To ask why the NHS is cancelling operations?!

[CFEC]

I'm due to have a (much needed and waited for) op in a few weeks time, I've just rung my consultant's secretary as I haven't had a pre-op appointment letter through yet and queried it, as I wanted to make sure the operation is definitely going ahead as if nothing else, I'll be off work for 2 weeks and my boss would ideally like confirmation.

She said 'Oh, well they're cancelling A LOT of inpatient appointments, but as you'll be a day patient no, I think yours will go ahead.'

I swear I will lose my sh&^ and cry if it gets cancelled again, this will be the third time!!!

Why is the NHS cancelling operations left, right and centre?! Surely it can't be due to Covid still? If it is, what is going to happen to us all, so many people are going to die surely as a result of not getting treatment? A lot more than with Covid! Most people are double vaccinated now, this virus isn't going away, why are operations for in patients being cancelled?

@NotPersephone

It’s free at the point of delivery healthcare that has saved millions of lives, mine included. Without it my son would have been left motherless when he was two

Nope, it’s modern healthcare. Nothing to do with the NHS. You’d have been grand in France, Germany or Switzerland too.

I’d have been fucked in most parts of the world.

@NotPersephone

There are plenty of ways to deliver universal healthcare that don’t involve the NHS and most of them perform better than the NHS in international rankings (and that is also my anecdotal experience).

Well yes. But the poster was asserting that socialised healthcare has saved many lives, not specifically the NHS.

More inconvenient facts.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=international+comparison+of+healthcare+systems&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=nisxv&sxsrf=AOaemvLfuKZcC49LHQTb_Z1jE9Xxsz3p0g:1629971252627&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjjmoaMtM7yAhXOTMAKHY46ABEQ_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=1024&bih=666#imgrc=4jxmXQG6nd4ZBM

My daughter was supposed to have an EEG to investigate suspected absence seizures.

We’ve been told she won’t have it any time soon as it’s not an emergency and it’s not life threatening - her Consultant Paediatrician won’t even refer her for it until February/March at the earliest

It is what it is.

Staffing issues and Covid causing major issues

My auntie is waiting on a lung operation but it requires an ICU bed to be done we were told at her last appointment a few weeks ago they don't know when they will be able to do the operation as ICU is currently swamped with young un-vaccinated people the hospital has also has to cancel heart operations as-well if they require an ICU bed

The Commonwealth Fund drips with left wing bias? Perlease!

Basically you guffaw at anything that proves you’re wrong @NotPersephone - not that you can come up with any evidence for all your airy assertions. You might be in a position to mock if your points weren’t pure anecdote.

@DismantledKing - I'm glad you've clarified you don't have any arguments beyond and have to result to insults.

@TartanJumper You're making the classic mistake that there are only two options. American ultra capitalist hell, and NHS state funded monopoly.

Lots of countries manage to provide healthcare that is free at the point of use to all citizens but not have the shambolic NHS.

I'd have been fucked in most parts of the world

True! My elderly In Laws are in South Africa, they have had medical insurance all their lives, but it covers less and less as they get older - Yep insurance companies aren't stupid! We now find ourselves often having to chip in for their medical bills and prescriptions (and we aren't exactly rolling in money). As despite both having good pensions they cant afford any medical care that the insurance refuse to pay for.

[quote NotPersephone]@Blossomtoes Here you go:

iea.org.uk/blog/the-envy-of-the-world-a-closer-look-at-the-commonwealth-fund-healthcare-study

Plenty of research also proves the exact opposite of your blathering about productivity yesterday - a Nuffield study and even the ONS data proves that output declined as funding increased. But what’s the point in slinging contradictory research at each other when we all know it depends who is asking the questions? It boils down to you being a NHS fan girl and me thinking there are vastly better ways to do healthcare.

It’s no more anecdotal for me to say “the Swiss system works brilliantly” than it is for you to say “I’d be dead without the NHS”. Yours obviously has greater dramatic effect, but it doesn’t make you right.

And spare a thought for those who are dead or disabled because of the NHS - Morecambe, Stafford, Bristol, Alder Hey…. All anecdotes, no doubt. 🙄

You’ve attacked everyone who has expressed a contrary view in a way that is becoming depressingly typical of the left wing in this country.[/quote]
I’ve attacked nobody. I certainly haven’t ridiculed opinions that differ to mine, merely presented facts that disprove them. Or used rude and patronising language like “blathering”.

I think the chances of my being right about the NHS having saved my life are quite high. Fatty liver of pregnancy had a very high mortality rate in 1977. Had the diagnosis of a rare condition not been made and appropriately treated, I would have died. The fact that I didn’t was a complete surprise to my consultant.

Your link criticising the Commonwealth report drips with right wing bias, by the way. It was written by someone who is the author of the books "Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies" (2019), "Universal Healthcare Without The NHS" (2016), "Redefining The Poverty Debate" (2012) and "A New Understanding of Poverty" (2011). Even he doesn’t dispute its findings.

Phoned to chase a neurology referral for DS yesterday.

The consultant had agreed to see DS... but appointments have been "frozen" Which simply means there are no appointments - for anyone

If we had a competent Prime Minister and government, who had acted in time at each stage of the pandemic, and had a clue about the lives most of us lead, I think the level of postponed medical appointments would be a lot less than it is currently.

Don't blame the medical profession.

@newnortherner111 So what you're basically asking for is a crystal ball?

You also surely realise NHS trusts are responsible for the way in which they operate and manage case load?

There are 450'000 civil servants and 650 MP's who do you think does most of the decision making and who guides whom?

Because ITU is full of vaccine refusers and pregnant women being given conflicting advice

@flotsomandjetsome

Phoned to chase a neurology referral for DS yesterday.

The consultant had agreed to see DS... but appointments have been "frozen" Which simply means there are no appointments - for anyone

Why??

Wales NHS said yesterday 1 in 100 beds were occupied by covid patients which leaves 99 beds which aren't yet we're in dire straits sigh

@NotPersephone

I think the chances of my being right about the NHS having saved my life are quite high.

It’s not the NHS. It’s modern healthcare - that’s the bit we are lucky to have. You’d have been fine under most of our neighbours’ systems as well. That’s the point you are missing.

Do you never wonder why literally no other country has a single, government-run monopoly health service? Particularly as continental Europe and Scandinavia tends to be more left-leaning than the UK?

You’re also very quiet on the astonishing number of scandals - some of which were directly related to Labour’s target culture that you were praising earlier in the thread.

I’m not missing the point at all. I wasn’t dying in another country, I was doing it here and the NHS saved me. No amount of whataboutery changes that.

Nor am I claiming the NHS is perfect, no health system is. As for target related scandals, provide some examples and I’m perfectly happy to discuss them with you. Obviously I think targets worked because they were instrumental in reducing waiting times which was undeniably a good thing.

I heard something a while ago, it was an ICU consultant saying how covid patients spend longer on ICU than others. So a stroke or heart patient might be in and out in 2 days, but a covid patient could be there for weeks. In the time it takes to treat a covid patient on ICU, you could get many more patients with other conditions in and out of that same bedspace.

The first paragraph wasn’t me @NotPersephone. If you’re going to accuse other people of spite and personal attacks, at least get your facts straight. This exchange is becoming extremely personal and entirely unproductive. I’m out. I’m here for a rational discussion about the NHS.