I think the NHS could be fixed, AIBU?

[Dreamer14]

i am inspired to write this thread after two events:

1. my kid needs to see a doctor for a face to face appointment. A part of her body needs examining, in person. I have tried the virtual GP service. They were useless. It’s also not possible to get a face to face appointment in my GP surgery without first doing a stupid phone appointment.
2. my relative has an infection. She’s had it before and knows she needs antibiotics. No one will help her. 111 say go to GP. GP say no appointments.

Surely we can do better than this?

Ideas I have;

• give people more choice about appointments… if it is inefficient to do a phone one let’s not force people to do it
• we need to open up more GP surgeries and hospitals
• We need a separate service for elderly people -so many don’t need to call 999 but have no choice as there is no help elsewhere
• we need to help mental health patients before crisis (watching Ambulance the other day, so many people calling 999)
• We need to get with the times… stop sending letters and start Emailing people. Or texting. The NHS IT systems and processes are shameful.
• payment for some services (I’m happy to pay a small amount to my GP)
• attract more people to NHS jobs. I’d love to work helping people. But I’m a mum of 3 and I can’t afford to retrain. Some of these jobs could be done on the job and salaried. I’m not gonna pay £30k to go to uni for 3 years to be a biomedical scientist.
• sort salaries out. How much do execs earn? How many woke jobs can we do away with?
• I think we should pick a few areas in the uk and trial different things In Each one. Then we can scale up if it works.
• strip it back to only crucial services. Nothing woke. If you want something doing that is beyond the list. You pay for it.
• I’m a supporter of people that want to pick when and how they die if they get given an awful diagnosis. There are many people that get diagnosed with terminal diseases and don’t want to suffer.

ultimately we need the government to spend more but we also need the nhs to spend better.

But that relies on the hospital actually sending you the appointment in the first place. I recently received a letter copied to me and GP because I had missed a hospital appointment. I had not received the appointment letter or the reminder message on my phone. So I should be charged for something I didn't know about?

When I attended the appointment I apologised for missing the first appointment - I was told that it happens a lot that people don't get the appointment letter.

Purplebunnie I wasn't specific enough, I meant GP appointments where people just don't turn up. Appointments people know about. Of course very different if you hadn't received notification of an appointment.

I don't understand the 2 tier system that operates throughout the UK. People who can afford to are going private. However the consultants are the same consultants they see via the NHS! I need a knee replacement but Im being palmed off to a physio ( telephone consultations!!) with no hope in sight of seeing a consultant.
However, if I look online there are three available privately next week at a cost of £300 for initial appointment. All three also listed as also working at local NHS hospital.

Private is quicker because the demand is less. The actual treatment and who provides it is in most cases exactly the same but you might get a nicer room and better food etc.

The same two tier system will exist everywhere though its not isolated to the uk.

Having worked with the NHS on projects I can tell you the management tiers are barmy. I was reporting to a bunch of people seemingly with the same job. The duplication and waste in resource planning was so weird for us coming from the private sector where we watch every penny. I remember a business guru called John Hervey Jones? Who was brought in to fix the NHS on a TV programme. They had one less consultant available than they needed and the only reason was that there wasn't an office for him. He wanted to change an unused store cupboard to an office and the red tape and petty beauracracy involved in that small change was so dire even he gave up. If you could shake it from the top down there would be so much more money at the coal face where it's needed.

@Lorrymum i mean you can’t blame them because the thought of earning extra money for anyone is very appealing.

i do think money in the nhs could be better distributed. Nobody needs to earn over £100k in a public sector job. They just don’t.

is the private sector taking away staff from the NHS?

how does it work in other countries?

Oh I try opting out of letters. Have to have routine check ups at a hospital dept ( and weirdly, lots of staff. So many they stand in twos waiting to pounce on a patient as they walk through the door. This is the second eye dept I’ve seen with waiting staff) I get an email saying I have a new appointment or maybe an appointment cancelled. Go to portal. There is is. Then I get a letter through the post. Said I don’t need letters, ticked boxes for portal/email only. Still the letters turn up. Waste of money.

The NHS has been awful the last few times we've used it. I'd gladly have a system like the U.S.
Stop funding this failed service with NI deductions and people can pay for private care monthly.
The NHS has ran its course

Namechanged.
I work for a GP Practice - we are contracted to provide a service - we are not employed by the NHS. SOME Practices are NHS board run so they are employees. This is a significant difference.

I don't necessarily disagree with your points OP but there is no more funding, there are no applicants for jobs, there is no easy way to fix this decades long lack of investment and destruction of the NHS.
The other bit I'm not sure anyone has mentioned is that the fix will need to come from both sides of the equation - the provider and the recipient of the service - so patients.
We cannot cope with current demand for many reasons; lack of resources, lack of clinicians, lack of space in our buildings even if we could recruit. Add to that the fact that we have a population who are far more reliant on GPs than ever before - in an inappropriate and unsustainable way.

Broken nails, small scrapes, minor headaches etc. Patients presenting with these all contribute to the fact that there is not enough capacity for those with complex, chronic conditions or acute issues that need a clinician to assess.

And I don't know how to fix that part of the problem.

And we're tired; patients (because I am one too, as are my family and friends) and NHS alike.

the system is broken it was just getting buy with huge loans and then the cutbacks from this Government

its simply not sustainable and hasn’t been for many years we need to let it go and look at successful low cost to patients insurance care like in France and Germany

the culture of the NHS will never change

while I believe many MP’s on the left and right believe it needs to change none of them would put this forward as the country is so in awe of the NHS even though many will complain aboot it and rightly so. It needs a cross party committee to work on this not for it to be the continuous political football that it is

we deserve better and we are a country that has wealth we should have a better health service

The idea that the nhs doesn't need more money because it just wastes the money ot does get is not only false but also insulting.

Yes. There is some waste (and some theft and fraud) but not nearly as much as people make out and certainly not nearly as much as its under funded by.

The nhs spends less than nearly all other healthcare systems. It has less staff, less hospital beds.

The idea that it could be privatised and it would cost less and be better managed is just rubbish

Boob jobs on the NHS is a good example (unless needed for reconstruction surgery or an actual medical reason that isn’t cosmetic).

a big part of the problem is the shifts are shit and the staff are under paid. Unless your a locum - some of them earn £120 per hour.

I have always wanted to work as a HCA while I trained to be a nurse but they want you to be completely flexible 24/7. They need to offer more set shift patterns to suit mums etc it would open up more jobs for people with children.

also because of brexit a lot of doctors that we had come over to the UK now won’t come.

parts of the NHS have actually started to be privatised already.

I don't recognise this assessment of the NHS. My family and I have had excellent care across a range of different services in recent months - from surgical, to mental, to stroke/heart, to oncological, to basic primary care. It has been superb.
To those hankering after an American style system, look into medical bankruptcy. No-one in the UK goes bankrupt paying for the medical care they need....
American healthcare is also the most expensive in the world and life expectancy is lower than the UK's. Infant and under 5 death rates are also significantly lower in the US.

I want to know why ypu aren't told that you're free to leave. I had very easy births, no complications but I needed to wait until the next day to leave. Why? I wanted to go home, I asked to go home repeatedly but was told o have to wait for some dr check.

i had my baby at 9am and was told we should be out at 2pm as there is loads of time for de to check baby. Was in there until 6pm the next day and it would have been another night I'd I didn't start crying to the nurse.
I wish I'd just left but I was worried about the nurse calling social services if I didn't do 'what was best for baby' even though baby would be way better off at home!

Also i was told not to take my own paracetamol after birth. Stupidly i told dh to take them home with him. only to be forgotten about every time the nurse came round. It's only paracetamol and I'm a grown woman. I can manage paracetamol. Surely it's a waste of everyone's time getting nurses to sort (and NHS to pay for) something I could have given myself.
They asked if I wanted paracetamol, I said don't worry I have My own with me. She said 'no you can't have it yourself, you have to have ours. Just why? Seems mad!

Another time I was at the hospital with dh having stitches (well glue but 'having glue' doesn't hit quite right) and the nurse forgot a few items a few times. She had to throw away 3 plastic aprons, sets of gloves and 3 packs of whatever she was using until she realised she had everything together then she put on her 4th apron (why?) and gloves and 4th pack of whatever she was using because it was an open wound. Just seemed so wasteful but it's probably policy and she was just as annoyed. The tray of things was 4 foot from his curtain BUT she had to wear an apron and everything when she got in the curtain.

Apologies. I meant infant and under 5 death rates are significantly higher in the US, not lower.

As far as I'm aware the NHS is one of the largest employers in the world.

This is why we can never have a sensible conversation about the NHS because it ends up with is has to be what we currently have or the US system and nome of the many options in-between the 2 extremes.

I am so fed up with so many managers with no clinical knowledge. The amount of time I spend replying to their emails and having to constantly justify why this patient needs urgent treatment/ surgery/ investigation is totally wrong. They are there to fiddle with targets !!!!!! I am so done with this bureaucracy.

We can build as many new hospitals and GP surgeries as we want, we do not have the trained staff. We have 100k vacancies as it is.

@bluejelly
"My family and I have had excellent care across a range of different services"

I would agree with this.

We have always had access to the care we needed, when we needed it. It has always been provided with courtesy and respect.

This is from 4 different Health Authorities BTW.

Its also a myth that nhs has more managers than private sectors.

It actually has less.

But paying for dental care, whether private or NHS, carries a charge, and I'm not aware of any issues in cost effectiveness.

Yes I had a similar experience to your first example. Got told I would need to speak to a nurse practitioner first, on the phone 6 days after my initial call. She sent me for bloods on two separate occasions because they missed something on the first set. These came back fine so she told me she wasn't sure what was wrong. I had to prompt her to ask what I should do next, given that we didn't know why I was having the symptoms I was having.

Then I had to call for a doctor's appointment. This was also on the phone two weeks later. I was sent for a repeat of the bloods because time had passed. I then had a face to face appointment when these results came back to further discuss my symptoms.

I finally got referred to a consultant two months ago. I've obviously still not heard anything so I've booked a private referral appointment for £180 because I'm several months down the line now.

I always like reading peoples ideas to fix the NHS.

I agree regarding separate, specialised service for elderly people.

There is a massive shortage of nurses and other NHS workers( and it's resulting in the deaths of patients).

I think everyone should have to do six months to a years service in the NHS, national service for the NHS - paid of course - make people realise exactly what they are moaning about.

Sadly we are reaching the end of the public sector in the UK, thanks to the continual voting in of right wing parties.