The NHS. We need to fight to keep it.

[Differentforgirls]

My Mil is 87. Last year (around September) she was bleeding from her vagina and went to her GP.

The GP referred her to hospital for tests, which she got quickly.

It was cancerous polyps in her womb so she got further tests to ensure they hadn’t spread and was referred for surgery.

Tonight she has been discharged from hospital after numerous tests over the intervening months and a surgery yesterday (keyhole).

She’ll get follow up treatment too.

All NHS, where she has been treated with dignity, respect and kindness.

It might not be what it was due to cuts but it’s still something we should be proud of.

She’ll celebrate her 88th birthday next month, as an OAP in social housing with nothing but her pension, because of the NHS.

AIBU for thinking the NHS is something to be proud of and fight to keep?

Another thread ruined. I won’t be back 👍

The biggest issue in my area of Scotland is social care which is not being dealt with and has a MASSIVE impact on healthcare provisions, we have a huge cohort of retirees moving here constantly because ‘free personal care’ but no staff to provide it and they haven’t made any provisions for themselves, not enough care homes in the area and not enough cottage hospitals which were step down whilst waiting for care or further recuperation before home.

instead they want us nurses in the community to pick up all of these pieces and continue to provide the same care we were previously, our case loads continue to become more and more complex as they want more delivered at home and to keep people out of hospital as well as providing dignified dying for those who chose it at home which is our bread and butter really but we are trying to fire fight the social care issues and it just isn’t working

I have already said that’s fine then so I was going to leave it - but your question did suggest you were challenging the idea that the NHS in both were performing broadly the same.

So I was asking well where is your evidence to say they’re not?

It’s a valid question because I do think we can assume they are all doing quite terribly across the board or there would be significant research literature and news headline showing eg. Scotland is doing much better.

Objectively, looking at stats, the Scottish system performs less well than the English system

The Tories increased health spending by c50% in real terms in their time in office. It was pretty much protected from austerity. The NHS is so poorly run you can keep pumping money it but it just leads to more wastage.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but I also have to question the amount of resources spent on a 87 year old woman.

This is part of the problem, you're not allowed to die anymore. Everything, every one has to be treated.

A lot of people have mentioned French and German healthcare systems as superior but does anyone have experience of how the Spanish healthcare system is like/funded?

I was there recently and had a good personal experience in a&e , but just curious to know what they’re like generally as I’m thinking of relocating there.

It depends what your own experience is. Mine, like a lot of others, is very mixed. From excellent - cancer treatment - to awful - 'nurses' who couldn't give a toss about how rough they were, how neglectful they were - as long as they ticked a box they were okay. Fed up of the 'it's wonderful but underfunded so we won't change anything ' approach. The funds they have need to be spent more wisely, there is a shocking amount of waste in the NHS.

My recent experience is faultless. Referred for a colonoscopy on 11 January and had the procedure on Monday. My bloke’s cancer diagnosis and treatment last year was equally impressive. Maybe I’m lucky in where I live but the NHS is working exactly as you’d wish it to here.

@IwishIcouldconfess Well I was also going to say the OPs story is illustrative of the challenges facing the NHS that the founders would not have dreamt of.

No judgemen on the value of the OPs MiL or very elderly people In general, but for many years an 87 year old with serious cancwr would probably have just been sent home with some.pain relief and told to prepare for the end.

I am not saying we ahould do that these days, just that developments in cancer treatment and expectarions that even very elderly people are kept alive has cost and resource ramifications, ones that are increading as thr baby boom generation moves in to old age.

It could be the first generation to fully benefit from the NHS is the one that kills it off in its current form.

This one really gets to me too. It's such a post code lottery, we can't get NHS care so have had to go private for us plus the kids. Even orthodonticts for DS, we got referred on the NHS but at the assessment appointment were told it would be too wait if we waited the 2 plus years on the NHS wait-list. I'm paying tax to fund something I can't get any benefit from, why can't we move to an insurance style system immediately for dentistry?

Jesus. Had to come back just for that awful post.

Her mother lived until she was 101 and her brother is 91.

Do you think we should put them down like a pet?

Do you mean because reform are going to be the next government and they want rid of the NHS, because they are all wealthy business men who will make money out of selling it of and don't have to worry about the extra cost of the insurance we will have to pay .
In which case yes ,I do think we have to fight for it..but it needs a huge overhaul
Far to many managers paid rediculous amounts ,

I hadn’t heard about that! I guess in some ways it makes sense! It reminds me of when I used to do immigration bail. Often we’d seek to revoke bail on the basis of non compliance only to find out the individual had died (natural causes) as they’d been waiting so long for a decision!

I agree.

And on the other side……. Thank god I have private healthcare as it just saved my mobility.

My outcome would have been vastly different had I been at the mercy of NHS protocols and waiting times.

I understand that you do.

but there are rapidly increasing numbers of people in this country who have either experienced poor care from the nhs or know people who have. This is going to (and to some extent already has) really reduce support for the nhs.

I am disabled so admittedly I have friends who use the nhs more than most, but reports of 30 hour plus times spent on a chair at an and e do not inspire confidence.

anyone who interacts with the nhs these days has a Lower and lower chance of seeing it as a positive interaction.

the general population are aware they can’t get in to see their gp. Online gp services are booming because it’s the only way to actually access healthcare for many.

and if you cannot access the free healthcare eventually you ask why you are paying for it.

I support the NHS in principle and there are still many things it does well: acute care can still be excellent. But preventative care and chronic disease care/primary care are truly substandard; worse than most other comparable countries. To the point where its frightening.

With respect to you OP I also think the “let’s protect our NHS at all costs”, shibboleth is profoundly unhelpful. People treating its existence like an article of faith prevents us from having a proper grownup conversation about whether it’s fit for purpose.

The reluctance to acknowledge the economic and administrative shortcomings of the NHS and the insistence that it has to be endlessly funded and that anyone daring to question this wants to privatise it is infantile.

I do think its time for a fairly dramatic structural overhaul of the way it’s funded.

But at some point,we are going to be the person at 87 , or 77 ,or 57 needing the NHS ,and we won't to be sent home with painkillers to die we will want every extra second with our families
And if we start not treating 87 year olds, where does it stop ..how long before we stop treating people in their 70s .
My mum has dementia and is 77 and the doctors have put ,no tests to be done for her on her notes ,no treatment,no trip to hospital for any tests .
So they have effectively done what some people are suggesting, because nothing will now be investigated.
Plus DNR is on her file

Agreed. Decades of systemic and deliberate underfunding so that they can say it's not working and we need to move to private healthcare. Great for those who can afford it. Not for the rest.

In a nutshell.

Three years wait for surgery on a anterior vaginal prolapse.
At the GP surgery I work at, the health board building will send two men and a wee boy out to turn up the radiators. Not only twice a year to turn on and turn down, but " We're here to turn up room one's radiator" "oh good can you get rooms two to five and the waiting room?". "No, the indent form says only one radiator. Put a chit it. " They come on a forty mile round trip. Rules of the National Amalgamated Union of Cap Twisters, Organ Grinders, and Performing Monkeys.

Don't throw money at it, restructure.

From my experience it's on its knees in each of the countries in the UK. Under conservatives - now labour in England, Scottish Nationalists in Scotland, Labour in Wales and Northern Ireland - nobody then Sinn Fein.

NHS funding has increased every year, regardless of which government we have.

The bigger problem is that the population has increased by over 6 million people since 2011.

No it isn't an awful post, its realistic.

You said yourself, numerous tests, keyhole surgery, how much has that cost?

This is it with cancer services there doesn't seem to be any concept of budget or looking at the patients age -

What would have happened if something went wrong in surgery? Would she have had the reserve to overcome a prolonged recovery.

Just because the NHS can doesn't mean it should.

I work in ICU, a bed in any ICU unit costs between £1500 - £2000 per day - depending on medications, if you need dialysis etc, that isn't taking into account any costs of associated surgery etc and the costs then associated pre and post ICU ( if applicable ) There is no way anyone pays enough into the system to cover it,

So yes call me cruel, but putting an 88 year old through numerous tests, surgery etc, I do feel is wasteful and a reflection on the NHS who won't allow anyone to die now.