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

If they have retired early it's because they have earned a lot which means higher taxes

Sorry not sorry

Pensioners don't "pay tax in the same way the employed do". They don't pay NIC for a start which is a tax. They don't pay student loan repayments (they were lucky enough to get free Uni tuition or a job that didn't need a degree in those days). They don't pay workplace pension contributions because they rightly assumed that there'd be decent state pension provision (unlikely for the future) or employed by an organisation providing a healthy pension scheme. Irrelevant now, but in the past, they didn't have their child benefit taken off them (another tax) when they earned more than the higher rate threshold!

It's a absurd travesty that the "deductions" from a pensioner with an income of £50k per year are a hell of a lot less than the "deductions" suffered by a worker on £50k per year.

NIC needs to be extended to all forms of income, or if they can't do that, it needs scrapping and income tax increased instead.

The GP gatekeeping role also needs review. Why do you need a GP appointment to get a referral for hearing aids? It's not as if the GP has any "tools" to do hearing checks. You don't need a GP referral for dental treatment nor glasses!

There are far fewer children than there are adults so yes they are seen much quicker, but there are still waits. I was there with my daughter recently, i called 111 first to get advice and then i was told she needed to go to be checked over. We waited 4 hours to be seen. 90% of the children there literally needed calpol and fluids, and could have stayed at home. They were triaged, given calpol, then spent 2+ hours running around the waiting room bored, tired, and hungry. Its scary as parents when your children are unwell, i fully understand that. However, i wish parents would try calpol at home, if it brings down a temp and perks up a child, they don't generally need to be seen in a&e, its not the right place.

No it’s because pension schemes were radically different back then and many workplaces provided final salary pensions, or required shorter terms of service before retirement could be taken. Sorry not sorry 🤷🏼‍♀️

That also stands for adults. Pain is an emergency, if you are in unmanageable levels of pain a&e is absolutely the right place to go, but if you can manage that pain at home, you should. People come in without having tried pain relief. We ask when was your last dose and they'll say they haven't taken anything as they don't like taking tablets. But surely that's the sensible thing to try first? Departments are used incorrectly by such high amounts of patients, and we as staff cant just turn people away, we have to see them, and waste all the staff time running pointless tests and dispensing meds they could buy from their local corner shop.

Regarding delayed discharges and holding up a bed, are there not "Discharge Lounges" in hospitals? I haven't been a hospital user (yet!), nor do I know the system very well either, but I would have thought that where a patient is ready to go home, they could be moved to an area away from the ward to wait for the discharge papers and any prescriptions etc.?

Surely this would free up beds immediately, but I am not sure if it happens or not. It does in Ireland, a friend's mum was in a hospital in Dublin recently and on discharge was sent to the hospital's discharge lounge for med script etc. Then went home.

@Flowersinthebasement There are in some hospitals but not right across the board, and these are at capacity too.

A lot of discharge lounges have now been turned into ward areas because of the need for more beds. We had a couple of f wards where a bay was used as a lounge-type area for that department, but they don't last long and ended up being turned back into bays quickly.

Thanks for the discharge lounge information. Seems daft not to have any space for them, given that they would help free up much needed beds.

You can't buy anti biotics over the counter in most countries at all, in all EU countries its illegal.
Subject to some creams or eye drops.

In fact even basic pain killers are pharmacy only, same as anti histamines.

why don't you do some basic checking before posting rubbish.

They need the space to relive pressure on AE.

Chicken n egg.

The biggest hold up for discharging is patient transport. We call up but theres no time frame, we could call at 10am and it be 7pm before they are collected. Our old lounge had a capacity for 4 patients requiring beds, and 6 mobile self caring patients on chairs. It really didn't free up anything much as the mobile patients would go home and return for meds later as they weren't requiring transport. The lounge also closed at 7pm, so if transport wasn't there by then, we would have to find alternative places for them to wait with the care they needed. i only worked on there a handful of times pre covid so maybe there's scope for them to be improved, but how it was then it wouldnt do anything to change the current bedding crisis.

@Kazzyhoward You can go to a hearing aid place without a GP referral if you are a paying customer but if you want it on NHS (is that even possible?) then you see a GP first.

i was referring to another poster not you earlier.

I shudder at the thought of people being able to self refer... oncology consultants inundated with joe public demanding appointments because their simple sore throat is in fact cancer and they are about to die.

We need GPs to weed out the worried well who would demand consultant appointments because they "know their rights"

You can't by antibiotics over the counter in Europe - certainly not in the EEA anyway. What makes you think you can?

It's largely a matter of proper funding spent wisely. Don't forget that the US spends more per head on their healthcare than we do here, but god help you if you are poor. An illness can bankrupt you.

We need to support the NHS and stop the creeping privatisation. We need a good business model and an end to political interference. This current government (and previous administrations under this form of Toryism) want to privatise the NHS so they are holding back on funding so we, its users, will start to believe that the problem lies with the NHS itself. It doesn't. It lies with a political will that has kept pay too low, not trained enough doctors and nurses, and refuses to address the probelms of social care.

The nhs hasn’t failed but it has BEEN failed firstly by the government and also by those who misuse it. It has been propped up by the goodwill of the staff who have unsurprisingly got fed up and given up.

Does anyone know if clinical and other staff in the private hospitals are paid more than in NHS? Just wondered, and if so, are their T+Cs like pensions and sick pay etc. as good as NHS, better, or worse? I suppose the staffing levels are commensurate with the numbers of patients they treat, which would be lower than NHS.

The irony is, even if the model is gradually changed to part payment, insurance, etc., surely the staffing levels and hospital capacity will not change much if current levels are anything to go by.

I might be talking out of my left ear here, so forgive me, I am thinking out loud, and that can be dangerous!

better hourly rates but lower pension and holidays and sick leave i believe. But they are also much less stress, better home/work balance, and have much lower sick leave due to burnout/stress. Im am pressured into extra shifts on an almost weekly basis, guilt-tripped in to working much later than i should even though I'm back in at 7 am. I know people who work private sector and have none of that.

I agree with political will. But I think that those who can, should pay a little towards their own health care and help to subsidize those that can't. Just paying taxes isn't enough. It's ridiculous to have a situation where people are prepared to pay thousands of pounds on their pets' operations but not contribute one penny towards their own hip replacement!

It's not a popular view but those of us who can afford it should take some personal responsibility where we are able and help out those with chronic or acute conditions or physical and mental special needs. And sorry, but if you can afford a £200 pound handbag (there are threads on here about this) then you can afford to pay £10 towards your GP visit. What matters more in life than one's health? Let's get our priorities right!

And I am appalled by the waste of money that has already taken place. Liz Truss in her seven-week premiership with Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor cost the UK £30 billion! And they seemingly get away with that without any form of punitive measure?
Disgraceful! Think what that money could have done for the NHS!

Seems to me that more and more people who can well afford it but haven't felt the need up to now will opt for private health insurance going forward. Who could blame them, and in fact them moving to private surely leaves room (certainly re elective procedures) for those who must use NHS.

I do realise that private hospitals do not treat all things, and do not have capacity for A+E type issues either. But that may change. As I mentioned earlier my friend's mum in Dublin has free health care because of her income, but her sister (friend's aunt) also in Dublin has PHI and the hospital she uses has an A+E department for everything but stroke.

Private Health care has its place. But free or very low cost healthcare should also be available for those who cannot afford it.

I dislike the idea of dividng the health care system in to public and private though. It should be one system by itself with add on options say for an upgraded room if you want to pay for that. When the private system is separated off, highly qualified staff and top class equipment are siphoned off too. And the two systems operate in competition with one another. I know many consultants work for both NhS and private hospitals but why not have them work for the good of everyone? Private hospitals are often death traps anyway with comfy rooms and no doctors available at night! Far better to pool all the resources in to one pot for the good of everybody with those fortunate to be able to pay, contributing to their own care. And let the government strongly control and subsidise this system to stop profiteering. We've already gone too far down the road of private v NHS imho.

I wish I could read that. The overpopulation problem is going to be present in lots of places, I imagine.

if they’re solely living on the state pension, what they were doing for their 40 working years?!

Working in low paid essential jobs like care work for instance? @Cuppasoupmonster you cant moan on the one hand there arent enough care workers then on the other ask what poorer pensioners have been doing all their lives. I really think you need to get psychological help for your hatred of older people. Because these posts prove you dont like the poorer ones either. You are really not coming across well

@Cuppasoupmonster my mum is 87 next month She didnt retire until Christmas 2015 so you do the maths. She was working FULL TIME in factories and on the factory floor before you accuse her of having a cushy office job. She was also one of the many women who was told she only needed to pay a half stamp/married womans stamp. Many were caught out like this.