Disgusting hospital

[Furyfurious]

I was discharged from hospital this week following surgery and a 5 night stay at an NHS hospital. I am absolutely traumatised. What I have seen and been exposed to was totally shocking. I will definitely be looking for a Private health care policy. The Nurses attitudes, patients attitudes poor (not all ) but a shambles. The smell of the ward, the food etc sorry but there needs to be resolution

But if you already "have a lot of health issues", private insurance is unlikely to cover them.

But if you have health issues, you can’t get private health insurance, or much of any other insurance either- life, travel etc.

Private health insurance will not cover existing conditions and will be more limited than you think unless you have very deep pockets. The NHS is broken. Staff are demoralised and stressed and are behaving accordingly. I do blame the Tories

If you can afford it get private health care it's worth it especially if you have a lot of health issues

Do you mean pay for particular treatment or consultations ? You can do that regardless of pre-existing conditions if you have the funds to pay for it.

I'm an NHS ward sister and I urge any of you who've had bad experiences to please report if not already done so. It's everyone's responsibility to ensure cleanliness of the ward (yes I've scrubbed poo and blood off floors, beds and bathrooms) I've chased cleaners to empty bins, nurses to check obs and give pain meds and I must say it's exhauting trying to get people to do their jobs sometimes. Being in charge the responsibility lies with me for that shift. I know this doesn't always happen and I think it's a mix of ward cultures, laziness, as well as lack of funds/ staff. Time pressures etc. We do need to prioritise life threatening medical issues and the matrons etc are all about patient flow, so wrre trying to Quickly discharge/ move patients to admit new ones. But ultimately someone should have time to sit and assist a patient to eat and drink. I don't have the answers but something needs to be done.

i always remember someone saying in europe if a member of your family is in hospital, it is up to the family to go in and help, feed them,

I agree, it is really difficult to discern whether it is reasonable to have PTSD from a hospital stay with the limited amount of information provided. A complaint to PALs would need a sufficient level of detail to be able to evaluate the issues, which this post does not contain.

I tend to agree with this: when you have a baby or child in hospital, the parent stays with them to ensure that they are cared for and supervised. Perhaps it should be made clear that with elderly people, a level of supervision and attending to is needed by family members. I don't know how responsibilities of nurses are assigned but I imagine if they were to deal with feeding patients then they would have even more limited time to fulfil their nursing duties?

I was a nurse back in 88 to 90 but left before the end of training as was getting divorced and the shifts were an issue.

Even then my fellow student nurses were a very mixed bunch, some very caring and some really really strange and hard nosed ones. I couldn't quite work out why they had gone into it.

I did have recent experience though of 2 different A&Es - the one here in Bath in early hours of morning was very very busy, but clean and controlled and nice staff. The one in Slough- well I don't know what to say-very grubby, disorganised, saw 2 fights in the car park. Felt like you would catch something just by being there. Toilets, disgusting!!!

That is all well and good, but what if there is no family, or family member is working full time, looking after children/disabled relative/elderly parent/has no other help?
When my mother was dying I did my absolute best, but I was 300 miles away, working FT and had caring responsibilities to other family members near me. Wasn't in a position to take a lot of time off work either, so it was a case of driving up and down the motorway on my days off.
The lack of care in the hospital was distressing but I could not get her out of there despite my best efforts negotiating with the medical staff. I still feel terribly guilty, but I don't know what else I could have done.

@LemonPeonies ha, yep my abiding memory of my time was scrubbing false teeth , mopping up blood etc and emptying those cardboard bed pans all at 7.15 am. It's strange job, in many ways the hardest I've ever worked with some really sad things but also I had some great fun times and it was actually in some ways very satisfying (this is back in late 80s) I remember particular patients really well too.

Its interesting listening to the experiences of the patients I see in the community, who have been discharged from hospital. There are huge differences even in the same relatively small hospital, depending on which ward they have been in. Some seem to be a lot better than others, especially when it comes to the basics and communicating with relatives.
Non of the wards is immune from staffing issues, all the patients mention how busy the staff are, and yet some seem to have a far better ethos when it comes to how they treat the people they are being paid to look after.

I've been admitted recently for urgent care twice, my hospital (large city) is brilliant. Every staff member I encountered was friendly and upbeat.

I will do anything to avoid being in a hospital these days. I've never come across so many horrible healthcare professionals as in our local hospital. It feels like a prison sentence when you're in there. I can well believe you're traumatised, OP. I'm so sorry.

I had surgery earlier this week & I am relieved to say that the hospital was fantastic. Unfortunately I was unable to stay in the correct ward as it was full but I was looked after very well & the food was good.

But then you're assuming that every elderly person has someone available to come to help! My mother has been in hospital several times in the last 6 months. She lives overseas, and all her family live on this side of the ocean (hopefully, she will be well enough to move back here soon). We can't just drop our jobs and responsibilities every time she has a hospital stay, to fly overseas and hold her hand! She lives in a country that has similar understaffing problems to the NHS, and we've had to spend a lot of time on the phone to make sure she is looked after: although she doesn't have dementia, she was feeling too ill and weak to advocate for herself sufficiently.

Likewise, I had two short hospital stays this year. I had recently moved to the area, and haven't built up a network of people who would come to visit yet, let alone who might have any sort of feeling of responsibility to come several times a day to make sure a patient isn't neglected! Especially with people who are too ill to advocate for themselves, the system absolutely should not depend on there being a close family member that is able to do it for them. There are many, many vulnerable singletons, especially among the elderly.

Sorry but if you can afford private then do that. A lot of us have health conditions that spend a lot of time in hospital under these conditions but haven’t got the finances to change that. We have no alternative. You’re complaining about something that obviously you’re able to change.

The poor care my late DH got on one ward had nothing to do with understaffing/underfunding. It was just lack of empathy, arrogance and stroppiness.

After 9 days, he was transferred to another ward. Same hospital.

The care there was exemplary and wonderful in every way. He died, but I knew it was coming, and they took so much time and care with him.

I feel, in one period, I saw the very best and the very worst of what the NHS is.

Nothing to do with money though.

I had a hellish experience at John Radcliffe but that was as a child. My mum was a ward sister and thankful she was there. It was filthy, and they brought cereal and plastic a cup of milk. Apparently you could eat the cereal dry and drink the milk or put the milk on, but no other drink. Mum ended up cooking for me and bringing it in for me and other children. It's one of my only childhood memories as it's so clear

Royal preston however were amazing, I have a side room as immunocompromised and the staff and surgeon were incredible. Nice food too

I am really sorry that you had that experience. I have had similar experiences this year. The NHS is failing. The ward I was on was dangerous and I also witnessed abuse of an elderly patient.

Following a formal complaint, I received a nicely worded email in which they claimed that the abusive nurse was being offered additional training.

As far as I can tell nothing has changed and I am actually afraid of being inpatient now. This is a major problem as I have several serious long term and life threatening conditions. My plan for any admission is to take food, drink, wet wipes and have my husband stay with me as long as possible if I am in any way incapacitated. I have made him promise not to leave me on my own if I am unconscious or semi conscious.

A student nurse of my acquaintance has explained to me that trained nurses no longer do any basic care. That is all done by the healthcare assistants. If there isn’t an HCA in your bay then you are on your own because the trained staff regard providing care, or food and drink as ‘beneath them’.

It is awful.

I don't doubt standards in some hospitals is way below acceptable right now, but I'm always sceptical of these 'new' posters that pop on with a 'reasons the NHS is shite' post.

Was it the Maelor in Wrexham?

That place is disgusting. My poor FIL.

I wouldn't take my dog there.

Welcome to the NHS...(sorry you've had a shit time).

Had my DD there 12 years ago...still traumatised from that experience. Dreadful.

Yep, I agree, we lost my DM and FIL in 2008 and 2010 respectively, after successive poor treatment/attention from doctors and nurses. It's definitely not a recent thing - it's been crap for a couple of decades, but obviously even more crap recently.

The way they treated my FIL was a disgrace - he went in a fit and active, newly retired 65 year old, and suffered from misdiagnoses, shoddy treatment, a chest drain put in wrong which they didn't notice for 3 days, an undiagnosed bowel blockage, then he acquired pneumonia and basically left to die until we intervened, caused one hell of a fuss and forced them to actually treat him, which he recovered from, but then caught one hospital acquired infection after another, until eventually he was so weak, he couldn't fit it anymore.

DM suffered the same, went in for a hip replacement, but otherwise healthy and fit, etc., but had type 2 diabetes. They did the op, but none of the nurses seemed to understand diabetes - they didn't give her, her usual drugs, didn't check her blood sugar levels, etc - it was written on her notes, but when we mentioned it, they seemed unaware and didn't know what to do about it. That was just one problem. Again, she caught a few hospital acquired infections and kept being put on antibiotic drips and just got weaker and weaker. Same happened, she got so weak , she couldn't fight anymore and drifted away!

OH has treatable but incurable cancer. His "treatment" has been a fiasco. He should be on a monthly chemo drugs package (3 weeks on, 1 week off), but they can't organise a piss up in a brewery. Not a single time, has his prescription been ready by the day he's due to start - they're incapable of understanding that there aren't 28 days in the month (even though it should be bloody obvious to anyone dealing with issuing prescriptions), but no, they always set it for the same day each month, i.e. if one month is 25th start, they put 25th down as the next month, and so on - no amount of explaining to them seems to get them to change it! Add into that mix, he needs a blood test before they'll authorise the prescription, and they always send the blood test appointment too late too as they do that the same way. When he doesn't start on the "right" day, because the prescription isn't ready, someone else from oncology phones him up to ask why he's not picked up his prescription - so he goes through the whole saga as to it not being authorised on time, etc etc- they're incapable of talking to each other and sorting things out between themselves. OH is piggy in the middle of this fiasco, every sodding month!