To wonder when the NHS is going to start protecting all the people it dumped back in March?

[Noextremes2017]

Simply that?

OP the problem with that argument is that if you look at the past 10 years, the public sector has been on a pay freeze or 1 %, which has been a pay cut year on year, for the majority of the time. In that same span of time, private sector wages have been doing much better. There is an issue of fairness here - gunning for the public sector yet again is going to cause a great deal of ill feeling.

And yes, I know the argument is that the private sector are wealth creators etc., but unless you privatise everything, the UK needs a functioning public sector to keep going.

I feel intensely sorry for the people who are going to lose their jobs, but you can bet there will be public sector job losses too - unlike what people think, there are no jobs for life in the NHS any more. Many of us are on short term contracts, myself included.

We are restarting or continuing work though, but 3 months of delayed patients, plus any new referrals are a lot to fit in! So it will take time! And is being done in clinical urgency order. You might have been 10th in the list but in the last 3 months 30'people could have been referred who are more urgent than you, effectively bumping you further down the list. This could have happened without covid though, and is the point of triage.

Also to the person who could possibly understand why the gastroenterologist couldn't see them, consider the thought that the entire department or majority of it is off sick. 50% of one of my departments have been off sick with covid or isolating since it began, the other 50% are having to cover their ward work and urgent patients. All the registrars are doing extra on-calls to try and support the normal on-call system so their clinics aren't running either. That will be why your son can't be seen.

Yes OP, sadly what you have taken from this thread is disappointingly true: waits will be longer. But I honestly don't know how this could have been avoided! There just isn't the staff!!!

I do hope you get seen and treated soon. Keep an eye on your symptoms, any change at all ring and inform the consultants secretary so they have the most up to date position on you and can therefore make an informed decision.

I don’t know the answer. My mum is a scrub nurse and been largely twiddling her thumbs, though it has started to pick up a little in the last few weeks with cancer ops coming through.

I worry about my FIL - he was due the first of two knee replacements the day after all ops were cancelled. He had been waiting over a year and can barely walk as it is - they tell him to try and keep mobile, but he’s having more and more falls, some serious. He nearly fell into the greenhouse the other day.

The longer he has to wait, the worse he will become, until he can no longer walk at all and becomes dependent on a wheelchair and all the additional problems that will bring, like pressure sores, muscle loss in his legs. They may then decide it’s no longer worth the knee op and he just like that he will have lost his independence for the rest of his life. He’s in his early 70s.

Or he will have another fall, only this time he may break a hip, or worse.

Think it was Chris Whitt’s who cautioned about the hidden death toll from delayed or lacking ‘non-Covid’ medical care

@pointythings

I understand what you are saying and I am not arguing with you.

The whole austerity thing for the last 10 years set against this Government's 'spend spend spend' philosophy pre and post Covid just beggars belief.

Bottom line is we are all going to suffer and the more so because we were not prepared. And preparation was presumably the responsibility of the Government and the most senior people in the NHS (presumably the ones paraded on TV like Government hostages every night).

I read something about Hunt saying that in the 6 years he was responsible for health all planning went into a flu epidemic and nothing against a SARS type infection?

@Ginfilledcats

Noted - thanks for the advice.

@pointythings GPs have been doing video calls - all that is needed is 2 mobile phones!! These times call for alternatives and not overhauling entire systems! Rightly you point out some patients couple use this system but the majority can!

It seems the Nightingale hospitals were not much use for anything other that a Johnson Government PR stunt.

And you've only just realised this op? Providing health care is more than just building a hospital and equipping it. Where are all of these extra nurses and doctors meant to come from? The Nightingale hospitals requested that referring hospitals sent staff with the patients.

As far as I am aware OP it's worse than that... Whether flu or COVID, the requirements in terms of PPE stocks would have been the same - in 2016 the government carried out an exercise modelling a pandemic - they assumed a flu type virus rather than a SARS type virus, but the differences are negligible since both are respiratory diseases.

That report was never published in full. That report was not acted upon in terms of stocking PPE because of the cost - I mean, they had HS2 and Trident to pay for, not to mention Brexit planning.

That's why we are where we are.

You're asking sensible questions (now that you've got the wording right ) - what gets me is the people who voted for this government again and again and again and still expect the NHS to just bounce back to normal.

@pointythings

Just read your post about Windows 7 etc. Plus of course the NHS being the last organisation on earth using fax machines.

It is all kind of ironic given your ministerial leader (affectionately known as Halfwit Hancock in this house) prides himself on being so Tech Savvy!

Let's hope things change!

I’m a cancer patient and my treatment has been unaffected. Actually it has improved as the emergency assessment bay for oncology patients (to prevent them ending up in A &E) was previously used for months as an overflow ward; meaning if you had any problems on chemo you’d end up in A&E which is the last place you should be when your risk of infection is so high. Now the assessment bay is back up and running.

onlyreading the difference is that a GP will usually have his/her own clinic space. That is not so for community services where the clinician (District Nurse etc.) would normally have come to the patient's home to see them. We are not replacing simple GP visits with video calls, we are replacing community nursing home visits with video calls. And community nurses do not have their own offices where patient confidentiality can be maintained - they tend to be based in big, open plan office locations which are absolutely not suitable for this kind of work.

Now magnify the number of services which normally work in patients' homes: community mental health teams, OTs, physios, Diabetes specialist nurses, podiatrists, tissue viability nurses - you get the picture, I hope.

We can't magically change our premises just like that.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

Well sometimes even I like to think this Government is not 100% useless.

But then I usually regain my senses.

@Sharpandshineyteeth

Glad to hear they kept you out of A&E.

Running away - where is your oncologist husband practising privately with the private hospitals closed? My husband has practising privileges at four different private hospitals and they cannot currently accommodate anything but NHS patients.

They are mainly twiddling their thumbs, of course, but they have to stay closed in the event of this apparent second wave that the daily mail and half of MN say is going to happen

The NHS was on its arse long before this, now the excuse for people needlessly dying due to late treatment and operations for the next decade will be covid.

I’ve certainly never decreased the numbers of 2ww patient slots I offer weekly jir have I deferred anyone’s treatment be it chemo or other
Not sure who you are referring to I’m afraid.

Last week there was a documentary set in a hospital. The drs were saying that they need to reconfigure A and E plus wards in order to minimise risk of infection - that is going to take time.

Tonight on the BBC news they spoke to ITU staff at the Royal London Hospital. One consultant said this had very nearly broken the hospital. That's one of the best teaching hospitals in London. If they were struggling then I dread to think how bad it has been in other hospitals. Another consultant also said they are predicting the 2nd wave once lockdown is eased.

I don't know what more the NHS can do. They have been heroic throughout this and I speak as a patient waiting for treatment at Bart's ( the same trust as the London) and also for surgery at UCLH. I know my treatment has been delayed but that's the fault of the virus and the government's.poor handling of the early stages, not the fault of the NHS.

I'm suffering with a neurological condition, without Covid I would be waiting a year to see a consultant, I booked to go private & my appointment was cancelled. The hospital has no idea of when I will get a rebooked appointment, they are full up doing elective surgeries for the NHS, no Covid cases in the hospital. I'm left getting worse & the longer I get left untreated, the less chance I have of recovery, my GP doesn't want to know, as far as they are concerned, they have passed me on & aren't their problem.

Life saving and cancer surgeries and treatments have never stopped, along with cardiac outpatient clinics too.
I'm guessing you don't work in a hospital so don't actually know what you're on about. Stop scaremongering it's really not needed. Oh and elective surgery is due to start back up in the coming weeks. Happy?

if you look at the past 10 years, the public sector has been on a pay freeze or 1 %, which has been a pay cut year on year, for the majority of the time. In that same span of time, private sector wages have been doing much better. There is an issue of fairness here - gunning for the public sector yet again is going to cause a great deal of ill feeling

And not only ill-feeling, but a lot of people will leave the NHS to work in other health settings or change careers completely. The NHS struggles with retention as it is (as does education) and having yet more real-terms pay cuts will lead to staff shortages and longer waiting times/bigger classes.

MIL has been called today to go for her operation in a couple of weeks so things are getting back to 'normal'. She has to shield from now until then and the 2 weeks after

Please don't accuse the NHS of dumping people though.

@pointythings

What you say about that report is shocking.

But I'll tell you a frustrating thing about the NHS.

Last time I was in hospital I sat on the chair by the bed and one of the joints in the chair frame was insecure. I said to the nurse 'I am not bothered about this - I have knocked it back together but it just needs a little bit of wood glue putting in there and it will be fine'. Said nurse was one of the older more cynical ones and she said well by the time we report it and somebody (presumably an approved private contractor) comes out to fix it they will probably charge as much as a the cost of a new chair. I could see what she meant. It would probably be a £200 bill for 10 minutes work on site and 1p worth of woodglue.

And that is what is crazy to an NHS user / taxpayer. There is £200 that should have gone on PPE that probably went on a chair repair and just enriched an NHS contractor.

Boring story but you get my point. I am sure there are loads of suppliers ripping off the NHS and that means there is less of what's needed whether Doctors or PPE.

Now I expect you are going to tell me you are head of procurement for the NHS......www.mumsnet.com/emo/te/1.gif.pagespeed.ce.Pm7krOc06b.gif

@chocolateorangeinhaler

Well I don't know what area of the country you are in but you might find some regional variation as far as outpatients clinics and contact goes. And yes I know some of that is down to staffing and facilities being taken over for Covid.

Good to hear that your elective surgeries are restarting in the coming weeks. I am happy for you too.

I think the NHS had to act as it did to protect services in a time of unprecedented pandemic concerns.
If elective surgies go wrong and hdu or itu required this could have become problematic. If discharges post op are delayed due to lack of availability of services for rehab, pt, ot etc patient journey also effected. Its not ideal but I don't think we can say they acted in blind panic. Difficult decisions were made and are being regularly reviewed.

No in fairness it was the Government that acted in a blind panic.