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 agree.

England clearly loves the Tories more than the NHS though. And schools, and the police, and the court system, and the military, and good roads, and clean water, we love the Tories more than any of those things.

I was in A and E last week in one of the bays. Overheard a nurse saying that she had 60 patients outside and a seriously ill patient in the corridor. She was very upset. As a country we really need to do something. I honestly don't know how the staff keep going.

It's probably not entirely a coincidence that defibrillators are appearing everywhere.

This is why we don't have a clear picture.

My local hospital is notorious and has been as the OP describes for years.

Some people continue to have excellent, efficient, effective services.

Others have lived with chaotic services for years. It's difficult to judge what proportion of us have wretched experiences. It doesn't even seem to be consistent in the same region or even the same hospital at times. Some depts. can be excellent and others to be avoided at all costs.

I honestly don’t know why people are shocked by this. Think back 3 years when COVID hit. Many clinical staff had to risk their lives looking after ventilated patients with COVID in abhorrent conditions with inadequate PPE.
A large amount of general public were furloughed and paid to redecorate their houses etc. Clinical staff ploughed on saving lives and many were unwell/died from contracting COVID.
What did they get for their efforts? Claps from the general public and a pin badge if they were lucky.
Pay is still behind inflation when looking at the last 10 years and pay does not match that of degree professionals especially when considering the responsibility and risk.
Clinical staff are burnt out and leaving the profession and this is the result. Lives will be lost and outcomes for unwell people worse but apparently there is not money to pay carers/nurses/doctors a fair wage therefore there are ongoing problems with recruitment and retention of experienced staff.
Natural consequences at play I’m afraid and even the wealthy won’t escape it ultimately as private facilities don’t offer emergency services!

So vote for a change. The NHS was the best it could be under Labour.

Not under this Labour it won't be

But they're dying anyway. People are kept alive in really really terrible conditions. Advanced dementia causing them great distress, multiple painful medical conditions, doubly incontinent, bed sores, only able to have liquid foods. Have you read some of the threads on here about the terrible state some people's relatives are in at the end of live? And yet every ailment that could take them quickly is treated so they can live as long as possible in pain and distress. Why? Is this the strung out end you hope for yourself?
So yes, wrap them up with love and let them die.

Is it cheaper?

Was this in Scotland @Charlingspont, as i remember a very similar situation when taking my kids to football training at 6pm, boy lying on pitch from earlier in day ?

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/funding/health-funding-data-analysis#:~:text=UK%20Health%20Funding%20has%20seen,10%2C%20despite%20COVID%2D19%20funding

If you don’t provide adequate funding this is what happens.

@Spectre8

From my perspective ilthe GPs don't treat people enough anymore so symptoms pile up and cause bigger problems and then need to go to a&e

Preventative medicine seems ro have disappeared.

And then you write:

Also the NHs offers far too many services to far too many people. So something has to give. I think the NHs should only br essential treatments only. The NHs wasn't created to cope with this many people either chucking more money at it won't resolve all the problems either

Which is it? Preventative health is regarded as non-essential.

I’m not the one you have to convince the most. I found isolation of elderly distressing

It’s the general public not sure they’d have gone for it

im one of those 😳I’ve been there because of a sore throat, the worst tonsillitis or strep throat whatever it was called that ever existed, I had. The nurse at the doctors said I need to rush to A&E as it’s something a lot worse so gave me a referral.

once I was seen at A&E the other nurse laughed and said it isn’t that, but you have the worst case I’ve ever seen. I had some disgusting antibiotics and a lot of night nurse cause I felt like I was on deaths door.

It’s not just for those things though. It’s Accident and Emergency. It’s for people to get stitched up after an accident, it’s for someone who has got a thorn in their eye when they are gardening, It’s for someone to get checked over after a fall, it’s for a child with a high temperature or parent who is worried about their child out of hours, it is for a tetanus jab after a gardening accident on the weekend, it’s for someone with unidentified pain that may, or may not be, life threatening and so on and so on. My GP surgery can’t deal with some of those things during the week and they can’t deal with any of them out of hours. I’ve been stitched up in A&E for what wasn’t a life threatening situation but could have caused infection and unpleasant scarring and cost the NHS a lot more in the long run.

You can’t expect the patient to know what is life threatening in many cases and we’ve seen it on here when someone has asked about going to A&E and people say don’t go. Then you find they’ve gone and have sepsis or something else equally dangerous. The staff are there to triage and get patients to the right place, whether that is back home with or without treatment or admitted. That is literally their job and they do it well. Yes, frustrating when someone goes with a month old broken toe, as I witnessed when I was waiting with an asthma attack which took me into hospital for a week. I got the treatment I needed, he probably waited a very, very long time to see anyone.

I feel quite aggrieved when people are blamed for using A&E incorrectly. People really only go if they are really worried and don’t have other options, especially now. Literally no-one wants to wait for 12 hours to see a doctor on a hard chair, under bright lights with the whole spectrum of humanity and illness. Literally no-one. The system isn’t working for lots of people and it is not their fault. It’s not the staff’s fault either so I’m not blaming them. So something has to change though. Those mythical and elusive 40 hospitals that Johnson promised would be a start if there were enough staff to run them. It’s a political problem.

The NHS actually delivers incredible value for money. We just put much less money towards healthcare than other countries.

@spanishviola theoretically those things are for minor injuries units, not A&E

The NHS in England’s structure is defined by the SoS for Health. It’s all political and not within the gift of the NHS to change. Moving towards ICBs will help to some extent, but we’ll still have the postcode lottery.

To give you an alternative view, my local hospital in a small city in Portugal was probably built in the 80's. It's architecture and fabric is 'tired' and the food is apparently like hospital food worldwide; awful. But the last time I was there the waiting time for 'urgencia' was 5 minutes and non 'urgencia' was 15 minutes. There are plenty of doctors and nursing caring and beds day and night and patients are transferred to other hospitals for specialist care as required. No cost for citizens and residents.

Completely agree that large swathes of the NHS are completely broken now, but just to offer another perspective, I attended minor injuries recently following an accident (dislocated shoulder and broken arm) and several people came in with such minor complaints e.g.run out of antibiotics, or "my eczema has flared up" etc. I had a similar experience a few months ago in A&E. Yes the NHS is clearly on its knees, which is appalling, but I do think we all need to take responsibility for using services appropriately, so that urgent/more serious cases get the treatment they need.

Mum’s 93 and has dementia. Broke her hip, waited hours in pain for an ambulance and then spent three days in A&E waiting for a bed. Placed on a geriatric ward, no help at mealtimes despite staff being made aware numerous times that she needed help to eat, so we ended up visiting in shifts at lunch and tea times and did it ourselves. She was left in the same nightie for several days and in the end I asked if I could wash and change her - was told no, the HCAs would do it.

I received a phone call out of the blue one morning to go and collect her as she was being discharged. When I arrived at the discharge lounge she was brought out to the car with a bag of her belongings and she had on her dressing gown over clothes. When I got her home they had dressed her in someone elses’ dirty clothes - sweat stains under the arms and smelled of BO.

But the last straw was when I took off the clothes to wash and change her and discovered a large, very visibletumour on her breast that hadn’t been there before she was admitted. We eventually determined that it was a recurrence of a previous breast cancer which had had a growth spurt. If she had received proper personal care they would have seen the tumour and treated it much faster as an inpatient, instead of which we had to wait five weeks for a GP referral to the consultant. I realise the staff are doing their best under very difficult circumstances but it’s hard not to be angry when a loved one is treated this way.

That’s great if you have a minor injuries unit but where I live minor injuries is A&E.

There are pockets of excellence in the NHS but areas that are very concerning.

Meanwhile we have a refugee who was turned down for asylum twice, committed a sex offence THEN granted asylum who injured 12 people, 5 police officers injured, 3 ambulances called, major police hunt underway.....

The tax payer isn't getting great value for money at the moment.

The right of the Tory party believe in a "small state."

They are running down very slowly the NHS and local government.

They will get away with it if they are allowed to, and they are doing it softy softly in some ways.

It's incredibly complex but having a government whose priorities were not spending £300 billion on Brexit and causing an exodus of workers many of whom worked in health certainly didn't help -yes many could have stayed but voted with their feet as they were hardly made to feel welcome

Then we have vast amounts spent on track and trace that didn't work and PPE that was neither use nor ornament- 50 billion on HS2 that now serves no real purpose-

The amount this gvt have pissed against a wall for no gain totally beggars belief - much of it just to appease the far right of their party

Think how many doctors we could have attracted with better pay , how many investigations could have been paid for and then carried out in spare private sector capacity (and no I'm not anti that) how many staff could have been covered for free parking, how many minor injuries units not needing actual doctors could be run or those drop in medical centres in towns that were in under Blair but seem to have been mainly phased out.

And finally sorting the social care sector so we have far more proper state recuperation or short term state nursing homes and stop bed blocking - have an op in Germany and you frequently get sent to a nice wellness and care centre to recuperate and get physio- spa, pool, physios on hand - and yet right wing hardliners like to make out everything here is better than elsewhere- it really really isn't unless you have very deep pockets

We have used A&E 2 or 3 times every winter for the past 3 years due to asthma in one of my children and have always found the care there to be really good. My parents were at adult A&E at the same hospital this Saturday night and also had a really good experience. The same with a neighbor who was taken in with pneumonia. I appreciate that some hospitals have exceptionally long waits but we've really found that to be the case where we are at all. It's been very positive.