To think our NHS isn't working?

[Nhs2022]

In many ways I can't fault the NHS, they saved my son and my mum's lives. They gave my aunt 4 years longer than first predicted with AML.

However, I also think there needs to be a conversation about the less life threatening and more mundane services of the NHS. The ones that won't kill you but significantly impact quality of life. These have absolutely fallen apart and the system isn't sustainable.

Why is it so wrong to say key aspects of the NHS are no longer fit for purpose and adults and children are being left miserable but alive?

Is there any sensible solution?

I think I'd happily go for a part and part system.

In the last 3 years, I have required GP appointment and hospital follow up 3 times

Each time, I saw the GP within 48 hrs, and had hospital tests / results within a week. I was very impressed and couldn't have asked for better service

I'm in Scotland

Even long before the pandemic, my interactions with the NHS were mostly far from satisfactory, and on some occasions, shocking. It's almost like it is a vehicle of political propaganda rather than a health system designed to provide actual health care to the nation. Part of the problem seems to be almost a religious attachment to the NHS, as if it was so exceptional to have a public health care in the country. Every reasonably developed country has a public health system, there is nothing so "fantastic" about it, it is actually a very minimum you should be able to expect in any decent country. Yes, I agree that we do need to look at it a little closer, without the sentimental glasses on and judge it on the merits of the care they provide, which as far as I can see is overall very poor. Now, I have also met some outstanding individuals working there but these are very rare and I don't think they can do much to change this system.
The conclusions that I have arrived at, based on my own experience with them are that it provides a third world standard of care, and as it seems from the newspapers a lot of malpractice, for what seems to be a G7 country level of public expenditure (the money coming from our taxes! So don't be fooled to believe it is free). Where does all that money go?
There seems to be a lot of focus as I have noticed on getting all possible personal/medical details on their records but once they have got this, they seem to loose interest in you and whatever health problem you may be coming with. If you persist and get an appointment, you may meet some junior individual who may be persuading you that you are "probably fine" and just getting "a little old" at the age of, like, 33, never mind what symptoms you are describing, even if on any Google search they would come up as pointing to cervical cancer. If, on occasion, you do meet some reasonably trained individual who does look and act like an actual GP, they may prescribe you an antibiotic (great!) which, if you research a little, you may find is no longer used in other countries since the seventies, because of side effects. Why would they use a drug like this? Because it is dirt cheap of course! (Value for money!) Never mind that in a few years you may find your liver not functioning that well... anyway these are now distant memories from long before the pandemic. I have no idea what they may be doing now (haven't seen them for a while) but I'm not expecting it to be any better now. My neighbour told me not so long ago that she had breathing difficulties due to COVID and it took 9 hours for the ambulance to arrive ... lucky her. My other neighbour who has suffered a stroke tells me that the social workers who look after him put several pills in front of him every morning, he has no idea what it is and why he is told to take it, he has never seen his doctor in person and cannot get hold of him on the phone and his carers have no idea what it is either. He is a retired teacher and he feels he should be a little better informed about his treatment, is it unreasonable of him?

There seems to be a lot of focus as I have noticed on getting all possible personal/medical details on their records but once they have got this, they seem to loose interest in you

That sounds like my annual diabetic "reviews", which has become an HCA asking a series of questions from her screen (the answers to most don't change from year to year, like do you smoke, alcohol intake), together with weighing, etc. But she never offers any advice/suggestions, etc - it's just fact-finding repeated each year for no obvious reason/benefit to the patient. Not sure why they can't save a lot of time by just checking with you that the answers are the same as last time. You can also guess what the GP surgery get extra funding for as they always go the extra mile to ask if you're depressed etc (presumably there's more funding for depressed patients in some way) - they never ask for any other issues, such as whether you've a bad back or headaches or anything else. I have to presume that them getting extra funding for diabetic patients is contingent upon the annual questionnaire being completed! It's years since I've last had a consultation with a proper diabetic "nurse" and probably over a decade since I was deemed worthy to talk to the GP specialising in diabetes.

That wouldn't surprise me if it was all about extra funding, especially noting how reluctant they seem to be when you ask for any test or a specialist referral, which I assume will cost some money. And how consistent this would be with the fact that they will rather give you some medication (painkillers, antibiotics, whatever cheap stuff there is) without any proper diagnosis to see "if it works" rather than bothering to refer you for tests to find out what your problem actually is...
I used a Chinese herbal remedy to treat gestational diabetes during my pregnancy (saved me from being fed Metformin by my hospital, which as I understand was not tested on pregnant women but again dirt cheap. They were so keen on forcing me to take it that I got even threatened by them, despite my sugar levels being completely fine as I was taking the Chinese herbs. It may be that I was enlisted as a guinny pig to test it without my consent, who knows).
I also know there are also very effective Traditional Chinese Medicine solutions for diabetes.

@CuriouMum more likely they know that there’s no point referring as the hospital will reject it.

Secondary care have strict criteria for most referrals and will bounce back any that don’t meet the criteria, so primary care tend to know when and what to refer and what will be accepted. They also know what benefits from referral and what doesn’t. Certain tests are only necessary if they change the likely outcome of management.

No long term planning for staff etc, so problems arise and the Govt response is to throw money at it... which sounds good but can't conjure up people.

NHS needs a 10/15 year plan agreed by ALL parties but it wont happen - FGS, they can't even get enough social care in place, one reason, perhaps the main one, the NHS is so awful.

Brexitiers everywhere, take a bow, you caused this.

It's not falling apart it's being hit with a sledge hammer by the Tory's for 12 years and it's only the dedication of the staff holding on that it has survived this fair. They are now exhausted and broken so it is going to crash and it will take years to rebuild it even If they privatise it. We will need a lot more immigration to plug the gaps.

There has to be a limit to how much is spent. The call for more money has to stop and be replaced with:

• people taking responsibility for themselves and their life styles.
• a reigning in of what is covered
• stop the waste. PFI was expanded under the Blair government so they could keep all the spending off the books. A lot of this £200 for a lightbulb is because of PFI
• make people pay who are not eligible. Anyone here been to the States and tried to get near healthcare without a credit card?

CuriouMum Even long before the pandemic, my interactions with the NHS were mostly far from satisfactory, and on some occasions, shocking

It's almost like it is a vehicle of political propaganda rather than a health system designed to provide actual health care to the nation

The conclusions that I have arrived at, based on my own experience with them are that it provides a third world standard of care

I agree with this. I've never had very good care from the NHS - I have had missed pneumonia and a missed fracture, because I am one of those people who takes care of their health, exercises and looks well, etc.. Theres a lot of glancing at people like me and not bothering to investigate properly and write us of as "the worried well", which means several attempts just to get something like antibiotics or an MRI scan, because we are fit enough to struggle on despite something being wrong. In fact, I just never seem to get any treatment at all from the NHS. I had an infected cat bitten finger once too, but they refused to give me antibiotics for it even after 3 weeks and I had to see a private GP to get them.

So my experience is that the NHS saves a lot of money by simply doing nothing, and in fact increasingly they seem to be presenting "doing nothing" as a treatment option.

I actually find the NHS quite anti-health. They were very keen for me to stop doing all activity because of arthritis, when in fact the more healthy option is to keep doing as much as you are able and to keep moving. I really don't trust a lot of NHS consultants at all because I don't think they are necessarily acting in the best interests of the patient - instead they are trying to meet funding targets, which change often and which are unknown to the patient.

One of the reasons that I'm moving to France is because I really want to avoid being treated by the NHS once I get older.

Agree on life styles etc but how?

The excesses of PFI are now limited, Blair was in 15 years ago but without PFI, we d have an even worse NHS as there wouldn't have been any new builds.

Only urgent/emergencies are now covered, anything else takes years.

Without an ID card system, its extremely difficult to ensure only UK citizens are covered and what about illegal immigrants with no money? or tourists with no insurance? let them die in the streets?

We now have a ambulance service that cannot reach those who are dying, this is due to a lack of community care workers.

There is a FB page campaign local to me to get a team of support workers to help the vulnerable - £10.50 ph and 22p a mile for car usage, Lidl are offering £12 ph for warehouse pickers.

There is a FB page campaign local to me to get a team of support workers to help the vulnerable - £10.50 ph and 22p a mile for car usage, Lidl are offering £12 ph for warehouse pickers.

Higher wages plus paying for a whole shift (not just time on call outs) as well as travel costs would make a massive difference to the community care sector. I do think the government should do a massive drive to promote care training schemes and incentivise companies to offer higher wages.

The flaw in the plan is Lidl can finance higher wages from profit margins. Care is 100% cost and no one want to pay as demonstrated by the outcry with the NI increase

I agree that the care for Cancer and life threatening is excellent, it's the lower level stuff it seems to have fallen apart
On a personal level I have been treated very well over the last few years. I feel like I have used the doctors and hospitals more in this time than in the last 25 years put together for various ailments including Menopause, covid, several infections and several other 'niggles'. I have had the telephone appointments and also been called into the doctor's surgery after consultations for further examinations. I am happy but I understand there is a massive difference in different areas of how people are being treated.

I agree that the care for Cancer and life threatening is excellent, it's the lower level stuff it seems to have fallen apart

Cancer treatment is falling apart too. My OH had chemotherapy when first diagnosed a few years ago. Absolutely 100% brilliant treatment from start to finish.

Had to go back onto chemotherapy in 2020. Start delayed as they basically forget about him during the first lockdown. When it finally started, just one fiasco after another, blood tests not back so chemo session cancelled (several times), they keep forgetting to approve the issue of the monthly chemo drugs (consultant "ticks the box" but they have some kind of portal between the chemo dept and pharmacy where someone else has to "tick the box" to approve the issue, but it's the weakest link and has never been done on time, so the monthly cycle is constantly delayed). Absolutely zero communication between GP surgery and oncology dept and he keeps getting passed between them to deal with side effects, adverse blood test results, etc.

It's basically an absolute fiasco this time around. Lots of staff involved, he has a list of about 20 contact names/numbers, but none of them can do anything, he just gets constantly fobbed off between them.

When you throw a lot of money on something like NHS and you have very little to show for it, either in a way of patients' care or staff remuneration and working conditions then doesn't it sound like maybe... corruption? £9 bn was apparently spent on defective or unusable PPE if I'm not mistaken. So, isn't someone getting very rich in the process?

NHS. Great if you need you leg amputated. Shit if you need your dodgy hip fixed. Non existent if you need your teeth sorting out.

While I completely disagree with the whole 'pander to' sentiment of this post, I personally think that if there was less poverty, the NHS wouldn't be under such considerable strain.

Obesity, addiction, mental illness, poor housing conditions causing respiratory illness are all very strongly linked to poverty.

No the government isn't working, and they are trashing everything if any value before they leave.

Very true