To be really worried about the NHS this winter

[AtlasPine]

Just that really. Lots of issues around GP access, backlogs of people waiting for treatments and overstretched A&E departments. Flu season coming, Covid cases rising, staffing problems linked to Brexit and the rise of private practices offering better terms and conditions to doctors.

What can we do to support the NHS?

Vaccinations (flu and Covid) and look after ourselves as much as possible I suppose. I can’t afford private health care like most here I suspect.

I'm a GP not sure I will make it through the winter mentally. There will be a lot of us going off sick. It's horrendous. I'm seeing loads of people face to face but there's no respite. No locums, no extra staff to take the strain. I'm done

The NHS envy of the world etc, is there to protect us when we’re ill. It’s not up to us to protect the NHS.

I'm worried about all the people being neglected and treated like their lives are worthless, not the abusive institution perpetrating such harm with impunity.

Of course their lives aren’t worthless but we do need to take our own personal responsibility for our health as well. Stop getting drunk and ending up in a and e after a fight, stop smoking, stop eating crap food and becoming obese and putting a strain on your body.

The NHS is not the envy of the world. It’s the free but that appeals to people hence the health tourism. They know that they won’t be turned away.

We could also hope that patients could use the NHS more wisely than many do.

And as patients we could hope that the NHS would dismiss incompetent staff instead of leaving them in post to continue failing and harming patients.

It should not be acceptable for any HCP to keep their job when they are incompetent and failing patients, yet it's commonplace because nobody is held to any performance standard and patients suffer and die as a result.

That is a far greater problem than people going to A&E because they can't get a GP appointment which is also the NHS's fault.

Why would I be worried about the NHS?

I'm more worried about people who might need to use it.

What can we do to help the NHS?

We already help the NHS by paying for it to help us. Do you expect us to ignore any problems we have? Not attend A&E if we have an accident?

I've come to this thread after reading another thread where a woman has a huge and growing lump on her breast and has to wait three weeks for an appointment at the breast clinic to be seen. An appointment that has been cancelled.

And yet still, we have people like the OP crying about how a service that regularly fails it's patients might struggle.

What is it going to take to get through to these people that the current system is not sustainable, and that no amount of shrieking "get yer 'ands orf ar 'elf service" is going to change that.

@LakieLady

Exactly. Its really frustrating when HCP assume all no shows are time wasters who don't take appointments seriously or "can't be bothered to turn up" when often it's nigh on impossible to cancel !

@Franklin12

Of course their lives aren’t worthless but we do need to take our own personal responsibility for our health as well. Stop getting drunk and ending up in a and e after a fight, stop smoking, stop eating crap food and becoming obese and putting a strain on your body.

The NHS is not the envy of the world. It’s the free but that appeals to people hence the health tourism. They know that they won’t be turned away.

How does one take personal responsibility for being left to die from cancer without pain relief?

Blaming patients for NHS neglect is a dick move.

I am talking about a sizeable minority of people who abuse their body knowing that they will be patched up without any consequences and without having to pay a penny. Of course I am not talking about people who are struggling without pain relief but just think if some people actually took some responsibility for their own health? There would be more money for other things.

I really worry about our poor GPS. They get such a rough time in the media. They are desperately understaffed and really struggling to meet demand.

No one has mentioned the elephant ien the room yet. Too many people are using the service.
People continue to have 3 or 4 plus children. The NHS cannot cope.

I am very worried.

Worried because of the way the Tories continue to purposefully underfund the NHS. There is absolutely no reason for the NHS to be like it is now. Covid hasn’t helped, but be under no illusion. The Tories want you to believe the NHS is failing to believe privatisation is the answer. It’s not.

www.yournhsneedsyou.com/

@HannibalHayeski

It's been the government's plan all along.

Make sure the NHS fails (whilst paying lip service to it), and then they'll have to come in and privatise it to "save us all".

Look at the number of ministers who have spoken about an "insurance based system". I.e., something where their investors get to make fortunes at the expense of us.

(And don't expect them to cut taxes when they do)

It's all of this.

“It's easy. Stop worshipping a cruel and broken third world system and bang your saucepans over a deserving cause. The NHS is a festering pile of shit and is killing people. People like the OP romanticising it like it's some sort of sweet old grandma are a big part of the problem.“

100% agree.

@itsjustnotok

@ lonelyapple Sorry I wrote the first bit poorly. Yes we pay shit loads in tax but it doesnt just go to the NHS. Approx 20% goes to them.

I had no idea it was so low.

So someone on £30,000 a year

30000-12570 tax allowance = 17430

17430 x 0.2 x 0.2 = £697.20 a year per half decent earner. It's not much if I'm right.

An average pregnancy and birth costs the NHS what, £7k?

@Noavocado

No one has mentioned the elephant ien the room yet. Too many people are using the service. People continue to have 3 or 4 plus children. The NHS cannot cope.

Actually the real elephant in the room is the number of people living too long with ridiculously low quality of life and complex care and medical needs. Keeping a 94 year old bedridden alzheimers patient alive with endless antibiotics serves no one, least of all the patient. I know personally of at least five elderly relatives of friends who were begging for death because their quality of life was zero but they died lingering deaths over periods of 6-12 months of slow organ failure / old age / cancer.

We need proper conversations about care provision and the right to euthanasia.

Off the top of my head:
Don't vote Tory
Try to live a healthy lifestyle
Only phone an ambulance if you really need it, not as a lift to a and e
Look after yourself e.g if you get prescribed a medicine make sure that you take it
Don't vote Tory.

@bestcattoyintheworld

Don't become ill. If you do, don't expect any help.

It's becoming like an under developed country. We'll be expected to crawl under a bush and die quietly soon. You know, like in the middle ages. Unbelievable.

Stop being so melodramatic.

The best way to help is don’t use A and E unless it’s an actual accident or emergency.

I have not the slightest idea why the NHS via Consultants, Nurses, etc thought it best to spend many, many £thousands treating my 78 year old mother for her Level 4 Cancer that was obviously untreatable instead of the much cheaper option of helping mentally prepare her for the inevitability of death alongside palliative care.

She actually died pretty quickly from chemo assisted sepsis and may well have lived longer and died happier without the 'treatment'.

That is a far greater problem than people going to A&E because they can't get a GP appointment which is also the NHS's fault.

But as we keep saying GP's are not the NHS, they are private practices that are paid out of the NHS budget to provide a service. Which is why the service provided is such a postcode lottery, each practice decides how it runs.
The problem with GP practices generally, is that there are not enough GP's currently working or willing to train to do the job, so people become worn down and leave or retire the minute it becomes an option, compounding the problem for those left. I don't know why more don't use nurses to triage appointments either by phone or online.

@hereticfanjo

100% agree. We do need to start looking into that more seriously.

I for one definitely do not want to be kept alive fo suffer. Fuck that! That is not no way to live.

People should whilst they are of sound mind be able to make decisions. I know id never want to be kept alive if I had dementia or alzheimers or if cancer was terminal. Its a cruel way to go.

STOP. VOTING. CONSERVATIVE.

People continue to have 3 or 4 plus children. The NHS cannot cope.

I'm pretty sure the average family has less than 2 children. I think people living longer is a far greater burden on the NHS. An birth might cost the NHS 7k but an elderly person in a care home might cost 5-6k a month....so there are huge expenses at either end of life. (As well as everything in between)

When you're really sick, you don't want any hordes either yours or other patients' - they're far more useful when you're discharged aren't they?

It has been proven that children/ young people suffer less severe medical trauma when their parents are able to be there with them in hospital.

I was in intensive care as a child, my folks were able to take turns sleeping on a camp bed in my room. Thankfully.

What can we do to support the NHS?

Loose weight, keep fit, cut down on sugar, don’t smoke, don’t go to GP for sniffles, don’t go to A&E for stubbed toe. Get jabbed, take vitamins, don’t do daft things like rewire plugs with electric turned on.

Same as ever really.