Lifestyle Choices impacting on the NHS -Boiling my piss!!!!

[Lardychops]

DH is currently on an NHS orthopaedics ward with around 7/8 other men.
He played 5 aside around 3 weeks ago , got bashed on the thigh and the bruise has spread and become hard and hot and painful, now infected and he needs it operated on due to risk of sepsis.

On the ward are 4 men 60 plus who have been involved in motorcycle accidents with legs in pins and have undergone several operations and been in hospital weeks ( 1 for months) as well as a young lad who was brought in yesterday following a cycling collision with another cyclist with his upper left side shattered. One other man was on a sponsored 3 peak running challenge (with a one man band scenario or such like ) and has shattered his ankle. Looking at an op tomo and a very long recuperation. yesterday a man left who had been in for three months after a skking accident with a broken hip that would not heal properly.

Am I unreasonable in thinking that with the NHS in the state it is at this current time that personal responsibility for lifestyle choices should be more of a consideration for all of us with the tax payer footing the bill for feckless and irresponsible behaviours.
It’s all avoidable surely , making better, healthier choices that do not willingly impact on limited resources.

Sports such as football, skiing, cycling, motorcross as well as mountaineering are risky to one’s health and people need to take personal responsibility.

Am I being unreasonable tax payers?

If this ever came to pass, expect car insurance costs to massively increase. If everyone injured by a car isn't entitled to NHS care and has to pay for private, the costs to insurers will be astronomical and will be paid by everyone in increased premiums.

If this were adopted there would have to be a side system where if you weren't insured and were liable for an accident, you would have to pay in full even if it meant losing your house, savings and any private pension.

I think most people would prefer the cost to be socialised.

I remember waiting after a horrible incident surrounded by rugby players who had over taken A&E after a game (damaged ankles, broken noses, arms in slings all still covered in mud from the field that they where traipsing everywhere). I do remember the insane wait thinking thats ridiculous to an extent as they are deliberately doing something that will end in injury.

A transport crash is not the same though, most bike riders are really safe and cautious (not counting the kids the bomb around on illegal or stolen off road bikes) its other idiots that cause the problem. I rode a motorbike and never once got injured, I have however been in a critical high speed car accident and required cutting out (extremely lucky to not be killed).

Interestingly the stats say 155,000 car passengers in the UK vs only 17,000 motorcyclists in the UK per year are injured in road accidents but I assume you regularly travel in cars so since that one applies to YOU your discounting it. So in reality its over 8 time more likely for a crash victim requiring medical attention to have been in a car not on a bike.

Most hospital beds have pts who have are admitted as a result of lifestyle impacting upon health eg smoking,alcohol,dietary,sport injury, cycling.They (rightly) get the treatment they need and follow up health advice and off they go.
One must be mindful not to inadvertently slide into the deserving vs undeserving patient.

This.

A bit like your husband getting injured playing a sport he likes?

She’s including her husband 🙄

But your husband injured himself in a lifestyle choice sport. You could have gone private _ if you don’t want NHS resources used.

Last time I had NHS involvement with a broken arm (yep, sporting injury) I had an interesting discussion with the physio about the fact that fit/sporty people ‘generally’ make fuller and faster recoveries. Obviously this was only their experience but they were pleased with my rapid strength and mobility progress. Sports people know how to train, have motivation to rehab behind a level the NHS cares about ie back to full sports performance. They generally have good circulation, strength and just other things ‘going for them’.

FWIW I’m also a T1 diabetic, have been since early childhood so have the potential to be a massive drain on the NHS but so far definitely thanks to the help of sport and exercise I’m still, over 30 years later, keeping the worst of that at bay. I’ve not been to hospital once since diagnosis with T1 related issues, in fact even with the handful of A&E requiring sporting injuries I’ve never been admitted overnight.

I’ll keep sports as a lifestyle choice thanks OP, and I’ve done all the ones you mention at competitive level, and I ski. I’m sure they would rather deal with casting the odd fractured hand than the results of me becoming inactive, lazy and obese.

She literally said her husband got injured playing football and that ‘Sports such as football, skiing, cycling, motorcross as well as mountaineering are risky to one’s health and people need to take personal responsibility.’

So she’s including her husband.

Do people just not bother to read properly anymore?

You’re not more worthy of NHS treatment than the ‘obese’ just because you play sport.

Don’t be so judgemental.

My father died from complications from an issue which arose because he was too sedentary. Did very little (in his 80s) other than sit and watch the TV. Used the car to get everywhere, never walked. Certainly never cycled or used a motor bike or went out to play football. (Even as a younger man)

That issued led to an initial hospital stay of six months. Followed by several, further, shorter stays, before his death some 18 months later. Most of which time he was in hospital.

Should his ‘feckless’ behaviour have meant he was excluded from NHS care @Lardychops?

(You’re not coming back to this thread, are you?)

Agree with this!
My teen son broke his leg playing football and my (now ex) BIL - his own uncle - said he was a drain on the NHS. He was the only one to say this TBF but it upset me (and son who’d heard it). Fast-forward a couple of years and uncle severs fingers doing DIY because he was using the power tool incorrectly. Should he have been denied the extensive surgery and rehab it took for them to save as much of his hand as possible? Absolutely not.

Agree with others, you should be including your DH in this, his accident could have been avoided as much as the others you have mentioned.

And yet she isn't putting her money where her mouth is and insisting on him being transferred to a private hospital and paying for his care.

"Organ donors" is a traditional nickname for motorcyclists by NHS staff

Worked in the NHS in a clinical roles for 14 years. Yes you’re totally right it’s 5s and skiing that’s bringing the NHS to its knees.

absolutely nothing to do with poor management, understaffing, public service cuts, ageing population with poor social service resources, smoking, alcohol, obesity (I suppose at least obese people are being responsible and don’t ski or play 5s!), culture of bullying and staff burn out. It’s absolutely nothing to do with all that.

Just to be clear I am not blaming smokers, alcoholics or those with obesity. They deserve care like everyone else even those bloody irresponsible footballers, most of us will die because of our lifestyles, it may be stress, it may be high salt intake, it may be a sedentary lifestyle, no one’s perfect and we need a bit more compassion! Nurses and doctors would be out of a job if everyone lived absolutely perfect life’s, yes we should have some personal responsibility for our own health and try and make healthy choices but it’s of course much more complex than that.

99% sure this is intentionally goady, but I’ll bite anyway.

None of the things you list are as dangerous as driving, being a passenger in a car or having a baby - should be stop incidents related to those things being covered on the NHS too? What if it’s a child doing the sport?

On your logic, your DH shouldn’t be there either.

Lifestyle choices such as eating too much and drinking too much are a different matter, however.

Op didn’t come back to her thread then!?!

wonder why!

So on an orthopaedics ward patients have orthopaedic injuries?

Imagine that.

Well I am not getting into the cycling/ sport etc. Where does it stop.

But in defence of smokers. In 2023 the tax take was 11.3 billion. The NHS cost for smoking related illness was c. 2.6 billion. So very much quids in!

In the grand scheme of things to be put right, blokes living their lives and having the odd accident is pretty low down on wasting NHS money.

YABU

These are not the people whose lifestyle choices are impacting the NHS.

People who live active lifestyles are less likely to need the NHS to sort out their type 2 diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, strokes, or cancers. They are also less likely to be require care as they age, as they are less likely to get dementia and strong leg muscles mean they are less likely to lose mobility.

The people sitting on their arses all day, eating and smoking, are unlikely to break their limbs, but the long term cost of their health and social care is going to be a lot more than a few weeks on an orthopaedic ward.

YABU.

What other people choose to do for their hobbies absolutely isn't any business of yours. Life is precious and we don't know what's around the corner. To expect people to stop living just to save money is completely ridiculous.

That's why we pay taxes and national insurance.

It's the unpaid for patients that enter the country illegally that attention should be brought towards.