To think the NHS has already failed.

[Goingforplatinum]

5 hour wait for a cat1 ambulance for a child. Unresponsive patients being taken to hospital by neighbours. 90 hour wait in A&E, unsafe staffing on wards, 7 month wait for coil or implant fitting. The NHS isn't failing. We need to admit its failed

Spot on @Grumpybutfunny

We should be focusing on social care, and not just because of the impact on delayed discharges. The lack of social care is appalling. Over the past couple of months I've heard of terrible terrible situations. Bed bound people who can't get care packages, an 80 year old alcoholic man who was chair bound and we couldn't get a package, until his carer passed away and he was on his own for days with no support. It's terrifying.

@Auntieobem it is scary how little provision there is out there, especially for stepdown/rehab/respite. The problem is most domicillary and residential care is in the private sector now, how is the Government supposed to intervene ?
It could increase the money to LA's , but there are so many other essentials that need addressing by LA's other than elderly care, the only way to deal with it is by ringfencing funds and even then I doubt it would be enough for them to reinstate the provision that has been closed down. It is far more expensive to start something new than save something old.

The other issue is that people are put into private residential settings for stepdown/rehab but get very little or no expert care from physio's/OT's or allied HCA's. The HCA staff in these settings often don't have the time or training to provide what is needed, they are often running on minimal staffing as it is, so the person who has rehab potential loses out and ends up no longer fit to go back home.

That's astonishing. Can you quote the source? Is that non clinical or non-registered?

In my team we have 3 staff (all clinical, 2 registered) and 170 patients. All patients require active treatment otherwise we discharge. I'd love some admin support!

Overall our health board has about 10 staff per bed (including clinical). 35% staff are non clinical.That includes estates & domestics (essential but non clinical.

Yes and it doesn’t help when in a city like mine with an increasing population the main hospital is rebuilt with FEWER beds than before. I mean it’s not rocket science to realise that that is going to have a major impact on things. It’s beyond idiotic. Why are decisions like that being made and approved? Why is someone not sitting in those planning meetings sticking their head above the parapet and saying “no, no, no, this is absolute lunacy and we must NOT go down this road. The maths doesn’t work. We are a growing population - We need MORE beds, and staffing to go with it, not LESS, no matter how far you try to justify it with your crappy graphs and forecasting.”

We need a change of government urgently.
Austerity, Brexit, Covid and general incompetence have led us here. Things will improve after the next election. In the meantime, look after your health the best you can. Try not to get ill or pass anything on to others (especially the very young or very old) as you are not guaranteed to be able to get medical care in a timely manner. The most practical thing we can all do right now is invest in some FFP2 masks and start wearing them again. And getting a flu jab at a pharmacy. They're about £10. Take care everyone.

We had a very good vaccine candidate that we didn't use emergency power to push through

What do you mean by this?

Those posters saying that “we already pay for the NHS through our taxes” do realise that in countries such as France and Germany, the taxes are higher and they pay for healthcare and gov subsidised health insurance on top of that?

It’s less apparent now with the cost of living crisis but people in the uk until recently had more disposable income in their pockets compared with people in many EU countries.

Covid and Brexit have undoubtedly had a profound effect on the NHS but In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the UK spent £3,055 per person on health care, 18% below the EU14 average, so this has been a very long-standing problem rooted in political priorities.

In very simplistic terms it boils down to a philosophical and political clash about what is good for society as a whole versus what is good for the individual, and UK governments, generally speaking, have prioritised the latter.

No. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face but pensioners are the wealthiest demographic in the country and on top of this they get free prescriptions, bus passes and fuel allowance. They are best placed to afford private care if they need it. I don’t want £££ being channeled to social care, I want it firstly going towards recruitment and retention of doctors and nurses and secondly to reform our A&E and out of hours services.

Part of my DD s job in the NHS is to assess patients and then arrange suitable SC packages for those that need them, in many cases, it can take 6 weeks to get the carers, regardless of who is paying... you cannot discharge people who cannot get care.. they will just be back in with a broken hip etc.

Quite simply... whether you are self funded or state, there isn't the care workers out there.

Her former care agency who she used to work for... has had to return many non urgent packages, self funded or not.

We need more carers.. atm they can earn more in a supermarket... sort this out is one of the few things in the current NHS crisis that can be fixed by "throwing money" at it.

So should the Elderly have to pay for nhs care too?? There may be some wealthy elderly folk, but there are a hell of a lot who are living in poverty and they can't pay for care with their bloody bus pass. If more £ went into social care then we wouldn't need as much healthcare.

@Alexandra2001

And save themselves huge amounts of money in the running of their car. It’s a horrific job domicillary care. They dock your wages too if you don’t get to the next person in time and it’s absolutely impossible to get from one end
of the city to the other in 20 minutes. It’s totally shambolic. Anyone who stays in that sort of role surely lacks the confidence to move on? (And of course I know people become fond of their clients but honestly it is so, so bad) They’re getting horrendous pay, awful conditions and the piss totally taken out of them. Meanwhile the domicillary owners make big bucks. It’s big business for sure. It’s a messy, messy problem that will not be fixed anytime soon.

@Auntieobem

When I worked as a dom Carer we cared for private and council clients. They both received the same crap, substandard care. Made me reevaluate a few things in my life that experience.

The only way my DD used to be able to provide good care, was to work extra hours for no pay... she would regularly do 1 or 2 hrs extra in a 8 or 10 hour shift.... but because she would then get later and later to each client, they and/or family would then have a go at her! (not all but the few that did, could be very aggressive) .....so she used to work her lunch to make up the time.

Her agency was very good though, would give her TOIL and did pay mileage and a slightly reduced hourly rate for travel.

However, once she qualified, her care work has proved invaluable for NHS job but she did say to me the other day that compared to her NHS one, the care worker role was far more enjoyable and far less stressful.

@Alexandra2001

We had to try and stick to a quick schedule particularly if you were meeting up with another carer for hoisting purposes. Definitely some differences then depending on agency. Yes working in the sector is tough particularly NHS, particularly on wards. Not for the faint hearted.

Listening to Sky's investigation into MPs extra payments, £15m of the £17m in total earned... went to Tory MPs.

Not the NHS, not the UK but their own well being has been the order of the day.

No of course not but social care isn’t NHS care. And no there isn’t a ‘hell of a lot living in poverty’ - 75% of pensioners own their house without a mortgage. They’re the wealthiest demographic in the country so if they ‘can’t afford’ to pay for care, how can we afford to pay it for them?

If the elderly subsidised their own carers and paid them decent rates maybe that would fix the issue? At least in part. Rather than relying on the meagre salaries the NHS dole out.

@Cuppasoupmonster Nhs don't set the salaries, there is no correlation.

Like i said, it doesn't matter what people offer, there isn't the staff out there atm - so many in my DD's agency were EU and they went home and haven't come back... its just too expensive.

If wages rise too much, then they start to become more attractive then even a band 5 nurses hourly rate.... this is the problem, increase earnings at the bottom and everyone above has to rise too.

PPs have cited very real problems. However The Observer reports today in the article ^Crisis: Why our health service is falling apart’ that according to the OECD the much lauded French system has 5.7 hospital beds per 1000 population, the OECD average is 5 beds, and the UK has just 2.4 beds.

The bed blocking crisis is built on a base where we have less than half the hospital beds of the average First World country.

Edit: Crisis: Why our health service is falling apart

DH was diagnosed with cancer back in March. His care has been exceptional. We cannot fault the NHS.
I think it works well for serious illnesses but not so well for minor, troublesome rather than life threatening ones.

We saw our GP on Weds re some issues DH has been having post radiotherapy and started talking about the NHS. She said she'd had a patient that morning who had got an emergency appt to see her for a sore throat that she'd had since she got up that morning, so 🤷🏼‍♀️

By 🤷🏼‍♀️ I mean that that woman was wasting the GPS time.

I would think there are very few pensioners living in million pound mortgage free houses. There will be far more living in small houses or flats, struggling to get by on their small pensions.