The state of the NHS right now is terrifying

[Faciadipasta]

I am feeling genuinely scared for us as a country health care wise. I was reading today about a chap who died of internal bleeding while his family were kept on hold to 999 for 10 minutes as nobody even answered the phone.
Then there are all the people who die while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, because they are all lined up.outside the hospitals unable to offload their patients.
People can't see a GP at all, so there are bound to be loads who are dying of things that could have been prevented if they'd been seen. Waits at A and E are enormous and they don't even have enough chairs so people with serious injuries or illnesses are having to just sit on the floors in the corridors.
We're actually starting to feel like one of those warzone countries that you see on the news and it is scaring me shitless.
I mean even in the US you wouldn't just be left to die because there was nobody to answer the phone although admittedly you'd probably end up bankrupt for paying back the care, but at least you wouldn't be dead!
I personally feel like we have no care, no safety net. And it's scary.
Will it get better? What can be done?

Even the rotas are messed up in the NHS , many private hospitals offer fixed rotas so you can have a life outside of your job and plan accordingly. Many NHS rotas are crap

As a current service-user, still to be diagnosed, my experience of the heath-service has been rather different to what has been discussed on this thread.

Experienced distressing symptoms, phoned the GP surgery asking for an urgent appointment. Received a phone call back from the GP on duty within an hour. Discussed symptoms and was in the surgery for consult less than two hours later, having jumped the queue of patients in the waiting-room.

Had a couple of tests undertaken within days. To date I have had two out-patient appointments, with another this Sunday and a scheduled out-patient diagnostic procedure in a fortnight. All different departments. The hospital I am attending are holding out-patient procedures on the weekends, presumably to catch up on their backlog. I have been impressed by the friendly efficiency of all the practitioners I have so far encountered

That's great to hear @BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted - just as it should be. Shame it's not the same for everyone at the moment.

All the best with your tests and getting a diagnosis.

I do believe there is is trickle down of blame.

Any fully funded service by the tax payer has corruption, the savings required are always put on the actual workforce, labour and public.
The Government will only privatise part of the NHS that requires people to pay for actual labour, labour is costly and harder to steal from, huge contracts of buying will still be in their hands.

So many people in power taking their cut from the huge amounts of money the NHS takes from the tax payer. There is no way a Government would allow or want it to be totally private, although people think that is what the conservatives want, they don't.

The NHS is a huge money cow for those in power, as is the BBC, and other public services.
Until the corruption at higher levels are revealed then the continuation of blaming, the workforce and the public will continue. A never ending cycle of blame that diverts people away from true corruption.

I had acupuncture on the NHS at a hospital pain management clinic.

and this one time.... at band camp.....

No but we do those places a disservice acting like our privileged position is in anyvway similar.
I have worked as a HCP in a 3rd world country and I can absolutely assure you it is in no way shape or form in any way similar.

It is very worrying

of course it’s underfunded but it’s terribly mismanaged (the wasted money is eye watering) and has been for a long time you can be critical of both because both are the reason iits in such a dire state

The NHS simply was not set up for the services that are now needed. It has to change we have to look at France or Germany and many of us will need to be paying a lot more towards our healthcare

ask people how they would find it many come back with well add 1p on to tax that won’t touch it we all need to pay for considerably more towards our healthcare and take more personal responsibility (I include myself)

as for the even in America statement. Having been to the states over the summer I can assure you it’s far worse there I was stepping around homeless people in the streets who were shockingly unwell in California a state that is so wealthy it has more money than that vast majority of countries

I’m really curious to understand where people think there are savings to be made and too many managers?

Would you get rid of matrons? Directorate lead nurses? Director of Nursing? Specialist nurses such as the infection prevention and control lead or the site managers? All are doing vital jobs.
What about the Medical Director? The clinical lead for orthopaedic surgery? The Guardian of safe working hours (who also tends to be clinical)?
The complaint manager?
Head of Estates and Facilities? Head of Governance? Safeguarding lead? Theatre manager? Caldecott guardian (usually also has another role and statutory requirement), mortuary manager? Catering manager?

There are lots of managers but these trusts are hugely complex, very large organisations. Some employ over 20,000 staff. That needs managers.

I've always wondered about the getting rid of managers thing too. They did that in our Trust years ago- just culled all the senior leadership roles. It's been a disaster, we're all scrambling on the ground to do the best we can day to day but with no vision, innovation or positive change. We haemorrhaged junior staff because the management job still actually needs doing but now on top of their own job with no support from above. We're just bringing senior managers back it, it's making such a difference already.

Same. I’m no economist but honestly don’t understand why there is not enough money for the NHS, schools, decent social services etc when the U.K. charges such huge amounts of tax.

There has to be a massive amount of wastage somewhere but I guess it’s impossible to know where without going through all the accounts with a fine toothcomb. The U.K. should also not have got into any debt.

Medicine has come such a long way since the NHS was started. Looked at all the advanced treatments which are now offered but are considered routine- heart surgery, joint replacements, chemotherapy etc. None of this was available years ago yet we all think it can be covered by paying in the same low level of NI. It’s just not sustainable.

I follow a Youtuber in her 20s with cancer. It's terrifying to see surgeries and investigations delayed and cancelled, being rushed to hospital bleeding and vomiting and having to drive to three different hospitals before finding a bed. Due to mismanagement she wasn't diagnosed until she was already stage 3. The service is too stretched and it's unacceptable.

How is it to be solved? We all know people who have received poor treatment but what’s the answer? The money has to come from somewhere so it’s either got to be as increased tax or as some form of copayment.

100000% this!
People with absolutely no idea how these huge services run. Who will do all that then? The already massively understaffed clinicians??
As if private businesses have any less management structure!
People who have never worked in the NHS or certainly not at any service lead level pontificating.
It needs more resources the NHS I funded less per capita than almost any other 1sr world health service and relies heavily on staff good will (including the managers spoken of). They are now reaping the years of underfunding and treating staff like shit.

This exactly. But the spoilt British public and corrupt inept government have no will to do this so will just continue to bash those on the forefront for not working hard enough until the whole thing falls apart. And they can blame the workers

And this is tragic. However IME this far less the norm that you would be led to believe.
On the whole cancer and significant illness care is very well run and prioritised.
But of course that doesn't make such good social media does it.

People misunderstand the NHS. They think it’s one organisation. They think it’s one funding stream. They think trusts have responsibility for training doctors and nurses.
They have no concept of deaneries, and the fact that anyone below consultant level has limited choice about where they work; nor that some specialities have so few training places there are never going to be enough consultants in that field and that creates backlogs. For vascular neurosurgery, there were two speciality training posts in U.K. last year. Others wanting to train needed to go to John Hopkins or another US centre.

One of the biggest inefficiencies or reducing risk of successful litigation. There’s a huge organisation set up to manage and ‘insure’ against this. The NHS paid £2.4b in clinical negligence claims in 2018-19. This equates to about 2% of the entire budget for the NHS in England (roughly £115bn). NHS Resolution also has to account for claims likely to be received in the future. Now standing at £83.4bn, the amount “set aside” for such claims is among the most substantial public sector financial liabilities faced by the UK government, second only to nuclear decommissioning. That is not entirely because of failings and negligence- only a third of claims actually go to litigation but managing them has become hugely expensive. There used to be Crown immunity but one only needs to read MN to see that people think they can claim for ridiculous things.

Much of the bureaucracy and ‘form filling’ is to appease the authority and reduce risk of successful claims through the CNST programme) clinical negligence scheme for trusts) where the better you can evidence risk reduction the lower the premium to trust. This needs people to manage the process, lots of evidence and takes up much time. Trusts need to have evidence to defend the many claims for compensation brought. That takes more paperwork and more staff and doesn’t necessarily improve care or outcomes. There is no way around this except reinstating crown immunity or a similar scheme.

Social media is another unavoidable nowadays. Both the trust using social media (which takes time and money) but enables messages to be seen by many and improves communication and people running social media campaigns that end up costing the trust millions. There have been two or three fairly recent cases where parental disagreement with a trust over the care and treatment (or withdrawal of treatment) of their child has created massive public campaigns that the trust can’t respond to but which results in a need to spend large amounts on additional security, on staffing, on legal fees, on support services for staff and other parents and on comms. Situations like these, though truly tragic, happen in many trusts on a slightly more local profile weekly. Going to the Court of Protection costs money.

it’s not all about turning lights off and changing sheets less frequently.

The NHS has changed massively since I started nursing in 2013.

Things weren't great then, but they are worse now.

Now the "full capacity rooms" (which are basically windowless store rooms) are being permanently used on the wards.

Job adverts go out and no one applies for them.

People are living longer, getting older and sicker. And the number of staff and beds has not kept up.

Families live far away and are too busy with work and their own young family to look after relatives (I'm not saying that they should, before anyone jumps down my throat!).

Covid affected training new staff for specialist roles, because it was an all hands on deck approach for months on end.

The knock on effect of this on the availability of beds and suitably trained staff has led to massive backlogs.

I wish I could do a job where I felt like I made a positive difference to people.

I'm looking to leave in the next few years and do something where I can do that now. Maybe a personal trainer or something.

I'm in my 30s, I don't expect the NHS to still be a thing when I'm old.

She doesn't complain at all about it. That's not the focus of her channel. I followed her before she was diagnosed. It's not about complaining to 'make good social media.'

I don't have any other experiences with NHS cancer care other than exDP who was diagnosed with enlarged lymph nodes and put on the cancer pathway but not seen for 6 months.

Again sorry to hear this. But I have dealt with hundreds of patients with cancer from diagnosis to death over the last 20 years and this is not the norm. Its certainly not great now post covid but still on the whole pretty good

We probably need to remember that in August 2022 94% of inpatients reported a positive experience. Imagine if your children got 94% in all their exams!

Even in emergency departments 78% reported a positive experience. There are undoubtedly problems, but not quite as bad as is sometimes portrayed. That’s thanks to the incredible staff ( including managers) working in our hospitals.

Absolutely.

It's terrifying what is happening.

My friend who is an A&E doctor says going to work at the moment is scary. Hugely understaffed and overrun. People - even children - who have had serious (but not life threatening) accidents left for 10+ hours without treatment.

10 years ago the NHS was on the whole providing excellent service. That tells you everything you need to know.

Sunak is dangerous and wants it to fail so he can make big bucks. He doesn't care if you or your child dies as part of his money making scheme.

Sunak is dangerous and wants it to fail so he can make big bucks. He doesn't care if you or your child dies as part of his money making scheme.

Completely agree. The positive feeling toward him because he's not Truss is terrifying.

I'm sure I read an article that showed the nhs has far fewer managers than most private sector structures

The idea it's full of waste and unnecessary managers is always bandied about but I keep asking which private sector model has neither and no one is answering