital blankets. i took them back to the ward a week later and one auxillary said 'oh, give it to the nurse over there, but you could have kept them or thrown them away'. the other nurse looked at me as if i'd given him a bag of dog shit and put them on the side without a word of thanks .
mum also has put out two perfectly good walking frames [without my knowledge] for council bulk collection. her excuse ? wouldn't give me one.
so much money and resources are drained from the n.h.s.every day it's stupid things like this that aren't helping anyone.

It's for infection control reasons.

More expensive to clean to the right level than to dispose of and the costs of infection occurring are HUGE! It's a massive, expensive pita dealing with bugs caused by things like this.

There is a major issue with imo corrupt practices in procurement but then it suits the tory agenda in making the Nhs at least appear if not actually be ineffective/wasteful.

It's a combination of underfunding and wasteful practices imo

The tories want us thinking the Nhs isn't fit for purpose and judging by some responses on this thread they're succeeding.

Dietcokemegafan you might accept private test results etc there's numerous posts on here by mners who's Gp's refused to even discuss the possibility.

Ciarcel - the reason many of us fear this govt taking us into an American healthcare system is because they've vested interests in American healthcare companies particularly insurers, they've been meeting with and discussing how this could be done while having far fewer similar meetings/discussions with healthcare experts from other countries. It's not an unfounded fear.

TFBundy I agree I get annoyed too at the frivolities like artwork when basics aren't being covered. Also things like the scissor issue. That's the type of poor procurement decisions I'm meaning.

A hospital blanket would only need to be placed in the laundry hamper with all the other washing. A walk to the sluice is all that's required of the nurse.

YANBU. FWIW the 'looking at you like you handed him dog poo' is the other reason the NHS isn't what it was. Caring is central to the profession, yet appears in such scarcity it's terrifying.

I do work for the NHS. It’s wasteful, inefficient and riddled with problems. Horrifically so.

And we should be fighting against the failure to reuse items. We consume far more planetary resources than there are available for each year. This needs to stop. And if that means reusing crutches, that’s what we should be doing.

Why on earth do people think that a hospital would want a used commode designed for single patient use?
If you have used a commode in hospital you would see they are built with infection control in mind - not the home use ones.
These are also generally supplied by an outside company not from the hospital and would be labelled up with how to return.

Blankets generally do not actually belong to the hospital they are rented from a laundry company.

Look at the items you have - if they have a label like mediequip that is who should collect it
If it looks like it can easily be cleaned then take it back.

Syringe drivers and other medical devices need to be returned.

They’re not made up stories, be it in the daily mail or not. People have been prosecuted.

Just because people have been prosecuted for fraud in thr NHS doesn’t make it a widespread problem. Still not got any hard evidence I see.

8a's DO NOT earn 70k!

But a non clinical 8a temp??? 😮 😮 😮 😮 I can't even imagine a role a non clinical band 8 temp would be needed outside a few very specialised technical roles.

Aside from the tv programme and articles and prosecutions Widespread enough for it to be reported on.

Blankets generally do not actually belong to the hospital they are rented from a laundry company.

That's true. They often use outside companies for linen services.
Regarding waste, there is a lot but patient themselves a responsible for a great proportion of it. I think medicines waste accounts for about £300 million a year. The waste of an odd blanket (which could be reused anyway( seems negligible in comparison.

I work in a hospital
We do not have spare rooms free to store dirty broken equipment and do not have staff to clean it.
We pay some contractors to take it away clean it and return it and often its just cheaper to buy it brand new!

Yes a syringe driver is owned and serviced by the Trust/hospital

Imagine if everyone returned their commodes to the hospital where would you put them all - covered in infectious bodily fluids?!! it is not viable to do that

We do take crutches back and refurb them but we get our independent living aids from an independent living aid company and they are responsible for them

Also the air mattresses need to be replaced every so often. They are not bought they are usually rented now. Used to be hospitals bought them then had no way of disposing of them properly so end up in a cupboard somewhere all dirty and useless. These items have a shelf life and can become health hazards - I wouldn’t actually WANT them in an otherwise clean hospital... would people really want to be admitted to a ward that had a hoard of filthy bodily fluid covered equipment in the space where a bed could go?!

@icanhelpyou, I’m not surprised you can’t supply any statistics for fraud in the NHS. I can’t find any at all. Forgive me if I can’t find a TV programme and the Daily Fail a reliable source.

There is safeguards for fraud in my trust

All time sheets are electronics and only handled by a manager

All expenses are the same

All purchasing is authorised by managers are varying levels - under £5k and over £5k

Monthly budget meetings to spot any discrepancies

Most trusts are in such tight reins everything is scrutinised by the CCG monthly and everything accounted for

Agency staff is all electronic now too

I think the only fraud that can take place now is minimal. I’ve worked in the nhs for 20 years and it was rife years ago when it was paper based with people fiddling time sheets. Really not easy to do that now

CQC and CCG pressure means it’s much harder

Our hospital send any equipment abroad. It seems such a waste when our own country is on its knees.

C Diff kills so many people here is a 27 page document on how to manage it

And ‘single use’ is very much how we manage to manage infectious diseases

www.nhsdg.scot.nhs.uk/Departments_and_Services/Infection_Control/Infection_Control_Files/Local_Policies/Specific_Infections/Policy_for_the_Management_of_Clostridium_Difficile.pdf

My grandmother died of C diff. She wasn’t fatally ill in hospital and it was their poor cleaning standards and dirty equipment which killed her. It kills people. All. The. Time. You may see it as septicaemia on a death certificate. It’s often due to a HAI

I see someone said that the UK have been talking to US healthcare providers and this is the concern about proposed reform to the NHS (sorry for slow response and if this disrupts the current flow of the conversation) but similar private providers are functioning in Europe and the services are still free/very heavily state subsidised where not free. I admit to not having lived in the UK for quite some time so am behind on the discourse - all I know is that I have many friends in the UK with strong "No to NHS privitisation"/ "Save our NHS" feelings/banners etc. (by which they mean no private providers) yet it is clear that the system is crumbling. No politicians in 2018/19 want to touch the subject of the need to switch to European models where there are always private providers involved even though the "customer" does not pay.

I think there is confusion about what part of the system is crumbling too

They are trying to get people out of the hospitals and cared for at home so most of the money now is put into ‘patient at home’ and community services. The big push is on patient self management. We know the top of the pyramid of patients who are very old and/or frail need the services the most so we are trying to push out the younger more healthy patients from the system to free up resources for the older/frail. This is why it looks like it’s all gone wrong, because people who don’t usually rely on the system struggle with it when they do go into it, whereas those who need it the most/frequently are being treated and seen.

Different parts of the system are struggling - social care being so underfunded puts huge pressure on the NHs as people who ought to be at home are not, therefore means other people have delays to treatment

Not that this seems to be the point of the thread, but it seems that some people seem to think fraud in the NHS genuinely doesn’t occur anymore. It does. There is an entire department dedicated to stopping it. You’d probably only be aware of it if you had cause to report it.
cfa.nhs.uk/fraud-prevention/what-is-nhs-fraud

Isn't it remarkable how all of this desperation to cut costs, e.g. by outsourcing random tasks and forcing people to work for less - even forcing what used to be paid jobs to become voluntary, so no one knows what they're doing - is actually increasing costs and waste, and delivering poorer service? On all levels: on an organisational level, in the service to individuals, and in the cost to our economy as a whole in forcing the cost of labour down, resulting in no one having money to match our rising living costs.

I wish everyone would put the ideology aside and look at what is actually happening. While they're at it they can have a look at systems thinking e.g. vanguard-method.net/2017/11/do-shared-services-bake-bread/ But no, that would be pragmatic and sensible and we mustn't do that, we have to focus on appearances instead.

Pookiedoo I see the point you are making but hospitals are filthy anyway. I had DS1 at what was then a brand new flagship hospital. The midwife told me to have a bath (it would mean the pee didn't sting). So I tried. The bath was blood stained and full of pubes, the floor was filthy. I trundled back and was told "that's how women leave them" and instructed yo use the vim and green paper towels to clean it. There must have been six midwives chatting as she said it. No emergencies it was Christmas day and my baby was still in SCBU.

Seriously a woman who had had a difficult birth five hours earlier and they told me to have a bath, then to clean it first.

Chelsea & Westminster 1995! All gleaming on the surface.

One of my local trusts has recently published a 132 page equality report. In their clinics they call men as Mr John Brown; women as Jane Brown. How much did that report cost? A report that has no impact on sexist practices?

I'm in Aus.
Not long after I moved here I broke my leg.
My private medical insurance paid for a man to come to me at home and check my needs (and fit me with a removable cast). Then he said when I was ready for crutches to go to a pharmacy and rent them!
I was a bit shocked but hey- I paid a deposit and a weekly rental, and made sure i returned them. It worked well, although was surprising.