To be actually really worried about you? NHS related

[Itsonthestairs]

As a highly skilled NHS nurse of 15 years I had to leave my job due to the stress and not being able to provide the care I wanted to, I was burnt out following covid (my mum died), I have definaly save a fair few lifes in my clinical time, I loved my job and I was good at it (emergency department background). Reading the posts on MN has really upset me recently, the disrespect, dislike and darn right hatred for healthcare professionals really worries me. My friends are on their knees and this abuse doesn't help, people are getting crap care because there is no staff and this awful attitude is just adding fuel to the fire. I'm really worried about you, me and our families future healthcare.

Hear, hear, I'm so pleased for you and your DH @Bexblue - my DHs life was saved (and I'm not overstating that) and his aftercare following surgery was compassionate attentive and helped him recover quicker. The wound care nurse is someone we will never forget, we talk about her to this day (by name), she was so well-informed and said she read academic papers all the time to keep up to date on latest treatments 👍

Take a look at the French or Canadian systems, for example. (Two of which I’ve had personal experience - there will be many others.)

@Itsonthestairs so sad you had to leave your job. Maybe in future you may return. My friend's sister took some time out and decided to return, just at a different hospital and different area of care, and enjoyed it for a few more years.

The NHS is far too top heavy, the management needs to be streamlined and the waste in the service is criminal. Sadly I can’t see a long term future without rapid radical change
Precisely that.

There's a constant waste of money fiddling about with computer systems that worked just fine - etc And then after being 'fixed' not actually working at all.

It's the erosion of funding and deliberate increase of expectation which has been government policy for so long they will get to do the "reluctantly" declaring it not fit for purpose as though they're just bowing to public preferences. Unfortunately a doubling of wages wouldn't cover the cost for most people during their lifetime. Employers won't suddenly support these packages

My experience has been similar to others, a down right lack of care and compassion. Treated as though you are making a fuss or wasting their time (from a GP last week after I’d been sent there by the pharmacist).
The worst care I received was pre-pandemic though so not sure what their excuse was then.
I don’t understand why we should just have to suck it up and be grateful and be labelled ‘awful’ if we dare to voice a complaint.
Both my DH and I had cause to use my private healthcare recently and the care was on a different level. Listened to, treated like a human, not made to jump through hoops of fire for treatment. Will definitely be using it again if we needed to.

OP I'm interested to know if you were aware of bad, lazy or uncaring staff while you were working? I've experienced life-threateningly poor, heartless care from the NHS many times and always wondered if the other (good) staff are aware of how bad the "bad" staff are.

I don't really get our country's obsession with 'being grateful'. I have had some good care from the NHS and some not so good.
My mum died last year alone after some horrific 'care' from everyone she came across. Starting with the paramedics who said she was wasting time and there was nothing wrong with her, to the night she spent on a trolley in a&e in her own urine because no one came when she called, to the week she spent shivering because her body was shutting down and no one would bring her another blanket....the day she was transferred to another hospital and given no food or liquid throughout the day because everyone thought someone else had done it...despite her pleas. Died the next day. No, I don't feel grateful anymore. I think a European private style would probably work better.

I remember when someone I was with who was taken to hospital in an ambulance at their 20 week scan where she found out the sex of her baby and there was something wrong with the heart rate of the baby.

Nurses at the hospital told her she was probably going to lose the baby but wasn’t pregnant enough to go to the maternity unit. And she started crying at the thought of losing her baby and they laughed at her. Even worse was when one of those nurses walked passed her with a different nurse, whispered in her ear then pointed at pregnant friend and both laughed and sniggered while staring right at her as they passed her.

It was outright bullying and nasty. And no matter how hard you work, or important your job is does not put you above reproach or exempt from deserved criticism.

Oh, and there are other jobs just as important and hard working and are caring roles. Workplace bullying shouldn’t be tolerated in any job and patients or clients who are vulnerable should be protected, along with the employees who are doing the right thing.

Some medical professionals are shit , some are amazing. I don't think many people say they're all shit, but just relay incidents where they've felt as such. Try not to take it personally. And thanks for all you do (did)

We don’t all behave like that, i for one only have positive and praise for our amazing health care people

I don't know how the UK would be able to introduce a European model. To have a similar model to Germany, the UK would need 400,000 more doctors, and Germany has consistently invested in better and more resources like hospitals/imaging/scanners etc.
The UK subsidises peoples wages with UC, so they barely have just enough to live on, any talk of increasing wages is met with howls of protest from businesses as unaffordable, so how are they going to be able to afford to pay for private medical insurance for all their employees ?

QueenCamilla · Today 01:02

100% agree

A&E. I was told to take DS3 home without treatment, during an asthma attack as the diagnosis was that he was tired! He was “yawning” (common symptom when breathless) to get air in not because he was tired.
All the time the staff were in groups laughing and chatting and eating cake

This is brilliantly put.

Sorry, what?! Pond scum? For having a bad experience and daring to speak up about it?

Just because you’ve been lucky enough to not be in that position, doesn’t give you the right to call people who have ‘pond scum’. That’s absolutely disgusting. If you’d been in a position like some people of being in pain for 10+ hours and not being given pain relief, or something similar, I’ve no doubt you’d be feeling the same as a lot of people too. Have some bloody compassion.

I would have virulently disagreed with your post until I too had to call 999 from a hospital ward for my mother. I did not expect my mother to be close to death from dehydration and casual neglect

@Damnyouconscience well said

@MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

@Damnyouconscience I agree.

@LikeAStar1994 - you’d do well to read the post above where someone’s mother died after days of neglect.

Is she ‘pond scum’ for complaining? Or should she just suck it up?

One of the most horrible posts I’ve seen on MN.

Unfortunately apart from a couple of very nice GPs (back in the days when you could see one) I’ve experienced nothing but poor care from the NHS. My community midwife and the experience I had in hospital giving birth were dreadful enough that had we had a second I would have temporarily relocated to go to a private maternity facility. That’s just one example. I now avoid the NHS wherever possible.

There are massive issues with layers of unnecessary management and “woke” roles. There is dire need for reform but the NHS was turned into this golden cow that can’t be criticised, and the clapping didn’t help with that. Maybe the tide is turning.

There are probably good people who go into the profession to help but in my school, the ones who studied medicine (or med related degrees like radiology) either did it for prestige or because their parents told them to and the lasses who did nursing werent academic enough to do something else so just fell into it.

My father died due to medical negligence combined with institutional racism. Really - my mother sued and won - a substantial sum. That's incredibly difficult and shows that his cause of death was unambiguous. That was nearly 30 years ago. I've never been overly impressed with the NHS. It did save my life after a freak accident. But I mean...shouldn't it? Isn't that what its supposed to do?

Whilst this sounds very kind, I wonder if people who think like this accept that the NHS is actually broken and something major needs to be done to overhaul it. Both for patients and HCPs. The op was extremely stressed and not able to provide the care she wanted to. We need to accept the problem or it cannot start to be fixed.

i would also say that thinking about the widespread abuse, disrespect etc - that is not because people are bastards. Only a minority of people are bastards. The rest of us are just ordinary and mainly decent and have become frustrated at the extreme difficulty to get care. Minor and major examples.

Privatisation has worked so well for the railways and utilities, hasn't it? 🙄

I've seen both sides. My dad died a week after a cardiac arrest last year and most of the nursing care he received, and the support we as his family received, was compassionate and sensitive. On the other hand, my mum has recently was an inpatient for a few days following an operation to remove half her colon. She's a retired nurse herself, and commented how different nursing care is now. No-one touched her the entire time she was there, for example (except to do a nasal swab for Covid), or really spoke to her at all. Without exception, everyone I spoke to on the phone on the first couple of days was rude and abrupt - it was made very clear to me that I was wasting their time.