To think the NHS isn’t fit for purpose?

[BrendaBubbles]

There’s a story on Mail Online right now about a woman with breathing difficulties who was left on hold for hours with her GP who died during the call. There have been a lot of stories recently about people with cancer that wasn’t picked up due to resource limits and a DH of a friend of mine has been told there is a six month waiting list for an MRI.

I know the people in the NHS are true gold but despite record amounts of money the service is getting worse. It was also in the news earlier that the number of people seen at A&E within four hours was 95% in 2010 and has fallen to 67% now and I’m sure we’ve all felt this when we’ve attended ourselves.

It’s clearly not just about money but is the NHS even fit for purpose now when people are dying through simple negligence and lack of reasonable diagnosis and in person access to GPs?

It's always been shit. It was shit under labour and it's shit now. Obviously the pandemic has made it worse BUT it's a stupid way to run healthcare. Models with far better patient outcomes for similar shares of GNP exist in many countries. The question should be why people in the UK are so opposed to reform and screech about privatisation and the US model (which nobody would choose to follow in a million years) when we could just follow European norms and not have these problems. Why people worship the NHS is beyond me.

The Department for Health and Social Care budget is in excess of £200 billion.

How much money do you want?

How about sorting out the waste (IT failures and PFI for example). The sheer volume of managers. The insane amount of real estate with no planning.

The number of trusts and all the additional bureaucracy and so on.

Sort that out then ask for more.

@MonkeyPuddle

So where do you get the extra thousands of GP’s from then? Magic wand? My arse? Where?

Well... a decently run health service would have made sure sufficient doctors were trained in advance. And made sure T&Cs and working conditions attracted them to stay in the UK. Then you have Brexit, racism, falling value of GBP and ridiculous immigration rules that have made it unattractive.

Also - GP practices are private businesses. They are private contrators of the NHS, I assume you know this? Your post seems to imply maybe you think GPs are NHS employees?? They aren't.

@Bucanarab

There’s a story on Mail Online right now

And that's where you lost all credibility. Honestly, if you are using the mail as a source of news you should be banned from voting for at least 5 years.

Agreed! It's crazy some people still see that as a credible news source rather than a magazine like "Hello" or whatever. 🤣🤣

@countbackfromten

I’m on my knees with exhaustion after two 12.5 hour shifts the past two days with two 12.5 hour night shifts in the week and one 12.5 hour day shift to go tomorrow. My colleagues on on their knees. I have never known a time like it in my years as a doctor - the pressure has been sustained for so long now and the winter is going to be hell on earth.

Why the hell do I keep doing this day in day out? I left medicine and came back because I love what I do and I love looking after my patients. But this is breaking me. And I’m not alone.

We can’t do more. This isn’t our fault, but somehow the blame gets thrown at us rather than the government as people keep voting for them.

Posts like this make me genuinely wonder why I am so often ruining my life for this.

Thank you for what you do. It must be almost impossible right now. I think people (well me, anyway) are criticising the way it is all structured, rather than staff trying to provide care within a broken structure that simply cannot work. We are on the same side. We want good patient care, good outcomes, and I am sure you do too or you wouldn't be doing your job. We also want decent working environments and T&C for medical staff, as I am sure you do. Until we have a Government who is prepared to stop canonising the NHS and totally reform our healthcare model this will not get better. In fact it will continue to get worse because of demographic shifts. I am sure you know all of this already. I just want you to know we do appreciate what you and your colleagues do, and that is not what is being criticised. Recent events have shown even more starkly how much of a mess the NHS is and the UK healthcare model and structure needs to change, not the staff.

I'm spending a lot of time with local GPs and hospitals at the moment for various reasons. I didn't have a huge amount of trouble getting face to face appointments with the GP for myself and my father at a different surgery. That's in the past 4 weeks. We were both referred on as necessary, I had to wait 3 weeks instead of 2 for a suspected cancer appointment and was seen this morning. All fine thankfully. My DF is having a raft of tests and scans for various different body parts and again they have all come through quickly, his doctor only set those in motion on Thursday, 2 days ago and the letters arrived this morning (Saturday).

I think a lot is to do with local management. Also yes it offers so many things now compared to when it was first set up, I'm not surprised it's creaking these days. I don't know what the answer is though, possibly all those earning over a certain amount pay a sliding contribution towards the cost of their treatment? But I can't see that happening somehow.

@Pazuzu

The Department for Health and Social Care budget is in excess of £200 billion.

How much money do you want?

How about sorting out the waste (IT failures and PFI for example). The sheer volume of managers. The insane amount of real estate with no planning.

The number of trusts and all the additional bureaucracy and so on.

Sort that out then ask for more.

Doesn’t work that way in real life. You have to invest in order to increase efficiency. I think the NHS being funded to the same level as average in EU on per capita basis would be a good start. But it also needs capital investment to get to EU average of hospital beds per capita, and education investment/bursaries to get to EU average for doctors and nurses per capita.

www.health.org.uk/chart/chart-how-does-the-uk-compare-internationally-for-health-funding-staffing-and-hospital-beds

@CrotchetyQuaver

I'm spending a lot of time with local GPs and hospitals at the moment for various reasons. I didn't have a huge amount of trouble getting face to face appointments with the GP for myself and my father at a different surgery. That's in the past 4 weeks. We were both referred on as necessary, I had to wait 3 weeks instead of 2 for a suspected cancer appointment and was seen this morning. All fine thankfully. My DF is having a raft of tests and scans for various different body parts and again they have all come through quickly, his doctor only set those in motion on Thursday, 2 days ago and the letters arrived this morning (Saturday). I think a lot is to do with local management. Also yes it offers so many things now compared to when it was first set up, I'm not surprised it's creaking these days. I don't know what the answer is though, possibly all those earning over a certain amount pay a sliding contribution towards the cost of their treatment? But I can't see that happening somehow.

Lol! All of those earning "over a certain amount" already pay the vast majority of the cost of the existing system. And still get shit care. You expect them to pay even more? 🙄

How about sorting out the waste (IT failures and PFI for example)

Not sure which IT failure you mean, so cannot comment on that.

But did you know that PFI or Private Finance Initiative was literally caused by the NHS not being adequately funded to build the new hospitals/clinics or buy and install very expensive equipment like MRIs or even ambulances?

But these were still needed, so PFI was born. Under PFI a private company builds the hospital/clinic or buys the MRI/ambulance and then the NHS pays to lease it from the company. So instead of paying up front cost of £450m to build a hospital, the NHS instead pays £35m/year on a 20yr lease and also has to pay for maintenance, renovation, etc. It ends up costing more in the long run, and at the end of the lease the NHS doesn’t own shit, but has to renew the lease or buy the hospital for a balloon payment. (My figures are hypothetical for example purposes).

But with a need for a hospital NOW and too low funding to actually build it, what choice did they have?

If you think NHS is bad come out here to Ireland and try HSE!

I now only have token so-called medical are because they are trying to stop me taking them to court. A GP here did something truly unprofessional and dangerous to me that they are refusing to deal with the formal complaint I made as the dr concerned would get struck off, and they are desperately short of GP. HSE are in court almost monthly re negligence cases and have to pay out huge sums on compensation. Oh and my nearest hospital has been declared unsafe by the unions/ For some true horror stories look up Mayo News Mayo University Hospital Castlebar.

Agreed! It's crazy some people still see that as a credible news source rather than a magazine like "Hello" or whatever. 🤣🤣

I know!!! The fact that Wikipedia, Wiki-fucking-pedia! have classified it as an unreliable source should tell everyone that it's nothing more than a comic. Yet still people base their entire views / opinions on it's content. It's literally the same as using the Beano as your source.

Too many managers. Far too many treatments offered that are not health related

@Bucanarab

Agreed! It's crazy some people still see that as a credible news source rather than a magazine like "Hello" or whatever. 🤣🤣

I know!!! The fact that Wikipedia, Wiki-fucking-pedia! have classified it as an unreliable source should tell everyone that it's nothing more than a comic. Yet still people base their entire views / opinions on it's content. It's literally the same as using the Beano as your source.

Bonkers. Maybe I should start basing my views on current affairs on spiderman comics?

It’s not just the underfunding. It’s the fact that there are too many pointless managers on very, very good wages instead of front line staff. No real incentive to train to work in healthcare. And if anyone has ever had to order anything on supply chain the utterly ghastly prices for everything… absolute rip off merchants but when I queried it I was told we HAD to use the supply chain and no I couldn’t take the business credit card and go buy supplies which were far, far cheaper in any supermarket

It’s not the staff… even though in the area I worked in it was almost impossible to sack someone (they just moved them). It’s mostly that the system is broken

And I’m not a Tory. I’ve never voted Tory. I just don’t glorify the NHS having worked for it. The concept yes but something does need to change.

More funding. More appropriate spending. Less managers. More incentives to train. Bin off the supply chain which isn’t competitive at all.

From my experience around a third of staff are incredibly hard-working and dedicated, a third are okay, and a third would have been performance managed to improvement or dismissal if employed elsewhere. Pretty much no one I’d dismissed, poor staff are just shunted endlessly around the system.

• pretty much no one is dismissed…

Nothing remotely original about trotting out the stupid and predictable John Reid 'not fit for purpose' line. So hackneyed. The NHS needs better funding, obviously.

Of course it’s not fit for purpose.

It’s being deliberately underfunded and abused.

The staff have just faced the hardest 18 months ever and we simply no longer have the energy or the mental health to continue holding up a failing system by working through breaks and unpaid overtime like we have been doing for years.

I have two sides:

My Gallbladder removal in 2017 that was supposed to be done by a top surgeon - my common bile duct was injured leading to spasms every day that need very strong painkillers to deal. Top surgeon...

Then a week+ days ago, paramedics rushing my DP to hospital - blue lights and sirens - AFTER getting the fire brigade to take out the main bedroom window. DP taken straight into Resus and then ICU where she has been for a while now. Staff decent, especially the nurses, but some times consultant's are left handling two or three times their normal load..

It's the government and it's NHS funding strategy that isn't fit for purpose OP. Not the NHS. We have heroes, mostly very low paid, that work their socks off in the NHS.

but despite record amounts of money the service is getting worse.

This is not true. Govt needs to fund it adequately. Budgets rose by 1.4 per cent each year on average (adjusting for inflation) in the 10 years between 2009/10 to 2018/19, compared to the 3.7 per cent average rises since the NHS was established. Funding has increased a bit (around 3%) since 2018/19 but not enough to catch up by a long shot.

Iv had same day call backs, seen GP’s, Nurses, had procedures, been sedated and had a GA , had 2 urgent different cancer check ups, both had procedures / tests within the week, Had scans and xrays
Seen various numerous specialists

Lock down hasnt personally effected my care at my gp’s or local hospital but have seen so many stories of people that have

I wonder why the story is so different across the board

Does any other country have a system like the nhs though? People need to start paying for it and not just through taxes but at point of access.

Last year I had to wait and argue for 6 hours until 111 finally said I could go to a&e because my dc had broken their arm. I literally had to argue that it was broken, at the time they were doing 'appointments' at a&e and the minor injuries clinic was closed. My dc had to wait longer than that in sever pain. Nobody wants this.
Recently I phoned my gp up a few times they refuse to see me to check the physical aspect of my complaint but happily keep sending me prescriptions for heavy painkillers. Useless. I don't even know what's wrong with me and probably never will at this rate unless it turns out to be really serious.

I would much rather have a system like the french or Germans one but it's never offered in the U.K.