Angry at long nhs waits

[glitterwobbles]

I get daily headaches and nerve pain in arms and legs.Was diagnosed with cervical myelopathy last summer.
Was referred to another hospital as mine does not have any neurosurgeons and need surgery to prevent it getting worse and possible paralysis.
Have been told that the wait for an appointment is 18 months.
I know that the NHS is struggling after covid. But I have a condition that will get worse and if i had the money could have the surgery privately within weeks.
Just feel let down by NHS and as if the list keeps getting longer as when I was referred it was 10 months. Feel as if I will never get to the top

Nothing new. 6 monthly appointments for me were never every 6 months. I was told in February that I'll be seen in 3 months. I've not heard a thing.

I was told in May last year that there's a long wait to see the consultant due to covid. Appointment cancelled twice and see in September after GP phoned and said it was urgent.

There was the 18 week things but I've not heard of it recently. Won't be surprised if they've quietly scrapped it.

It needs someone from a business, like discount retailers, to come and give it an overhaul. It is so inefficient.

@glitterwobbles Sorry to hear of your painful condition and that you are expereincing such an unacceptable wait for treatment.
It happens because of infinite demand and finite resources coupled with poor management ,lack of prioritising and funding issues.(plus effects of covid)
I am not sure how to resolve these issues quick enough to help you.
Perhaps visit your GP and explain your pain and fears of exacerbation and consequences of waiting so long for surgery.
Check the guidelines on waiting times for your condition.
Ask if other areas have shorter lists and wether you could access treatment there.
Write to your MP.
? Fund raise or ask for help to finance (not that you should have to do this and appreciate you may not want to)
Sorry again to hear of your situation and hope you get the treatment you need quickly.

I am not a tory......but the NHS needs long term planning

It's only going to get worse as more workers will leave or look elsewhere & our ageing population. It needs some restructuring but also more money, where's it going to come from though?

Considering how they treat their staff and profiteer i.e The Range, thats probably a bad idea.

How about fill those 110k vacancies & stop charging £50k to become a nurse? two things that don't require a business degree to fix and would be partially self funding as the NHS would stop using v expensive agency staff.

The Tories took away the nurse bursary, that was done simply to make staff shortages worse.

Oh FFS, honestly. This must be a joke comment.

Definitely it has loads in common with a budget retailer 🙄

last year I was told i had to wait 18 weeks to see a neurologist, it was 27 weeks when I finally saw a neurologist.

It is poorly run. It lacks a decent IT system. Last week my DH got 7 1st class letters for a series of 6 appointments (same time every 2 weeks for 6 weeks) . 2 letters would have been fine- or even better none and an email. He had actually tried to book whilst there but they insisted that a letter was needed. It is job creation at its finest.

Regularly receive appointment at the same time for hospitals 50 miles from each other. Consultants write to GPs and have secretaries who do this- a total waste of money.- just need capacity to add notes onto a shared system

I was given a 6 week referral in August. Now told it will be 10 month from now- so 19 months for something they said should be seen within 6 weeks.

FYI labour cut beds too
however the Tories have decimated the nhs- covid, well I won’t express my own views on locking down the country to “protect” the nhs. It’s a giant shit show!
im very much of the opinion that if I cut myself slightly, I may as well slice my arm off to get seen. Basically the nhs is great in life saving scenarios, anything less that life vs death, you’re screwed!

For those that are blaming the Tories, I live in Wales and waiting times are MUCH longer. Wales NHS is run by Welsh Labour Government. Surely no one can have missed the horrendous situation in North Wales hospitals? I have worked in NHS in England and Wales and I would be extremely worried if I lived here with a chronic condition.

Staffing is a massive issue. My team can't spend our staffing allowance. In mental health especially there's a massive crisis where staff on the old pension deal are able to retire now and their numbers far outweigh those coming through nursing programmes

My team had approximately 12 nurses in 2016, it's now has 4. We run rolling adverts because we can't recruit.

Our area was given a massive boost in funding to increase the services but while extra roles were recruited, it's only been unable to fill them bar a small percentage from attracting the staff already working locally thus increasing the shortage in other local services

My team is underspent massively due to all the vacancy but one expensive locum doctor can deplete that quickly but we are desperate for Dr cover so that's what it's used on

Due to the pay banding it's very difficult to make jobs like mental health nursing in frontline teams attractive, staff would be paid exactly the same in less stressful roles else where. Locally GPs for example are able to recruit outside banding so we've lost staff to more wage and less stress or other teams where the responsibility is less. As qualified numbers in teams plummet then they become more stressful and less attractive again. My role is far less stressful and far more attractive if you are part of a team or 1 of 12 qualifieds, once poor staffing hits it's far less attractive

As the alternative we can recruit more support roles,admin etc but ultimately there are some jobs that can only done by qualified. Equally we can recruit higher bands more easily, however this leads to bloating (see management criticisms above!). We try and advertise roles that remove parts that are unattractive but when those parts are core business it just pushes them onto existing staff.

It also creates a scenario where you are fully spent, fully staffed by budget and numbers but still attempting to run with barely any qualifieds and no space to recruit any more

The staff retiring outweigh staff entering. My team has 75% of it's rmn retiring in the next 10 years. mental health need is massively expanding, services are expanding and new services being created with less staff than we had 10 years ago

I work with the NHS and the management is shocking. It needs root and branch reform by a cross party group, modelled on a German, French or Canadian model.

Privatisations isn’t all bad. Standard hip replacements are contracted out to Spire round here - less wait and much nicer facilities.

How about taking away student fees for nurses and Dr's providing they render the equivalent of 10 years' full time to the NHS with the only exception illness. If they don't they pay it back.

It is grossly inefficient.

Two examples:

1. I had three cycles of zolendronate for osteoporosis. My GP had to refer me back for a follow-up dexa scan. The rheumatologist saw me and referred me for a dexa scan six weeks later. It wasted my time, GP time and the consultants time. The consultant agreed with me. A dexa scan should have been automatic and a report and phone call would have sufficed.

1. Broken bones are taken to my local hospital where there is no orthopaedic or emergency surgery available. Patients are then transferred to the sister hospital which is 4 miles away BUT if your home is 1.45 miles from the district hospital and 2.25 miles from the sister hospital you get sent to a hospital that can't help you and transferred.

1. DD had 5 MH assessments to justify she didn't urgently need therapy or a referral to a psychiatrist. 6 session of therapy would have been more helpful.

1. I take 100mcg of levothyroxine. Have done since 1989. From 1989 to 1999 I received one blood test and one prescription pa for 365 tablets. Now I get 56 tablets every two months. I'm thrilled GPs have the time to waste time. I don't. And it isn't so they can keep me under review. I've let my annual blood test go 18 months before now and then I have sorted out the blood test. It has never ever been offered.

1. I had my first child in 1994 and my second in 1998. Labour won in 1997. Maternity services have got significantly worse year on year since 1997. Labour were in until 2010.

1. Labour spent millions introducing PCTs - more bureaucracy and hugely expanding pfi which is an albatross around hospital necks now. But such shiny premises.

It's a shambles.

A lot of countries have a similar NHS with same or more population with less money that isn't struggling. Throwing more money in it isn't going to solve the problem. Restructuring it will solve the problem. Like a pp mentioning upthread, there's far too many overpaid managers. The nhs is not fit for purpose not because of money issues, it's not fit for purpose because it's so badly managed.

Does Wales have tax raising or overall decision making power over the NHS now? Nope.

My team tried an elective email only system and it massively increased our DNA rates. Weve found the best attendance rate was letter and emails with a text before hand combined

It's admin time but it's a lot cheaper than running consultant clinics with lower attendance rates

Agree about the it systems though

Yes there are definitely answers. Look at what the conservatives have been doing? Slowly dismantling this country service by service, budget by budget. And yet so many people who vote for them complain about what’s happening to the nhs and other services. It’s like so many people have this cognitive dissonance about it all.

You are being unreasonable. We are so lucky to have free healthcare in this country. If you don’t like waiting then go private 🤷‍♀️

The NHS is simply not fit for purpose. It was never designed to offer everything it currently does (cosmetic surgery, ivf etc). Also, it is a very small proportion of the population who actually pay for prescriptions, as much as I love my elderly relatives, the NHS cannot sustain giving free medication (often hundreds of pounds worth) per month to keep the old alive, it’s fighting nature. We have a super workforce of dedicated staff, but if you were to give them a blank cheque it still wouldn’t be enough, it would be swallowed up in management.

You are being unreasonable. We are so lucky to have free healthcare in this country. If you don’t like waiting then go private

It's not free though for many. And it's ok to want improvements 🙄

Last week my DH got 7 1st class letters for a series of 6 appointments (same time every 2 weeks for 6 weeks) . 2 letters would have been fine- or even better none and an email.

First class stamps on multiple automated letters are likely far cheaper than someone's time interacting with varied communication situations.

It is pointless to assume something is inefficient when you don't know how the system is set up and what the alternative would cost in staff and system time.

Undoubtedly there are savings to be made but there are critical staff shortages across the NHS that need addressing first.

the NHS cannot sustain giving free medication (often hundreds of pounds worth) per month to keep the old alive

blanket free prescriptions for over 60s needs to be scrapped.

This will cost far more later when they require hospital treatment.

Drugs prevent ill health.

How is this a shock to anyone?

Tories are on record saying they want to privatise the nhs!

This is not new info.

My fil is paying privately for a Neurology appointment as the wait is 36 weeks. Just for the initial appointment.

My mil has had 1 x lots of surgery privately in the last 2 years.

My mum needs an urgent colonoscopy - she'll have to pay. The wait is months.
^ this is after a 20 hour wait in a&e, a 6 day admission and 2 hour wait for an emergency ambulance.

All those bleating about the nhs under labour...it was never like this. 18 week max wait for treatment. If you called an ambulance one came within minutes. You could actally see a gp.

This is exactly what the tories do to the nhs each time they are elected. Every. Single. Time.

I have no idea what will happen this winter. I assume that's the tory end game plan. The army and fire brigade will need to be called in.