To be really worried about the poor, disabled and elderly this winter?

[Namechangenhsworried]

I’ve just got in after spending nearly 14 hours in urgent care at my local hospital. During this time they didn’t even have the capacity to X-ray me. In the end I had to leave and fortunately what is a suspected broken hand and infection (the injury resulted in broken skin which has got infected) is manageable and I will be able to pay to have private treatment tomorrow after work.

I know much of the NHS isn’t in a good place but was shocked by just how bad it was. I have spent two days trying to get a response from a dr at 111 , my GP is off sick and it’s virtually impossible to see the locum. The queue for urgent care was out of the door and down the street (took an hour just to wait to get registered). The centre was standing room only with people saying they had been waiting for over 12 hours. Most of the staff looked exhausted , were running between patients and many irritable (one was angrily shouting at someone who was clearly unwell but it looked as though they had just snapped under the pressure). Staff complained of staff shortages, a lot of the equipment didn’t seem to work and on top of that they were having to try out a new records system which just seemed to be causing more problems.

I felt so sorry for everyone. I know things have been bad before but this just seemed so much worse than I’ve seen it before. It was like people had just given up /staff and patients were broken. And to make matters worse we are not even at peak flu/covid etc time. I should be able to get help from elsewhere but what about those who can’t? It’s so scary.

in the circumstances it doesn’t feel right that this lame government should be allowed to carry on whilst it is causing so much harm. But even if there is a change in leadership.- what then? Can this still be improved? We need change/to intervene before even more people suffer. It’s disgraceful that so many senior managers, private companies , the pharmaceutical industry, recruitment agencies and IT companies are making huge profits out of the NHS whilst so many of our most vulnerable can’t even get a basic service. It’s so sad and I just don’t know if it can be turned around.

I think it varies wildly between hospitals and even between departments at hospitals. My parents have both had excellent treatment in different departments of the same hospital. Mine has been non existent in yet another department. Phone calls not responded to, all sorts over a period of months.

Paying toward treatment is a tricky one. How are people maxed out on mortgages and other living expenses due to COL going to afford health insurance. How are people on benefits or low wages who haven’t had their heating on for two years going to afford it? If it’s like the free prescriptions in England it’s only going to catch a few people of working age. Are the elderly going to be exempt as they are the major users of the NHS and it’s a growing cohort? I’ve got a chronic illness, would insurance cover it, would it be more expensive than everyone else’s insurance or would I still be in the same position I’m in now where it wasn’t covered by insurance and I had to try to access the same poor nhs services as I do now? Would it end up like private/nhs dentistry where in many areas there are no longer private dentists? Means testing they always tell us costs more money than not means testing but that is what will have to happen
I don’t think there’s an easy solution

Absolutely this.
Money is being poured into an inefficient dated system with no-one of either political stripe having the guts to change anything.

I can see that experiences do differ widely.

Given the importance of the NHS to so many (if not all of us), I do think it’s a shame that it can’t be an issue that largely transcends party politics. That there couldn’t be a coming together in some sort of coalition of the brightest and the best to come up with proposals for how we make sustained improvements. However it’s clear at the moment there is no appetite for that…

We've had a brilliant service with both our local hospital (both emergency and ongoing treatment), and our GP service is fab too. It does seem to be a postcode lottery, but it certainly isn't awful everywhere.

I think@Seagrassbasket 's post is spot on, perhaps because she's familiar with the system.

We can't, and shouldn't, keep poaching healthcare professionals from other countries to paper over the cracks.

The problem is that if you are walking, breathing etc, you won't get seen fast, unless you go somewhere that isn't focussed on emergencies. This is the basic premise of triage - you will get people in urgent care at this time of year struggling to breathe who could literally die if not seen.

The problem is the breakdown of non urgent care. In a normal world you'd see a GP in a non emergency for a same day appointment. They would refer you to an appropriate department of a local hospital for an xray, with a timed appointment so you wouldnt be waiting 14 hours.

London hospitals tend to be bad for a&e because you get immigrant populations who are more likely to go to hospital as a first route to seeking medical care.

As a nurse of over 30 years I completely agree with this last bit.
FIL, frail, other co morbidities in his 80's with three lots of cancer, one grade 4 is round 5 of 6 into chemo before planned surgery in December. They've already said a cure is unlikely. I mean...?

It is definitely a postcode lottery. My husband has been collecting diagnoses this year like they’re stamps on a Caffè Nero loyalty card and we cannot fault the treatment he’s had from any NHS department. Prompt appointments, joined up approach. Next week he has treatment scheduled after only half the time on the waiting list he was told it would be (and that’s not because that particular issue has deteriorated; we were both pleasantly surprised when the appointment letter arrived).

We don’t live in an affluent area either, but we’re certainly lucky with our local hospitals…and believe me we’ve seen enough of them this year to be able to judge!

So they did have the capacity to X-ray you then, you just chose not to wait for it, that's not what your OP suggested.

@cptartapp I'm sorry for what your FIL is going through and I understand your point but I think that's a dangerous road to go down towards basically denying anything more than palliative care because of age discrimination. It should never be ok to say someone cannot be treated on the basis of their age if it is overall in their best interests which is a discussion for them and their doctor only I think.

Sorry if i have misunderstood your post OP, but if you have a broken hand and an infection, why are you mentioning ‘appointment after work’? Surely you shouldn’t be doing work with a broken hand? Can you try a&e again during the daytime?

Yanbu. And yet the Tories (particularly the Truss faction) are still desperate to CUT taxes (for the rich of course).

@Araminta1003 idealogically I do have a problem with people who pay getting ‘better’ or more high tech treatments. However I suppose you can’t stop people paying money for something - there will always be someone who will provide it for a fee.

In my ideal world all the research money that is currently being poured into those high tech treatments would be diverted into preventative and lifestyle health interventions. In a couple of generations we might reduce the need for healthcare back to somewhere near it was when the NHS was introduced.

Minor injuries or urgent care centres have x ray equipment!

Yes but they don't always have them available. My local UTC only has x ray staff between 9am and noon.

I'm guessing Tommy's or KCH?

Mondays are notoriously bad at most London EDs/UCCs - backlog from the weekend as discharges with a package of care can't usually be put into place until the 'working week' rolls around, therefore it bottlenecks. There is no space in any department.

And I completely agree with @Seagrassbasket post.

I completely agree it should never be based just on age. But a frail elderly person with multiple things wrong with them, where doctors have already decided THERE IS NO CURE for their cancer, should probably be gently told the time has come to accept life is finite and that comfort is the end goal here.

We have too many people using a system not designed for it. My hospital was built in the 70s for a town of 70,000 people. It's now a city with close to 400,000 people & still growing. But the same old hospital. Its never going to cope!

We need hospitals & gp surgeries, which means vast amounts of doctors & nursed which we just don't have.

This. The whole thing is a mess, and it's not just down to funding.🙁

I am sadly not shocked or surprised by your post. I am in several health groups for people with acute complex medical conditions- conditions like Addisons disease which can be fatal if not triaged properly in A and E and some of the recent stories of people who have been quite frankly put at risk of dying through a combination of negligence, lack of knowledge and lack of provision at A and E has made my blood run cold. If you have a complex medical need it is an extremely frightening time to be acutely unwell. The whole system is a complete shambles.

It is a postcode lottery, I’m in Scotland and this is very far from my experience accessing emergency care, my dd had a chronic health condition and has frequent admissions, several recently admitted by ambulance. Because her condition is high risk she is always seen by a gp or nurse practitioner within hours of raising any concerns about her health, the treatment she receives in hospital is amazing although the staff seem always seem very stretched.

My older daughter recently had a horse riding accident and suspected wrist fracture, was triaged over the phone and given a time to come in for an X-ray which she had without too much waiting around.

I know there are massive problems in the NHS and I’ve had a minor condition this year that don’t feel had been managed well but not to the extent that I’ve felt my life was at risk. When the stakes have been high the treatment My dd has received has been second to none. The thought of there being no NHS by the time my children have children of their own is terrifying, we need to do everything we can to save it.

Like a few other PPs have stated, anyone thinking that a new Labour government is going to come in with the ability to transform the NHS (amongst other public sevices) is sadly delusional.

The problem is much bigger than any government (and no, I do not like the Tories). People need to start looking much further afield and opening their eyes to the problems that exist. For a start, why not research how much money is currently being chucked at wars that could be easily resolved (albeit without the profit intended for the stakeholders at bay), or the money chucked at a "pandemic" that kills less people than the flu. (And no I'm not referring to the jabs, I'm referring to the crazy amount spent on propaganda). These are just a few poignant examples that stand out.

Unfortunately, and many mumsnetters will not want to hear this, but the reasons why our country (amongst others) is facing huge demise can be linked to big tech, pharmaceutical companies and a few notable billionaires. When people begin accepting that "conspiracy theorists" actually have some fantastic points that are not actually conspiracies at all, we might start being able to get together and force through some huge changes that the world really ought to be seeing.

I'm not going to go into what these "conspiracies" are as the hate will be unjust. However I will reiterate, if you think a government will change this you're mad - the problem is much, much bigger. The longer you're drip fed by mainstream media and believe the nonsense you read, the bigger our problems will get.

Preventative or lifestyle health interventions wouldn't have prevented my DH from developing cancer in his 40s, it's genetic and as he has never met the biological parent it came from he had no way of knowing he needed screening. So I'll take the "high tech" treatment that seems to have cured it, that was only licensed for a small number of people at first but as research progresses is making the difference between life and death for many people with many different cancers.

Pre NHS he'd probably have died of his childhood asthma or one of the many other diseases and industrial accidents that very poor city dwellers used to die of long before their 40s. The fact that more people are living long enough to get cancer is, broadly speaking, a good thing.

It really depends on the area. I live on the outskirts of south west London and have always found access to care great. Even when pregnant I had to wait 12 hours in a&e before being admitted as I was under 20 weeks but apart from that I can't really complain.