To think you don't quite realise how badly the NHS is suffering until you witness it first hand

[DaisyCat33]

My parents are sitting in A&E today. They've just hit 12 hours. My dad was sent there by his GP for severe neck pain this morning. He's had morphine and an MRI scan, but they're now endlessly waiting to see a Dr about results. He hasn't even got a bed to lay on, despite debilitating neck pain. Many people are standing or sitting on the floor.

The couple sitting next to them have been there since 3am, for difficultly breathing.

I'm shocked. Honestly I knew the NHS had it's issues, but this bad?! It's frightening. I also had an email the other day saying my NHS dentist is closing, and it's basically a "well sorry no dentist for you any more, bye bye"

I don't really know the point of this thread really, I just feel shocked and upset that this is how it is. And I think a lot of people don't even realise? My parents definitely didn't until today. They are losing the will to live sat in that hospital.

Does anyone else just feel utterly helpless and anxious about this?

Agreed ^

I’m in Wales. Several family members and myself have had to use A&E here in the last three years. It’s been amazing. Can’t fault it. Very stretched staff who remained calm and kind. Relatively quick (in and out in half to one day. Followed up quickly. I’m waiting for an investigation and that’s taking months. But other than that it’s been amazing and so thankful for it and the wonderful staff.

The key part of your post of course is IT IS NOT FREE!

In Poland you will pay for much of your healthcare, Switzerland etc all the same.

What essential treatments do you think the NHS should treat and what non essentials should it stop treating?

well, Kier Starmer would like gender confirming care to be right up the agenda. I really think that surgery and hormone treatments for those with mental ill health should not be a priority.

All voters were warned but they still voted tory again and again. They've reaped what they sowed. I'm p'd off that I have to suffer their consequences and so are around 60% of voters who didn't vote tory.

The nhs is dead, we are the USA but have no insurance to cover the gap yet....

No idea of cost no doubt applies to users too

Those blaming the conservatives are simply setting Labour up to fail.

No party can turn this around, it’s a mathematical impossibility with an aging population and if anything Labours open door immigration policy is only going to make things even worse.

In three years time things will be significantly worse; who will you blame then? Labour?

My A&E experience was bad and made 100 times worse by the nurses who couldn’t give less of a shit and who failed to follow even the most basic procedures.

And I mean… they could not have cared less not only from a professional nurse perspective but from one human being to another.

It felt like everyone in that waiting room was something on the bottom of their shoe.

Sitting in a hard backed plastic chair for over 12 hours in pain with sepsis did not seem to even raise an eyebrow for any of them.
They are hardened to it now.

A gender re-assignment is non essential, as is weight loss surgery.

I think the culture in sone hospitals is rotten to the core. They behave like they are doing the patient a favour by simply doing their job.

No party can turn this around, it’s a mathematical impossibility with an aging population

People should look at the projections to get an idea

14 years of Conservative rule and Labour get 2 years to change things? Why 2 years? Why not 14?

OP, the point of this thread for me is a reminder that the NHS should not be trusted with a Tory government after the next general election, as they should be voted out.

It will take time, but a non-Tory government will make things better, and to start with, stop things getting worse.

We need to cease pretending we have an high quality NHS. For most people, it isn’t much different to the U.S blue cross system for the poor.

The idea was lovely, but we aren’t paying for it and, for what we do pay, it is not good value for money.

The middle classes either pay for priority comfortable treatment or work the NHS very hard via friends who are doctors, making complaints to PALS etc.

For others it is a lottery. If you get referred to the right person at the right hospital, it can still be amazing. But stuck in a ward in an average hospital or relying on a GP, or waiting 10 weeks for a vital urgent scan, it is scandalously bad.

We would do far better to start means-tested copayments for medical care and admit that the NHS has had its day.

Yeah, I suppose you are right. I waited 12 hours in an A&E chair a year ago with appendicitis when I hadn't slept for 48 hours, and they didn't have enough staff to even give me regular painkillers. This was a year ago, so it doesn't surprise me.

And we need to stop anthropomorphising the NHS. It doesn’t need protecting:
; it is a system under which medical professionals work, some of whom are amazing, a few of whom are awful.

The same professionals would still be delivering the same care (arguably better) under a system more like France’s.

84yr old relative while sugfering badly from viral
illness had not eaten for a week felt weak has copd couldnt get out of bed- was told by receptionist to take a taxi to hospital,when she said she literally cant get out of bed she is dizzy and weak,she said take a bus then (?)

i have been in nhs dentist waiting lists for 2 years, went privaye took 7 months for new patient app,another 5 months for treatment app and 9 months for hygenist.

a and es are insanely under staffed,mad.

even in ukraine,a country with air sirens going off pretty much every day, things are nowhere like in the uk,my family members spend a lot of time in ukraine they have dentists open 9am-9pm and get an app within 1-2 days. Think there was an article in daily mail too how one british man went to lviv to get his teeth treated because no one was giving him an app here and he had an abcess, his teeth were fixed within 24hrs

That's a myth that has been debunked many times, almost all EU systems operate on a tax payer/employer funded model.

Bottom line is over the course of decades, the UK spends less per capita then almost any other health system in Europe.
We've only caught up now by the extra spend on Covid......

If you say the failed NHS isn't on the Tories, who is it on? the Govt has a dept of health, a minister responsible for the NHS, if the leadership and culture is rotten (as you claim) thats down to the Govt, they run and fund the NHS.

And we need to stop anthropomorphising the NHS. It doesn’t need protecting

Agree

@QueenOfHiraeth comments like this send a chill down my spine. I hate the thought of allowing people to die because they are bored and lonely (two of your exanples)

Sadly, I fear it will be introduced. Initially, with robust safeguards to protect vulnerable, and only in extreme circumstances

But, in 50 years or so, anyone mildly depressed, or considered to be a burden, off they pop. I find that terrifying

I don't want to derail this thread and turn it in to a thread about abortion, but the abortion legislation is no longer used as it was initially intended

"That's a myth that has been debunked many times, almost all EU systems operate on a tax payer/employer funded model.

Bottom line is over the course of decades, the UK spends less per capita then almost any other health system in Europe.
We've only caught up now by the extra spend on Covid......"

Yes people focus on individual premiums rather than what individual European governments also contribute to healthcare (often with a higher per person spend than what our own government has paid).

But didn’t you know? Starmer has made a promise to Diva magazine to cut waiting times for LGBT+ people. Gotta get those men their oestrogen patches! 🙄

The Tories are shit, but the idea Labour can save a failed system - not failing, failed - is delusional.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4996690-starmer-trans-inclusive-conversion-therapy-ban-modernise-the-gra-all-hate-crime-to-be-aggravated-offences-as-part-of-making-every-child-proud-and-confident

We’ve allowed it to get this bad by persistently voting in people who want to privatise it. They know they can’t do that if it’s running well so they cut budgets, lie about numbers and ensure the service can’t work As intended so that voters support a private insurance system and privatisation of the nhs. It’s classic neoliberal policy and we’ve all accepted it happening over the past 25 years, albeit accelerate over the past 15.

Watxh at general elections when the MPs start saying it’s unworkable and needs reform and tada they’ve sold it all off to companies run by their partners and mates and they do well from it and we end up with an American syste where people end up bankrupt due to ill health.

We could have done more to stop this happening but we didn’t.

I've never been one to take conspiracy theories seriously.
However, this seems entirely feasible now, on the back of Boris' "let the bodies pile high" and Dominic Cummings' eugenics suggestion during Covid.
I was in A&E with my DD recently, she was very poorly and we were sent there by the out of hours GP. We waited 24 hours to get a bed. The trolleys were lined up in the corridors for hours on end. It was heartbreaking.
Whilst we were in the out of hours we watched 5 patients leave. We then saw the same patients in A&E. some of them gave up and left again. This is part of the problem.
Can't fault the staff, especially the nurses.
It was like a war zone.