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?

I wanted to add, despite saying it was better in '22, I did in fact wait 7.5 hours for an ambulance with a broken hip and shoulder. Thankfully I was in my house but just imagine if I was incapacitated in the middle of the street for that long?

The ambulance refused to take my Mum because she was fucking BREATHING just after xmas last year. She had a volvulus and luckily the GP sent a nurse to the house who summoned an ambulance. Waiting in A&E next to a leaking roof on a plastic chair...12 hours later she saw the doctor who fixed it, which took 10 minutes. If not she would have died.

It's much the same in NZ, although I've not heard anything quite like the horror stories on MN about the NHS. When people here do complain I always tell them it is worse in other parts of the world.

I live in a small town, so can't imagine an ambulance call out at 11.30am not being dealt with until 6pm. I recently waited for an ambulance which had been called to a young man who had had too much to drink, and it took just under 45 minutes - and then two turned up! (I hadn't called the ambulance btw, but the person who did had to leave so I sat with the young man, just to make sure he was okay).

Yeah, it definitely needs to be seen to be believed. It’s shocking.

I have a friend who suffered a stroke, when someone who was with him rang for an ambulance they were told it could be hours. They decided to put him in the car & drive him there instead. If they had waited for an ambulance, chances are he would have been outside the time frame for the clotbusting drugs.

I know of someone else who was left sat in the waiting room with symptoms of a heart attack for nearly 10 hours, it took other people in the room going to reception because they were worried he was going to keel over for him to be moved into a cubicle where he was passed around between doctors until a cardiac specialist happened to see him & rushed him straight through to resuss as he was in the middle of a massive heart attack. Thankfully he was transfered to another hospital to go in Cath Lab where he had stents put in all the blocked arteries & has recovered very well, but the doctor told him another hour later & the chances are he would have died.

I waited 13 hours in a&e for unbearable back pain. All they did was ply me with more and more drugs until they gave me morphine. Eventually they just gave me some very heavy duty medication and told me to book a scan on my back through my gp. I had to convince the lady next to me who had a suspected heart attack to stay after she had been there the same amount of time as me. Luckily I did because when her results came back she had had a heart attack and needed to be admitted for observation. I dread to think what would have happened if she'd left! But after 13 hours, you obviously need to go to sleep or wash or eat a proper meal so you start considering leaving even in a bad state. It's awful.

I also had to wait 12 hours with my infant son who turned out to have a brain condition and needed urgent surgery. Imagine if I'd left! It was very difficult not to with the facilities and him needing milk every few hours.

14 years ago I had a fall at my caravan, my husband heard a bone snap as I fell. Dh dials 999 at 7.30pm, ambulance arrives by 7.40pm & I'm at the hospital by 7.55pm. I was Xrayed, seen & leg put in a backslab pot & tucked up in bed back at the caravan by 9.30pm. The A & E unit I went to has now been closed & the nearest unit is 20 minutes drive away & not efficient, they call this progress.

I object to your blatant lies that I ‘work’ for the Tories, and believe it to be against MN rules simply because I hold a different view to you.

I see Labour as taking us backwards. Certainly not forwards.

In fact I don’t even know what they stand for anymore. It used to be the unions etc but they didn’t support any of the strikes in the last few years. Labour have no policies or solutions. No grand plan or a plan at all. They gave questionable links with trans lobbyists and donors and are not remotely trustworthy! Especially I do not trust Angela Raynor and her hard left politics, she is just biding her time.

I think Starmer will finish this country off, the change people want will come alright but it won’t be in the shape of new hospitals.

Low earners and people on benefits always scream to ‘tax the rich’, without realising these are the people paying for their existence. Where is the gratitude? It’s this sense of entitlement, grasping for more but not prepared to contribute adequately or at all which is wearing away all the goodwill. The social fabric and contract is wearing thin and fraying.

I remember the last Labour government with the waste, bloated but useless public services, high taxes and anti business rhetoric. I can’t see any competence - or change nor can I see any policy. Things can and are likely to get much worse. I can’t believe those bunch of incompetents are going to try and run our country it fills me with horror, yes,
.

I called 111 and an ambulance was dispatched to me, it took 4 hours which in the current climate I thought was good.

Talking to the paramedics, I was the 2nd call out they had during their 12 hour shift.

They were stuck at A&E with their first patient, they said on average they only see max of 3 people because they're stuck waiting for the patient to be transferred to a bed.

NHS is already broken.

The Tory governments for the last 10 years+ want people to pay for private treatment. The NHS has been underfunded for years. Insufficient no's of doctors have been trained and are underpaid so very little incentive to become new GPs or hospital doctors.
Like so many other things in broken Britain, it's a deliberate and ideology based policy taken by these nasty Tories. IMO.

And yet tens of billions, record breaking amounts are being pumped into the NHS. So no, I don’t buy that at all.

Do you want a health service?

It has to be paid for by someone, if not at the point of service, then at some other point. It will never be free, and never has been.

Do you think you won't be paying when the health service becomes 'health service, inc'? Or that you might pay less for privatised healthcare?

I think people are questioning value for money - we are paying an eye watering amount for a sub standard/failing health service that isn’t delivering for anyone.

Yes we want a health service but one that actually works. The nhs doesn’t, in its current form.

Newsflash!

Preventive care costs money.

And?

We've got all of that now, immigration is 3x higher than in 2010, plus they give asylum to known sex offenders.

Tories always blame other people for their failures, they threw away 40 billion on CV business support measures (Sunak even wrote this fraud of) then a further 26 billion on their failed HS2.

Thats over half what we spend on the NHS.

Then the Tories gave us Liz Truss, who added 10s of billions to debt interest rates and forced the BOE to be ready with 65 billion of emergency support.
Not content with that, her budget wrecked defined contribution pensions and caused a spike in UK Gilt Yields, making it even harder to borrow on the money markets.

I thought you said the Tories stand for fiscal competence?

If so, why are they "pumping 10s of billions" into a failed system (your words)

Surely they would, after 14 years, reformed the NHS and its funding, to give us a world leading NHS ?

Your two statements are at odds with each other.

Ermmm, we took in thousands if not millions of Ukrainians, quite rightly, we offered homes to thousands that helped the U.K. forces, quite rightly in Afghanistan when the US suddenly ended the operation there.

We quite rightly offfered a home to every single person in Hong King, clearly the right thing.

Isn’t that the point??

We sre already so kind, we are already so generous to those thst need us. We certainly don’t need Starmer’s open borders as well!!

Allowing the NHS to completely collapse is not fiscal competence or otherwise, there was no choice, ifs about saving lives. I believe the conservatives want to keep and care about the NHS. It’s too bad they nor Labour can save it.

It will require a managed ending and a replacement with an Australian model or similar.

Errr the vast majority of the 750k migrants that came to the UK last year were overseas students and their dependants, not Ukrainians, Afghanistanis or from HK.

The Tories have currently lost control of our borders, hence they gave asylum to a known sex offender.

NHS worker here. It’s horrendous. Being sold off piece by piece to their Tory mates. I remember the days when we had a diary and enough staff to cover sickness and annual leave. Heartbreaking. So many people are leaving to work for private companies. I only stay for the poor patients. I ran a support group the other day. I had to buy all the refreshments. £15.

My point still stands after 14 years, "why haven't they managed this decline and replaced with a Ins based model"

If we vote the Tories back in, what would they do differently?

Your logic is somewhat flawed.

Labour have at least acknowledged the NHS needs reform, Wes Streeting advocates this & has been looking at various healthcare models inc the Australian one.

Absolute rubbish! I have no issue with students coming here.

The conservatives are at least fighting for change and going through the courts. Starmer kept entirely silent on the issue I noticed, but at some point he will be forced to show his open borders hand and I wonder what his supporters will do then. Those that are already tolerating classes that are too big, no GP appointments, no housing, no hospital beds.

We have become allergic to the truth - and the truth is we need to pause immigration and get to grips with the infrastructure and look after the citizens that already live here. Starmers open borders will be an unmitigated disaster for our country.

I remember who you are. I can see why it benefits hostile states for Labour to get in…

What parts have been sold off exactly?