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?

The NHS is a victim of its own success and, as a society, we need to have some pragmatic conversations about what can and should be provided and how to fund it.

DH and I were out with friends recently, most of us retired, all of us have one or both parents still alive in their late 80s or 90s. All of them have cost the NHS thousands over recent years, most have very poor quality of life and would describe themselves as various combinations of in pain, ill, lonely, bored or "just waiting to die" yet the NHS keeps dragging them back from the brink. They all are provided with mobility aids, commodes, stair rails, key safes, hearing aids, incontinence pads, etc regardless of some having millions in assets.
If we want to continue postponing death at all costs rather than allowing life to end when the quality is awful we all have to pay in a hell of a lot more to fund it.

It's not underfunded - it gets more money than it ever has - but it is hugely understaffed. There are over 100,000 vacancies across the NHS. We don't train enough nurses or doctors and the ones we do train we can't retain because their workload and working conditions are so poor due to the vast number of vacancies. It's like pouring water into a sink with no plug.

The NHS is a victim of its own success and, as a society, we need to have some pragmatic conversations about what can and should be provided and how to fund it.

Agree

It’s awful, similar stories of a&e with step father with breathing difficulties and reduced oxygen levels.

Also at DSs rugby match a few weeks ago a teen boy got injured in a tackle, he had pain in the bottom of his back and couldn’t feel his legs, obviously couldn’t be moved by the first aiders. 3 hours is took for an ambulance while he laid on the cold hard floor. They had him wrapped in foil blankets etc but the poor lad must have been so cold and scared.

I took the picnic hamper when the GP advised us to go to A&E with DC! I fully expected to be in a corridor for days. Shame its come to that.

Would you rather the money went to the likes do people who ripped off 2 billion pounds from the country for useless PPE? The government makes choices. Most of them are very bad at the moment. There is money but it needs to be spent on the right things, on the NHS for starters. Otherwise we will lose it.

It also baffles me how the NHS doesn't run as one organisation. For example we have women booked.for our hospital by cmw from another trust. They have to have their booking bloods repeated at our hospital because we can't access their result system so the woman has to have her bloods taken twice. Different it systems, different ways of recording notes etc. makes it more difficult to plan seamless care.

It’s understaffed because it is underfunded.

In real terms the increases in funding since 2010 have been half those during the previous governement, so whilst the NHS might get more money that it ever has budgets are reduced year on year and have been now since 2010.

Where should the PPE have come from - Was there a surplus anywhere, maybe there was

I didn’t agree with a lot of the Covid response, PPE probably was a waste but I recall the public demand for it was very high

As it was for a whole lot of stuff I wasn’t keen on

We do train enough doctors ! But there are not enough jobs. Doctors worried about not having a job after foundation training now.

@Boomarang and thank you - it's a stressful job and these days for very little thanks- we actually moved house because of an A&E that horrified me- I won't say where as it's unfair to anyone on here that works there but it genuinely felt like 3rd world- I've been twice here at the RUH in Bath late at night and although I had 5 hour waits and it wasnt swanky- it did feel ordered and at least relatively clean and staff were nice. It was chalk and cheese

A few months ago my DM was very ill with an infection. The NHS refused to send an ambulance, doctor or admit her. They bluntly said she was too old and frail to justify the expense. She died and the coroner tried to blame me.

It’s truly awful and a total eye opener
I started working on the ‘wards’ 7 months ago and just don’t know how much longer I will last if I’m being honest
people are not getting the care and attention that they should
wards should be shut down due to how short staffed they are but this can’t happen..,
I feel sorry for anyone that needs to be admitted to a hospital
personally I don’t think we will have an nhs in a few years time

The thing is - a&E is for immediately life threatening situations.

Heart attacks
Strokes
Car crashes with major trauma
Respiratory issues but we are talkimg immediately life threatening - oxygen de-sat, not discomfort breathing

People don't realise what emergency is.

The problem isn't A&E. Honestly, you do not wait long when its an emergency. Ive been there with a child gasping for breath and been seen in 5 mins.

The problem is more acute medicine. There's a gaping expanse between GPs seeing kids with ear infections, and unconscious stab victims needing immediate surgery. It's too difficult to get treatment thats needed in the 1-2 week timeframe. Its lack of hospital ward capacity both in terms of bed numbers and staff availability.

If you look at the supposed increase in funding a v large proportion of it was for PPE. £9 billion of which was useless.

You do understand that you can keep throwing money at something it doesn’t magic nurses and doctors out of thin air. You need enough people who want to be and are qualified to become doctors and nurses. If there are 10 people on an island and no one is a doctor you could pay all the coconuts on the island still won’t magically make a doctor appear.

1/3 of patients in hospital are well enough to leave. But social care can't provide the support they need, so they stay in hospital.

Stopgo how old was she?

Similar happened with my grandmother except we didn't try to get an ambulance etc because she was 93, yes, people die of infections when they are very old.

Where should the PPE have come from?

Probably not from the bloke who runs Matt Hancock's local pub (and had no background in PPE) and probably £200m of contracts shouldn't have been handed to Michelle Mone recommended firm (who were being investigated for fraud and bribery).

I’ve had this too. HCP’s leaving phone messages about appointments with no date or name left. Impossible to call them back as no caller ID. Home visit turned up on the wrong day when nobody in, but then canceled the appointed day ‘because they’d already been’. Prescriptions written that the pharmacy couldn’t issue as the information was incorrect, again no way of reverting back so had to start from scratch with GP appointment.
Total inefficiency and in some cases simple lack of professionalism. An unpopular view but some staff are just badly trained or wasting everyone’s time.

A&E is brutal.

But when my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer 2019 his treatment was superb. Then Covid came but the NHS didn't miss a beat. He lives 4 years due to our NHS.

My mum was blue lighted into hospital in November. We presumed we'd find her in the waiting room on one of the many beds in the corridor. As it happened she was in resus having the best care ever. She was far more poorly than we knew.

I'm sure A&E miss things on triage that should be escalated on occasion but I cannot fault our health care professionals. They gave their all to my lovely parents

This. Read, reread and repost. This is what is happening both at national and local government level. The UK is in an abusive relationship with its government and must find the courage to leave. All of the major public systems have been steered into a wall.

Ok but was there much around or was it a bunfight between countries to get it

Where were these surplus stashes that were missed?

That island could solve the problem of no doctors by joining a trading community with other countries that say, allowed freedom of movement for workers.

OH!!!