AIBU to get a bit fucked off at having to protect the NHS?

[Santaclauswhosthat]

This is a healthcare system I've paid into all my life. I don't think everyone who works in it is a hero and the vast majority of them aren't underpaid. It's ranked 16th in the world and has the worst cancer outcomes for any developed country. It's not very good. Nonetheless it's the only healthcare system open to me right now. But I can't access it. My operation had been cancelled and I can't get a consultant appointment. The GPs aren't seeing patients face to face. I've already had one tumour removed that was on the turn. I'm worried that I may have another. I have no way of finding out if this is the case. A family member has already died of covid 19 after being denied treatment for three days during which repeated calls to the ambulance service were made whereupon his mother was told she should only ring again if his lips turned blue. He is dead. Right now. The NHS didn't protect him. It isn't protecting me either. What is the point of the NHS, exactly? Most clinics are closed or running at half mast. GPs aren't seeing anyone. NHS staff get shopping hours and free food and fuck knows what else and we are all dying protecting them.

@Frangipanini there’s no private healthcare in UK at moment during pandemic. None- all consultants and private beds largely commandeered by NHS. So with your model of opting out, you’d be screwed and would be relying on the NHS to provide you emergency care. A partial NI rebate is not viable as there are many other emergency scenarios you may need emergency NHS care - after a car crash, meningitis, heart attacks etc etc). Systems like Germany manage better because they purposefully run a healthcare system with a surplus, whereas in the Uk we have a mad system where a surplus in the public sector is regarded as “inefficiency”. That’s why the NHS is always on the back foot.

If the system was privatised the only losers would be patients. Staff would probably get paid more such as across rest of western Europe/US (yay), beds would run at a surplus etc but it would cost you more either through healthcare insurance or taxation. I have no issues paying more for it. But folk are really labouring under false illusions if they think it just needs new management and can maintain current levels of funding.

Cancer screening and treatment including sugery has been suspended in many, many areas
Screenings have been suspended and will resume in due time because the risk of catching coronavirus is higher than the chance of detecting cancer that would otherwise lead to death if not caught right at this time.

Some surgery will be delayed in that it will be prioritised, but this happens at other times too, except it's not so publicised. It takes one specislised surgeon to go off sick for 6 months, and the same will happen.

It's been confirmed that covid will cause significant levels of indirect deaths. That's why we are in crisis. Crisis means that whatever causes issues overtake 5he shirt to deal with the outcome. It's noone's fault, but some people seemed programmed to always look for fault and blame the moment things don't go their way.

These times are shit, people are dying at a higher rate than what would normally happen but nhs workers and managers are doing all they can to cope with it. What they need is appreciation and respect, not blame and criticism.

Agree about what people have said about people not looking after themselves and expecting the ‘free’ NHS patching them up. The worst thing to do to yourself is be obese, yet you only have to walk around and see hugely fat people, including teenagers, many older people are quite slim. This as we know results in many, many expensive medical problems, including more likely to get the current virus.

My real bugbear is people getting so fat they ‘have’ to have expensive dangerous gastric bands. This is often done in private hospitals, paid for by the NHS! If you can’t stop eating you need to pay for treatment yourself

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2020/04/21/how-coronavirus-is-impacting-cancer-services-in-the-uk/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjGxcDkx4XpAhUUShUIHd1lCU8QFjABegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2rTQ_AtiNZdd-uejHPa4qv&ampcf=1

@dontdisturbmenow With up to 2,300 cases of cancer going undiagnosed per week, that's going to cause a lot of deaths too.

I agree, but it's a complete taboo to criticise the NHS and you'll be flamed
Because the criticism is never constructive. It's always a 'its much better elsewhere'. It isn't, and 'I would manage it all do much better if I was in charge! No you wouldn't!

The NHS needs complete reform and we need to learn from successful countries how to go about it

Very few countries spend the same percentage of GDP on healthcare as the UK, while achieving as good healthcare outcomes. Italy is one of the few, and even it has many more doctors and hospital beds, yet its healthcare system has been totally overwhelmed by Covid. The NHS, despite its many cock-ups during Covid (PPE etc) has done much better.

People on these threads always bang on about other countries having better healthcare, completely missing the point that almost all those other countries pay much more for that healthcare.

You don't want to pay the tax, and yet you blame HCPs for the effects of under-funding.

I kinda agree. I think protecting the NHS is important, but I don't understand the hysterical adulation, clapping etc. Very OTT, like clapping on a plane after a pilot has managed to do his job correctly and land.

@leckford while this is true to an extent, obesity (and other harmful behaviours like smoking and alcohol use) is associated with poverty and mental health problems. Treatment for mental health is woefully underfunded and let’s not even get started on universal credit etc.
There are wider issues than just taking responsibility for ones own health.

My GP is suddenly wonderful.

Revamped website; submit prescriptions or symptom requests. Call back by GP, within 24 hours for DS. Prescriptions arriving at pharmacy within 24 hours. Most issues can be dealt with over video link. I can report my bp, pulse and temperature, show a rash, etc.

Prior to covid anything digital required presentation of passport and two utilities and a four page form to reception for a user name and password that didn't work and could only be resolved by the receptionist who understood the system who was only in two days a week 9-5 and you had to go in person with all your paperwork again. Oh, and to find that out took three calls, waiting 30 mins for the phone to be answered!

The obstructiveness was due to data protection. Jolly interesting isn't it how the resistance to technology and adoption of up to date communication can happen within a week when faced with a crisis. That's what I don't understand.

Everyone's blaming the government but has anybody seen Sir Simon Stevens lately? Genuine question as he's the person who actually runs the NHS. You know the former adviser to Blair and his ministers regarding the NHS and healthcare who clearly goes along with ghastly Tory measures otherwise he wouldn't have accepted the appointment from Cameron.

I also would like to know what all the staff in the quiet depts are doing. Presumably the quality of care for the patients who are there is 110% in this period and the backlogs of.paperwork/inventories, etc, are being dealt with.

With up to 2,300 cases of cancer going undiagnosed per week, that's going to cause a lot of deaths too
And that's probably how many wouldn't need treatment in the first place if they didn't drink, smoke, had a healthy diet and exercised.

You just to see the threads about people already piling on more weight and drinking during the lockdown. Their own behaviours much more likely to kill them long term than covid but yeah let's ignore that part, shall we!

I work for the NHS.

'Protect the NHS' isn't about 'saving' us as individuals (loads of us have had Covid now so not sure how we're being protected anyway tbh).

It's about saving capacity in the NHS for Covid patients, because capacity is low due to years and years of stripping the NHS to it's bare bones. I thought people understood that.

And if you're ill, come in - we've got capacity for emergencies. In my hospital we now have two A+Es. The non-Covid one is very quiet, you'd be seen in no time, no 4 hour waits here. We can still see people if you have something urgent, so please do use us.

Unfortunately you are blaming the wrong people. It's not the nurses and doctors making these decisions.

I'm sorry for your loss at this time. The whole situation is making deaths even more challenging to cope with, what with no or limited visiting, restricted funerals, etc. It all feels somewhat rubbish tbh.

My GP surgery are seeing people face to face but only after triage on the phone. I went in last week for blood tests.

Not had an a and e situation personally but my grandma was taken in a week or so ago and is in hospital still - non CV related although so far has been tested twice for it. My FIL was in at the start of all this and died 3 weeks ago - Not cv related (though again tested twice) but, despite him not making it, the treatment from the hospital, the medics, the nurses and the paramedics and ambulance staff was fantastic.

So some hospitals are taking in non CV but critical patients. Not everything has stopped.

@FrowningFlamingo well my GP won't see my baby. They haven't offered any reassurance that it's fine either. I will keep pushing to see them but being asked to email and then have a receptionist phone you back means I can't even speak to them. I can only go by my experience.

The NHS isn’t a monolithic whole. It’s full of people working extra hard in danger and also just now of people being paid to do very little.

Who benefits when doctors are groomed to perceive every critique of a system as personal ingratitude? Not us, not them, but clearly it suits someone or we wouldn’t have this strange phenomenon.

So sorry for your loss OP.

Just for the record my husband's cancer treatment has continued. He has a 'cinderella' cancer. He has been lucky. We did not expect that after seeing cancer treatments were stopped in Italy.

If he caught CV his survival chances are low. Hasn't a great deal of treatment ( non CV)been cancelled because is so hard to stop that cross infection and those patients would be hit the hardest by Covid?

It's not necessary to mythologise NHS staff to know that many of them are taking massive risks ever day . You only have to look at the no of NHS deaths. Yes, Deaths.

The flip side of that is empty non covid wards. Imagine if other vulnerable patients were catching the virus.I can't understand why people have issue with that?

For me the scandal is lack of PPE. And the NHS staff and many carers are suffering from that. No amount of free food will make up for it.

just for the record the GPs in my family are working like DOGS.. Do you think they like screen consultations? So unless YOU ARE a GP please don't even pretend to know.

I’m going to turn off mumsnet for the day as I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole
But fwiw I find the ongoing clapping a bit cringey but If some people enjoy doing it and some people enjoy receiving it crack on. And I think the nhs is far from perfect and of course not all the staff are heroes - there are shit people in every profession. There’s also loads of fabulous ones working really hard in difficult conditions, not just right now but always.
But there’s no perfect option, the grass isn’t always greener.

while this is true to an extent, obesity (and other harmful behaviours like smoking and alcohol use) is associated with poverty and mental health problems. Treatment for mental health is woefully underfunded and let’s not even get started on universal credit etc
And here comes the usual excuses and return to the lets blame others. Poverty is no worse than it was 10, 20, 40 years ago. Yet obesity is multiplying constantly.

@kingofkings
Putting this as a post doesn't explain why you haven't been able to access any care. Do you have a GP or did you register temporarily with one? Why couldn't they give antibiotics or did they not recommend them?

We’re in temporary accommodation nowhere near our ‘usual’ GP (who has deregistered us anyway). Local GPs will not register the person affected and keep telling us to call 111. Waiting on hold to speak to a 111 call handler for an hour+ each time. The symptoms are now not bad enough to meet whatever script they are working to, but 6 weeks of breathing difficulties and chest pains can’t be ignored.

I also would like to know what all the staff in the quiet depts are doing. Presumably the quality of care for the patients who are there is 110% in this period and the backlogs of.paperwork/inventories, etc, are being dealt with.

Partly, but they're also being retrained to help in the Covid areas or, if they can work from home, they've been sent home to do that. We also have vulnerable staff, because we're also human beings, and they've been sent home.

Totally agree @Frangipanini
I like the idea of opting out of nhs tax payments to go private. A public system has no incentive to be efficient or innovative or high quality service, because patients have no choice.

It wont happen though, as brits love the NHS idea too much. Also currently NhS chooses bits to "privatise" by outsourcing and contractors/subcontractors - everyone ends up paying more.

It's not the fault of healthcare practitioners. Throwing more money at an inefficient public organisation only makes it more bloated.

We are being told to stay at home far too long

But is our lock down really any longer than other countries with similar figures?

I'm not sure it is, and it certainly hasn't been as strict as many other countries.

It hasn't even been 6 weeks yet.

You maybe grief stricken but what a nasty post. You need the health system we have but if you don’t like it, then move somewhere else and leave those of us who do appreciate what we have, for free. The staff work very hard under extreme conditions at the moment, they to have families they are worried about

We are also lucky we don’t have to pay, many countries do, or have a two tier system where if you don’t have cover to pay you get a second rate system

YANBU.

Yes it isn’t the NHS staff that are at fault but they are the public face of all that is going wrong. People are dying, and not just of C-19, which is why the disrespectful videos of attention-seeking dancing nurses needs to stop.

They are just doing their job, albeit under slightly different circumstances, but they should not be hero-worshipped and the really decent nurses don’t ask for it either.

I think people get caught up in the emotion of this to be honest. Criticising the way the NHS does not mean you don't care about its workers or the fact they might die of covid. And it should not be immune from criticism because it is under pressure.

YANBU.

I must admit I find the fetishisation of the NHS in this country a bit ridiculous at the best of times. I don’t want a system like America but plenty of other countries seem to have decent healthcare systems without having an NHS.

Also the NHS wouldn’t need so much “protecting” if it hadn’t been screwed for years.