TheCatCameBack112 · Today 14:45
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Re the NHS, I had a really good experience this week, I called my GP at 8am, she phoned back at 8.30 and asked me to go in. I saw the ANP for a consultation and the HCA did an ECG.
The ANP was concerned enough to want more tests so phoned through to the local hospital's SDEC department. I saw a nurse and a doctor, had another ECG, bloods and chest x ray within 3 hours with results (no cardiac issues of concern).
The hospital was clean, the staff were courteous, there was water, juice and biscuits for patients in the waiting area. There was a trolley with activities and objects to support people with dementia or a learning disability. If I was in a fee paying system, that would have cost £5k plus, and couldn't have been any quicker. I'm going back to my GP next week for more bloods and follow up. I will never not be grateful for the NHS”
That’s fantastic for you and I sincerely hope that you never find yourself sitting in a hard plastic chair (when you have spinal osteoarthritis) with sepsis, double pneumonia and what was eventually discovered - weeks later, we’re lucky my husband is still alive - to be a life threatening necrotic gallbladder that had become gangrenous, for 54 hours for a bed. No trolley or wheelchair available.
That was the worst occasion. Previously, since October, the waits were 30 hours and 18. A bed wasn’t made available on the 18 hour occasion at all. My husband was just sat in the A&E waiting room with IV antibiotics, potassium and saline solutions to treat acute kidney injury then sent home (which was why he was back in a week later sat for 54 hours: because he was discharged too soon, the primary cause of infection not having been discovered).
He was finally admitted and was in hospital for surgery on two occasions, with 2 1/2 and 3 week stays. His surgical team have been fantastic. The care and support he received from nursing and ancillary staff on wards was mostly pretty good. I did have to bring meals from home though because the hospital couldn’t provide his particular need of high protein but very low fat meals (because his gallbladder had died, he had malnutrition with various deficiencies).
However, at his last clinic appointment last week, we had to access his consultant by walking through A&E where the bed waiting time sign displayed “60 hours” and a 4 hour wait for triage.
One of the HCAs told us that just after Christmas, 183 people had been waiting in an understaffed A&E on one day.
(Blackpool Victoria Hospital).
Again, when we finally got through the system, I can’t stress just how fantastic his consults and surgical team were (and continue to be). Similarly, the paramedics. Outstanding every time.
A&E can’t continue like this, though. More and more people will die waiting.
Well, that’s that off my chest ! Sorry about the rant. We’re both exhausted.