To think my current work situation in the NHS is an absolute joke *MNHQ tweaked title at request of OP*

[MooreFoolYou]

Props to all NHS workers in the areas that were hit hard by Covid, I'm not denying for a second your hard work. What annoys me, is that hospitals in areas that haven't been affected are barely running and it's just a joke.

I work in a hospital that covers a large county, we've had 3 confirmed Covid cases. Ever. Yet almost all 'non essential' departments are still shut. Deployment has ended, as it's just not needed. Covid is not impacting us at this time. I have no work to do, as my department is shut, yet still I come in everyday. I'm literally coming in to sit in the office reading a book or even watching Netflix sometimes. There's loads of us that have nothing to do! You walk on to a ward and there's 12 nurses just twiddling their hands.

Why are non essential departments still closed when there is nothing else to occupy our time? Can the NHS really afford us to just bloody sit here? It's been two months of this! Why are patients having non emergency surgeries cancelled, why are non urgent referrals being postponed indefinitely, why are we turning people away to sit here with nothing to do?

I'm just fed up of it! I'm paying someone to look after my child whilst I do absolutely nothing. I've been told I can't work from home as the cost of getting me a laptop is too high, so I must come in everyday to just be here. With no work. Zero. What is the point!

I completely agree, it's ridiculous that so many health services are still compromised when people are down the pub having a jolly with no mask and no social distancing (yes some pubs have been quite good but that is mainly the ones that serve food and are basically set up as restaurants, the tables are spread out etc, but the ones that are traditional drinking holes just seem to have abandoned any concept of minimising transmission)

The cynical part of me can't help thinking that this covid business is being taken advantage of, to bring in the paid 2 tier system at some point or some other kick in the nads. We'll be so grateful to have something we'll be willing to pay anything right?

It just doesn't make sense otherwise.

Politicians don't use the NHS for anything routine, so why would they care?
Blame it all on CV/EU/Corbyn/Labour and we'll all believe it.

We'll eventually end up with an AE only NHS, everything else will be insurance based.

I don't doubt that the situation the OP is describing is similar in numerous hospitals across the country. I live in West Yorkshire, in one of the publicised Covid 'hot spots,' and my friend who is a nurse at our local hospital tells exactly the same story. She and her colleagues are sat on an all but empty ward for 12 hours each shift reading books and watching Netflix. Yet I've had a routine Dentist appointment check up, including teeth cleaning (the Dentist's face was literally 12 inches from my open mouth, and his hands were obviously in it), and also a 45 minute Eye Test in a small room with the Optician (who was touching my face to handle the equipment). Both wore appropriate PPE and were happy to get on with the job. How on earth is, for example, an appointment for someone to see a physio, or have a routine painkilling steroid injection in their knee any more risky than those two things?! The way the NHS is being mismanaged at the moment is beyond a joke.

This is absolutely not my experience. I work in an administrative role, supporting clinical services. Some services were redeployed during peak covid however consultations etc have been constantly taking place albeit at a slower pace however now things are ramping up to recovery phases. There is no team I know that is simply not working, roles have changed and some people are still redeployed but even though some departments are still based at home for various reasons, the work is being done. In fact productivity has increased also for various reasons.

It's infuriating. It's come out in the news today of the excess deaths over the past 3 weeks, not related to COVID. So people are dying of cancer and a raft of other illnesses because everyone is panicking about an illness with a

The ones saying this is bollocks, remember that we all no doubt live in different areas. Your area might be working a lot, other areas won't be. That's the truth even outside of covid times, some hospital staff think having 5 patients in A&E is really busy. For other hospitals, that's a severely slow day.

I've had a minor procedure in hospital in the last couple of weeks, and a pre-op assessment last week - with a view to scheduling me in for the full operation in the next couple of months as the pre-op results only last 3 months. When I went to the pre-op assessment, the car park was jammed, the procedure not so much but the NHS had arranged to do that at a local private hospital.

Both the procedure and the big op (unrelated) were expected to be sort of March/April/May this year, so almost exactly 6 months "late"; I was pleasantly surprised that I got them so soon TBH.

@MooreFoolYou where is this hospital where departments are still closed and staff are paid to sit and read or watch Netflix?!

I work in a hospital, in secretarial and have worked throughout the pandemic. We’re rushed off our feet every day all day. Can’t believe people are getting paid to do SFA when others are really busy.

@EDSGFC

So I hesitate to call your post bollocks OP, but it certainly doesn't fit with my experience.

If the op was the only person describing this I'd agree, it's bollocks, but they aren't.

I am incredulous that both hospitals I'm being treated at are still not doing f2f out patient appointments and these are major teaching hospitals in London.

I was a bit rude and phrased it badly.

I object to the OP's experience as an individual being extrapolated across the entire NHS to give a false impression.

Whilst some departments may not be back to full strength yet, the vast majority of the NHS is up and running as best it can within the rules laid down and the structures imposed by booking appointments weeks and months ahead when nobody knew if and when the government would change those rules.

Details always matter such as why the OP is twiddling her thumbs, and I should have asked for them before posting.

She and her colleagues are sat on an all but empty ward for 12 hours each shift reading books and watching Netflix

That might be true, but no area of the hospital works in isolation. I don’t know what specialty your friend is in, but it could be the case that patients are transferred to her ward after a procedure, but the procedures aren’t being carried out because the staff that do them are needed elsewhere or it’s not possible to do them safely. Or the procedures are being carried out in a different hospital. Just because your friend isn’t busy doesn’t mean that the rest of the hospital isn’t working hard.

I hate to be critical of the NHS but one offshoot of this crisis is that normal every day folk who don't have to use it constantly are finally getting a glimpse of what people with ongoing illness have known for a long time. The NHS wastes money on so many different and pointless things that actual medical care is in some cases too much to manage.

Ive long since given up. My DS was born early, we still, 12 years on, have no firm diagram for his lung condition. It makes it as a result incredibly difficult to gain an EHCP because we don't have a firm diagnosis. So when he inevitably gets ill over winter, I end up facing a fine for his non attendance at school.
I have to beg every year for a flu jab as he's not on the GP list. Every year I'm told he will be next year and he never is.
I said years ago that I was 99.9% sure he had Aspergers. I've worked with children with it. But I was fobbed off until 18 months and yet another consultant. Even then, the referral was lost by my GP who tried to blame me.
He wasn't on the shielding list. We never got any shielding letter. I asked the GP why and was told it was at the head GPs descretion. And according to this head GP who my son has never met, he wasn't acute enough.
We had to beg for allergy testing until he was 7 as a previous GP said I was neurotic and mentally in a position where I wanted him to be ill. This is all still on his record as they will not remove it. He had it as I complained and I was correct on every one of the things I said he was allergic to. Never got an apology.

I myself have health issues which I can never get dealt with so I've given up.

If I came into money I would pay to go private. The NHS is a wonderful thing in theory but it is now so underfunded and they keep on consultants and GPs and nurses who should've been ditched years ago.
But you must not complain or you get death stares. Or told it's free- which always annoys me as it's not, our taxes supposedly pay towards it.
It's outdated and this pandemic has proved it's not fit for purpose anymore.
Sorry to offend anyone but it's just a constant battle for some, so this is nothing new.

Meant to say - when they called to offer me a date for the procedure, I was told that a number of people had turned it down and would rather wait until things are better! Others turned down the offered appointment because they only wanted to have it done in the NHS hospital, despite the private one having Covid Free status and stricter distancing & testing rules (and an excellent local reputation).

My response was that they couldn't be anywhere near as much in pain as I was

@KeepingPlain

The ones saying this is bollocks, remember that we all no doubt live in different areas. Your area might be working a lot, other areas won't be. That's the truth even outside of covid times, some hospital staff think having 5 patients in A&E is really busy. For other hospitals, that's a severely slow day.

You're quite right of course.

But the two friends I mentioned, my godmother, my father and my aunt all live in different areas and attend different hospitals, plus I have a couple of dozen NHS friends and relations so I thought I had enough of an overview of the NHS that was being called "a joke" to comment.

Certainly as much as the OP who seems to have based her "the NHS is a joke" comment solely on her own individual example.

*It's infuriating. It's come out in the news today of the excess deaths over the past 3 weeks, not related to COVID. So people are dying of cancer and a raft of other illnesses because everyone is panicking about an illness with a

Didn't Dominic Cummings go for his long awaited "unspecified operation" in July?

@MooreFoolYou

Props to all NHS workers in the areas that were hit hard by Covid, I'm not denying for a second your hard work. What annoys me, is that hospitals in areas that haven't been affected are barely running and it's just a joke.

I work in a hospital that covers a large county, we've had 3 confirmed Covid cases. Ever. Yet almost all 'non essential' departments are still shut. Deployment has ended, as it's just not needed. Covid is not impacting us at this time. I have no work to do, as my department is shut, yet still I come in everyday. I'm literally coming in to sit in the office reading a book or even watching Netflix sometimes. There's loads of us that have nothing to do! You walk on to a ward and there's 12 nurses just twiddling their hands.

Why are non essential departments still closed when there is nothing else to occupy our time? Can the NHS really afford us to just bloody sit here? It's been two months of this! Why are patients having non emergency surgeries cancelled, why are non urgent referrals being postponed indefinitely, why are we turning people away to sit here with nothing to do?

I'm just fed up of it! I'm paying someone to look after my child whilst I do absolutely nothing. I've been told I can't work from home as the cost of getting me a laptop is too high, so I must come in everyday to just be here. With no work. Zero. What is the point!

Which county is this? Because looking at the dataset of total cases, you're doing even better than the Outer Hebrides which only had 9.

Someone asked for an example of what isnt open.

Podiatry out patients.

Its closed. They wont be drawn on when they're reopening.

I presume they're also watching Netflix or sitting in an office generating unnecessary paper work.

However, unlike a pp, our Practice nurse is still doing smears and has been for ages.

The inconsistencies are infuriating.

Just because your friend isn’t busy doesn’t mean that the rest of the hospital isn’t working hard.

This isn't about having to justify how hard people are working. Very few people actually want to have a go at NHS staff, contrary to what some posters think. It is about asking 'Are patients getting the care and treatment they need, and if not, why not?' And the answer to that shouldn't be 'because of
Covid', full stop. But in some places it seems to be.

Well in mental health inpatient services things continued as normal through covid only with reduced staffing, increased workload and extra stress.

I hardly ever get my unpaid lunch break and struggle to find time for the loo sometimes. Part of me would love to be bored in an empty department for a week or 2!

My experience of other services is mixed. Patients have had physical health appointments face to face so some are continuing but other areas are not seeing patients. We took one patient to a hearing clinic appointment where she was seen face to face, another hearing clinic sent some tubing for us to try and fix the hearing aids as they aren't seeing people😔

And I really do think anyone that resents the NHS discount is very mean spirited😫

Whilst some departments may not be back to full strength yet, the vast majority of the NHS is up and running as best it can within the rules laid down and the structures imposed by booking appointments weeks and months ahead when nobody knew if and when the government would change those rules.

But this statement might well support what the op is saying. Interesting that you caveat it by saying it's up and running as best it can, in line with guidelines... - that doesn't mean that it's serving patients well, or that the ops experience isn't caused by government guidelines does it?

I'm certainly not blaming drs and nurses or even admin staff for the lack of care that I'm receiving. I'm blaming Covid, the government and hospital management, in that order for the fact that much of my treatment and management has disappeared and that I'm declining in health so badly that I'm probably going to have to give up work.

But saying it's running as best it can, in line with certain restrictions is a far cry from saying it's running at full capacity and everyone's treatment is back on track.

MN has granted my request and my thread title has been changed to clarify that I am only talking about my own situation. I don't want to have the thread taken down, as it's been quite eye opening how different trusts are operating so differently. Although reassuring to hear many, hopefully most, hospitals are fully functional again, some still aren't and as someone who is proud to work for the NHS and will always defend it when needed, I won't do so blindly and having this thread taken down wouldn't be fair on those that have posted that are still being denied treatments/appointments that they need whilst others are going ahead.

I don't think you can assume that all NHS Trusts are operating like yours, OP. Ours certainly isn't. Those of us who can work from home are working from home - IT systems have been tweaked so we can use our own home PCs (obviously not if we are using patient record systems, but most of my team are not). Our wards are full, our community services are fully operational and very busy - not least with people who are suffering from Long COVID. Just because your Trust is a bit crap that doesn't mean it's like that everywhere, and implying the whole of the NHS is like that does people a huge disservice.

Yanbu

Ds was in hospital recently and there were only 2 beds in an 8 bed ward being used. He was seen by senior doctors for minor reasons and the nurses had lots of time to chat because there was so little for them to do.

Even if politicians wanted to keep some spare capacity for a second wave, they should be clearing the backlog even at 25% or 50% of the normal rate.

and implying the whole of the NHS is like that does people a huge disservice.

Equally though, denying that there are still many departments not providing the treatment needed is doing patients like me a disservice. Many of us are seeing our health deteriorate because the treatment we desperately need isn't available and we aren't even being seen by our drs so that warning signs can be picked up.