Am I being unreasonable in thinking that we are suffering from a collective Stockholm syndrome re the NHS

[Newbutoldfather]

This is inspired by another thread about a mother with a child in pain being kept hours without painkillers without being triaged, and the responses on that thread. However I have also had an awful experience with my own child over the last year.

it seems amazing to me that in one of the richest countries in the world (we still are), people are content to accept substandard care which would embarrass a country with 10% of our GDP.

In France, MRI’s are standard for muscular injury or complex fractures. They happen within a few days and, often, on the day. ( my reference is Paris btw, not sure about rural France). In addition, you always get a same day GP appointment, regardless of seriousness, no hassle, no waiting for an hour at 8AM.

Finally, although there are some real heroes in the NHS, my own experience (and that of the other poster) are that many lack compassion, which is about culture, not money.

I don’t know the ‘solution’. Any solution is multifaceted and will take time. However, if we don’t admit the scale of the problem and continue to say how marvellous free-at-the-point-of-use is, we will never get acceptable medicine in this country for any but the rich.

It is really annoying when NHS problems are blamed on nurses having degrees. Nurses have degrees in every country of the world, long before it was a required in this country. I have no idea why people think that you can’t be well educated and caring.

@headstone

It's sexism and ignorance of the role.

Nursing degrees have existed since the 60s and have been fully a degree course since the early 00s

It absolutely needs to be a degree course and if it puts people off thats a good thing

There are plenty of other roles within nursing and even the nhs that are pt facing that don't require a degree.

We need good people in these roles just as much

I suppose degrees are expensive which is why there should be other routes. Not because people don't think nurses should.be well educated.

@Changeau

Medical degrees are expensive too
I dont ever hear anyone suggesting other routes for doctors

I mean, I suppose we could all just ignore the evidence that shows nursing degrees improve pt care and save lives, in favour of non evidenced based antiquated and sexist opinions. I prefer to stick with the evidence base myself

That's because doctors earn more so can cope with the cost. I'd imagine the debts and costs will put a lot of people off training to be a nurse.

@Changeau

Then fund the course.

Scotland does

Sorted

Did you see some of the tricks that management used to get them low though? Sticking five beds into a room only designed for four, which meant that the beds weren't properly in reach of oxygen and power outlets - not to mention that staff couldn't get around the beds properly for resus. A doctor who blew the whistle was bullied out of his job. That was at the height of the Blair years.

There should be no sacred cows. The NHS now occupies a status equivalent to the one the Catholic Church in Ireland used to hold. Making people and organisations immune from legitimate criticism is how scandals happen - whether it's priests abusing boys or nurses treating patients like animals.

Whatever accounting methods were used, the NHS worked, you could see a GP either the same day or the next, Ambulances met their response times.

We had 100s of '000s on a waiting lists not approx 8m now and heading toward 10m.

We also did not have a shortfall of over 150k staff and 300k shortfall in Social Care.

Clever accounting on waiting lists and bullying exists now, just look at all the maternity and M/h scandals we have had in the last 15 years?

much of which have been covered up until exposed by the media.

Our GPs have made it clear this week that receptionists will triage and decide whether we need a GP, pharmacy, minor injuries unit or a&e.

My mother was a receptionist for years, she wouldn't want to be making those decisions.

https://uk.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=64086389cced4a0f&from=serp&prevUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fuk.indeed.com%2Fm%2Fjobs%3Fq%3DGP%2520Receptionist%26l%3DLlandudno%252C%2520Conwy%26from%3DsearchOnSerp%26sameQ%3D1

£10.90 per hour for this amount of responsibility??

https://uk.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=20a66a823ef3d950&from=serp

This is our pharmacy!! £9.27 per hour

That's bollocks.

There will be people on here who remember the NHS being a shit show under a Labour government in the 1970s.

The NHS is a political football and healthcare ought to be removed from party politics (as ought education, btw). The only way we will ever sort healthcare out is if there's a cross-party comprehensive dismantling of the NHS and the creation of an alternative system which actually meets the needs of our population now, not the needs which the NHS was set up to meet in 1948.

What astounds me is that so many people have bought into the group-think notion of "our NHS" and all the mawkishness that goes with it.

I don't want "our NHS". I want a healthcare system which functions anything from adequately plus.

They generally use algorithms for this, not just their own judgement.

https://uk.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=2c8cbe99497242ac&from=serp

Aldi £11 per hour

That is below minimum wage?

Please see the state of the NHS in Wales under Welsh Labour.

This, 100%^

111 in Wales use these algorithms, it's not working

Agree with most of that except the bit about being removed from politics. What is politics for if not health, education and taxes necessary to pay for them?

Okay in Wales we're told use pharmacy, go to pharmacy who say nope, contact GP, contact gp by email who say use pharmacy. Tell them pharmacy sent me to you. Email reply try 111.

Ok - I should clarify - I don’t believe anything should be immune from criticism.
That’s absolutely not what I meant.

It's not free though, is it? Unless you pay absolutely no tax or NI.....

That's why I was musing about a 'cross party' idea. I don't think anything can happen so long as one party decides to go one way and then the next party comes along and chucks more money at changing it again. I think both of the main parties have made a pig's ear of it - but it's not entirely surprising, when it's the whole basis of the system that is now wrong. No amount of money is going to solve this.

I think both parties are hampered, too, by popular sentimentality regarding the NHS. Neither of the main parties is going to want to be the one to cut the Gordian Knot and admit that the NHS is no longer fit for purpose.

Sadly, it’s nothing new. My DGP’s were very elderly/end of life 2006 - 2008 in two different health authorities and visiting times were horrendous. We would walk past the nurses station full of nurses chatting, and on the ward of around 8 patients there would be typically just one or two relatives visiting, and other patients needing water, the commode (around a 20 min wait) , and general confusion as to where they were etc. The nurses seemed to just clock off during visiting hours, and not bother at all with the patients. Having since then had a similar sub standard experience of NHS maternity services in 2010, I have since then been wondering if on the geriatric ward it wasn’t just a clocking off in visiting hours and more of a general standard on the ward.