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?

You know there are around 7000 people in hospital with covid right now?

That is a huge number of beds, staff and resources tied up

Don’t forget social care is also chronically underfunded- no carers available, no community hospital beds and no residential home placements. Patients sit in hospitals in beds and wait.
Or they get inappropriately discharged and readmitted 2 days later.
There really is no Plan B I’m afraid OP. In general practice I’m seeing a huge number of patients waiting for hospital appointments who are annoyed and frustrated. Which makes the wait for primary care even longer too. The system is complex and interwoven and impossible to blame one thing.

High numbers of ward closures due to COVID numbers. We’re in the SW and had very low numbers last year but high COVID admissions now plus an ageing population who haven’t been properly followed up for over a year so are all suffering exacerbations of long term conditions. Hospitals facing major internal incidents due to lack of capacity and ambulances queuing up outside ED.

OP do you really have no idea? Combination of the following:

1. we had the fewest number of drs/beds per 100,000 of the population in Europe even before covid - NHS was on a shoestring
2. Idiots who won't have the vaccine are keeping ITU full
3. Backlog of stuff which was routine and has now become urgent - so if yours was routine and is still routine you'll slip down the priority list
4. Hundreds of doctors and nurses have died of covid and many more have said 'sod this' to working for an employer which doesn't value their safety and have left
5. Brexit effect on staff
6. Massive shortage of blood bottles currently in some areas making surgery unsafe

Chronic underfunding and lack of resource.

When ops are cancelled, it's usually because they don't have the staff to safely do the surgery, or care for the patient in a bed afterwards. When beds are closed it's usually because of a lack of staff to safely care for patients in those beds.

Staff are burnt out and exhausted, and are leaving at a rapid rate. This then makes it worse for the staff who remain, so they in turn get burnt out and exhausted. The burn out also causes high levels of absence due to stress. I know people who are motivated, hard workers but have gone off sick due to stress for the first time in their careers this year. They hate having to do so, but simply cannot cope at work.

I'm in a non-clinical role, but am rapidly approaching burn out, Chronic under-resourcing is making my life a misery, and those at senior level don't make any allowances for the conditions people are working under.

This is what a health service looks like when it's been run into the ground.

This winter the flu is predicted to be 50% worse than normal years.

[quote NotPersephone]@Refreshpage the problem for those of us long enough in the tooth to recall the NHS under Labour is that it was still shit. Plenty of bumper pay rises and a massive growth in management roles - but still a shit place to be a patient because of many of the same reasons that exist today. (Part of that was Blair’s idiotic target culture).

So given the choice between crap NHS and high tax, and crap NHS and slightly lower tax, plenty of people (my family included) choose the latter. And buy health insurance.

It would be better for everyone if we had an honest conversation about what the NHS can sustainably fund and for whom. The current situation is untenable. I’d far rather an informed move towards (say) a continental system than the current approach of offing contracts to the lowest bidder and expecting the patient to suck up the cheapest healthcare the market can provide.[/quote]
This.

Plus Labour’s disastrous PFI deals. My local hospital got £148 million of work done, but it will have cost £766 million when finally paid off in 2043.

Lots of staff are off because they have been "pinged" and told to self isolate.

It is the result of burying our head in the sand for years and doing sod all but telling NHS staff that 'everyone has it tough' and basically telling them to shut up every time they raised the issue.

We've ignored their plight for so long and now we deal with the result.

In a nutshell...

Over a decade of conservative rule + Brexit + Covid = NHS on it's last legs

Supply chain issues because of Brexit haven't helped either. If it's not safe to operate because of low staff numbers/lack of correct equipment/medicine then all elective surgery will be bounced.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if a decent healthcare model similar to the NHS still exists in the future in this country. We're creeping ever closer to the conservative aim of a USA style healthcare system, they're not even aiming for a models used in other countries where people don't die/suffer because they're poor but care is tapered appropriately.

Of course Covid is still having an effect.

Covid is actually still circulating. But even if it wasn't, it has caused a massive backlog that will take months if not years for the NHS to clear.

It's very simplistic to think that things would just go back to normal as soon as Covid is gone. It doesn't work like that.

@ripplestitchblank

Because there's no beds, we're mad busy, and there's no staff, basically.

Hope you get your op.

This basically. In my hospital it’s mainly a lack of staff.

You should just pay privately if you can afford to do so.

I had poorly executed emergency surgery on the nhs. This was surgery 2 and I just went on a waiting list. It didn’t matter how much pain I was in or that I could hardly walk. I paid for op 3 - also major surgery to put it right. I waited 6 months as the nhs wouldn’t release theatre space to the private sector and all private hospitals were under governmental control. He booked 5 hours in case he needed that long to sort out the mess from op 2. I may still be waiting had I not forked out over 5k.

We will also be paying for dd’s dental work / braces. We shouldn’t need to. But the waiting list is now 3 years.

The NHS was struggling to cope due to chronic underfunding even before COVID.
I just read a report which says hospitals are seeing record numbers of staff head off sick.
They are exhausted and stressed and I believe now the system is approaching breaking point.

I would have had sympathy until you stated you have the money to go private.

In paediatrics we’re experiencing our winter already, there is a wave of respiratory illnesses affecting babies and children and we are only in august. Where I work surgery is being cancelled so that staff can be redeployed to the medical wards. Plus staff are off sick with stress, burn out, mental health, and isolating. Staff are being pulled from anywhere to help, it’s an uncertain and exhausting time and we potentially haven’t hit the worst of it. And that’s without Covid.

Lots of people are dying each week from non-covid related factors at a higher rate than pre pandemic. Presumably in part due to these types of delay - bed shortages due to covid, staff shortages due to covid and brexit. It's awful.

@Justabouthangingthere

You've shouted , nothings changed , just go private then ! I work in NHS , you really have no idea what you are talking about ... If your condition was life threatening you would be saved .. that's all you need to know !! Ignorance is bliss .. and in your case EXTREMELY SELFISH .. good luck with the pain ! Can't be that bad though ? can it ? as you'd rather cope than pay ??? Hmmmmm ... no words !

Where have I said I've shouted?! Read the thread, I've said I'm nothing but nice to NHS staff because I know how much they're struggling so please don't accuse me of something I haven't done.

And I'm more than happy to pay but the waiting list for private is currently longer than I'll be waiting on the NHS if my op in September goes ahead.

@TheRabbitStoleMyHat

In paediatrics we’re experiencing our winter already, there is a wave of respiratory illnesses affecting babies and children and we are only in august. Where I work surgery is being cancelled so that staff can be redeployed to the medical wards. Plus staff are off sick with stress, burn out, mental health, and isolating. Staff are being pulled from anywhere to help, it’s an uncertain and exhausting time and we potentially haven’t hit the worst of it. And that’s without Covid.

And sadly I am sure that will get even worse when school go back. I know I could almost pencil in the dates when DS will have his new school year asthma attack/chest infection.

Unfortunately it is due to COVID.

Our trust cases have risen, we've had to make red area/wards again. Our ICU has had to have a seperate COVID ICU sections, and this time there aren't enough staff to staff all sections. It's a constant battle.

Our A&E dept, has been the busiest it's ever been.
I've never worked with such staff shortages before.

I'm sorry you op as been cancelled.

Most off our covid patient aren't vaccinated, we've had so much abuse from anti covid patients it's soul destroying.

Its been a hard 2 years, too many heart wrenching deaths, very ill patients, lack off staff. Seeing members off my team break down when the covid patients returned last month.

I've been saying for years that it should be privatised/ or have an income threshold to be able to access it

Alternatively we could just vote for a government that would fund it properly. But, no. People would far rather pay less tax than have decent services.

the problem for those of us long enough in the tooth to recall the NHS under Labour is that it was still shit.

Actually it was much better. I worked in and was a patient at that time. It took a long time to recover from where it was before.

However right now, it's a pandemic and underfunded.
Staff are exhausted (it's been relentless) and previous cancelled electives (at the height of the pandemic) means that some of these patients are sicker and therefore more complex.
Some staff have left, some are of sick and some have died. That's traumatising for their colleagues. Some overseas staff went home. Many had leave cancelled and now need a break. Physical clinics are harder due to social distancing. There is a backlog of patients
Numbers in hospital are rising because of covid.

Covid plus Brexit.

The NHS is on its knees and the private system is becoming overwhelmed for many of the same reasons (overseas staff leaving, many staff isolating). We seem to have had a steady 7,000 people in hospital with Covid over the past few months - far more than many other countries. This is the reality of "living with Covid". It hasn't gone away but we will need a healthcare system that can deal with it.

Interestingly, many European countries have now overtaken us in terms of vaccine rollout, especially among the young (including 12 - 16 year olds). Our situation will only get worse when schools go back in the Autumn. I don't think lockdowns are the answer btw but I do think we need to keep Covid and the need to take precautions/get vaccinated high on the agenda.