AIBU to wish the UK healthcare system functioned properly?

[DickEmery]

Or at least tolerably well. Because what we have now is woeful and it impacts on all aspects of life.

YANBU. As a family we now all have private health insurance - I genuinely wouldn’t feel safe or comfortable without it anymore. What used to be a luxury for a chosen few has now turned into a borderline essential that people go into debt for.

We had an AMAZING experience with the NHS recently. Other family members have too.

I wish the bashing the NHS would stop and give the staff some credit.

The staff in the nhs would also like it to function better. To work in buildings with enough space, that aren't falling down, with enough properly qualified staff to provide the best quality care, with the best equipment....

And I had an AWFUL experience last time my child was cared for by the NHS. That doesn’t mean that everyone else has! You are generalising. Like everything, there is good and bad - including staff. Honesty isn’t bashing.

I genuinely got diagnosed with and treated for PTSD after my experience of being a patient on a ward within the NHS. The reason being that I perceived I would die while being ignored and in agonising pain. I didn't die, but that was just down to luck. My perception that my life was under threat was accurate. My perception that I was in agonising pain for over six hours was also accurate. Hence the PTSD. I was in a hospital ward, in the UK, and was nominally at least in receipt of treatment. But I am only alive because I got lucky.

What I went through was mind bending. It was also life changing, in that I now no longer trust that when I call for help that call will be answered. In fact I know that it will not be.

We need a different system.

DD nearly had a breakdown due to the conditions and lack of care after a week on an NHS ward, I feel your pain OP. It was during Covid so I wasn’t even allowed in to see her or help her out. Last time she had to be admitted from A&E (post tonsillectomy bleed..) she was crying and begging me not to leave her there alone again - it was heartbreaking. The thought of having to stay on a hospital ward should not be scary! Although that time was less traumatic than the one before she was still told off by her nurse for asking for painkillers and as a lone 18 year old girl was placed on a bay full of old men with 0 privacy…

She put it very plainly that any time she has had treatment or surgery on the NHS it has always been traumatic in one way or another, whilst at a private hospital (although of course surgery is never pleasant or painless!) this has never been the case - I find that very telling. It has become a two tier system and simply cannot go in this way - a massive injustice to the most vulnerable in our society.

#weneedatwotiersystemnow

Incapable of having an adult conversation?

In Singapore they pay foreign nurses less than Singaporean nurses - seems a good idea. The locals can afford to stay in the job and immigrant nurses earn more than they would at home - but here in the UK there would be squwaks about racism or infairnrss as if we are superior morally. When it’s well past the position where we can maintain these fallacies -fgs Gov do what it takes. Charge for missed appointments, insist patients exercise. Charge for a GP appointment. Constantly trying to provide free stuff isn’t working. Everybody suffers.

What is your point exactly? Apart from being blatantly racist?

My point is we could employ more nurses - nurses are considering striking for more pay -we could give them more pay but pay foreign nurses of any race or creed -Irish, Australian,Malaysian ,less and if they didn’t want to work for the pay offered they wouldn’t come to the UK.

Ditto doctors

Again, what exactly is your issue with ‘foreign’ nurses? Why do you believe that they are less worthy of pay than nurses who are from the UK? How do you think that this will in any way fix the situation? Spoiler alert - it would in all likelihood fully collapse what is left of the NHS. Pay is far from the only issue in staff retention and recruitment.

This thread is sounding like a follow-on to the 'Patient View' thread...

@Pat888 well that would be one quick way of killing of the NHS 😂

We are literally dependent on ‘foreign’ people working in the NHS.

Do you genuinely believe our country is that good people would come and work for such low wages? I hate to break it to you but that’s bullshit.

Oh god, that was a bin fire of a thread towards the end! Please not again..

Exactly!

The OP doesn’t sound anything like the ‘patient view’ one though, thankfully. That one was more keen at throwing insults at various groups of HCPs than anything..

We are not in Singapore
What a nasty post

Well, ending the drs strike is a step in the right direction. And the recent pay rise accepted by the non medical unions. We are short staffed in my NHS department. Have been pretty much the whole decade I've worked. Older colleagues say how it used to be better but I've not seen it, it's not new failures, been a gradual downward slope and demoralising when you compare statistics to other European countries. But we will bring it back up to scratch together.

There is another thread running on NQ UK nurses cannot get jobs

The PTSD comment etc. That was referred to in that thread by OP. Although it descended into hurling insults about HCPs quite rapidly...

Me too! I have been so impressed recently that I have emailed compliments to PALS. If you name someone in particular, that goes on their file which helps them when it comes to their annual review.

YANBU

I think more thought needs to be given for those in families with several conditions and also that some areas of the NHS people might not be using are utterly dire.

I have 1 child on 5 waiting lists, another on 3 and a third on 2. We’ve been quoted 19 weeks for non urgent cardiology and have a nightmare getting hold of 1 type of medication. It’s almost impossible to get much needed reasonable adjustments for appointments and referrals often get lost in admin. Both our local hospitals are rated as requires improvement .

We are going to be paying for 2 lots of care privately(1k a month) to cover 2 of these waits but can’t pay any more. We are also having to top up 2 kids at uni. We are absolutely not rich( max loans are only for those with household income under £25k).Families don’t have endless pots of cash.
A few years ago we would never have thought we’d have kids needing so much care. It can happen to anyone. More and more families will be dragged into similar situations the worse it gets. All of my children are needing more care now due to dire services even as recently as 4/5 years ago. Mental health services are appalling across the board and one of my children also has diagnosed PTSD partly from care that wasn’t what it should have been due to lack of inpatient beds.

I on the other hand have had a mammogram appointment almost instantly when asked and the results in less than a week and get superb screening for other cancers and health checks at my GP. I also have excellent advice with regular appointments in another part of our local hospital. Most staff are great and clearly doing their best in dreadful circumstances- that doesn’t make up for the inadequacies of the NHS as a whole though.

The trouble is it isn’t consistent. My doctors surgery has been brilliant for me. But my son has had terrible awful treatment in the same place. I also had wonderful treatment via the Emergency room a few weeks ago. Ambulance came within mins, was straight through to private room but tons of people wait hours for an ambulance and wait hours to be seen.