To wonder what's happened to the NHS?

[Chefpig]

I went for surgery this afternoon. Waited three hours in a waiting room because there were no beds available. Uncomfortable, especially with pain, but couldn't be helped.

I expressed a wish to the anaesthetist for GA after much trauma from a attempted and failed spinal anaesthetic in the past. Anaesthetist told me that a spinal would be much better for recovery and I should at least trust them and give it a go. Being brave and talked out of a GA, I gave it a go. It was horrific. I have a real issue with things being put where I can't see and it was painful, especially when the electric shocks (?) started on one of my legs. In tears, I asked for a GA. I was told it was very near to being ready and I agreed to keep going with the spinal but after the second electric shock and me in complete panic mode, I begged for a GA and the lovely, wonderful nurse who held me throughout was fierce with the anaesthetist and insisted she stop and give me a GA. That nurse was an absolute angel and held me throughout. I'm now in absolute agony with pain in my leg. Not my surgery site - that's fine!

Back on the ward in a single room, I was left for over two hours without being asked if I wanted drink and food. I eventually buzzed to ask. I had obs done on the recovery unit but not since I've been back in my room and its now five and a half hours after surgery and theres only been two brief visits to me as I buzzed to use the loo with assistance. I waited for painkillers for an hour (not nurses fault at all, she's so busy) and my own tablets haven't been taken care of despite someone earlier saying they'd let the senior nurse know about them.

My details whiteboard hasn't been filled out (dont know if that matters) and the blinds in my room have blinds missing so no doubt across the way has seen my knickers and bare boobs several times.

Staff are absolutely lovely on the ward. They're They're doing their best but I can tell they have very little to give. They need my bed more than I do for a bloody good rest! They're run ragged. AIBU to expect our NHS to invest in staff and their wellbeing so they can care for patients better?

You can't just cherry pick your own personal experience to say how wonderful the system is. I've also been hugely appreciative on several recent occasions, of some fantastic staff. It doesn't mean they are representative of the model, as a whole.

I sincerely hope labour don't try and dismantle unions. Personally I'm aware that trade unions are responsible for so many positive changes over the decades and am very thankful for them.

I think it went downhill when they put nurse/MW training into Uni’s, got rid of SEN’s, and gave auxiliary nurses more ‘nurse’ jobs but didn’t replace their position. I also remember the good old days of the ward cleaner, they had a set ward, took pride in their work, and the floors shone.

Is that all you're going to do on this thread - keep comparing everything to the Tories?

You would be if you work in the public sector! Rubbing your hands with glee.

Agree - but would also add in poor management

I’m sorry you had a bad experience but I just want to reassure others that I have had a spinal on two occasions in different hospitals and each time I felt nothing at all. Even tho the second time, the doctor doing it had assured me he had done loads and then someone else came in to supervise! It’s much better than a GA as there is less danger of breathing problems and have you have some residual pain relief after the operation

I’m sorry you had a rubbish experience OP but at least the staff were kind.

By contrast I did an out of hours online triage for 111 recently and was called back within an hour and 2.5 hours after my initial triage I was in a beautiful modern clinic being diagnosed and prescribed appropriate medication. This was in the middle of the night.

There are so many disintegrating bits of the NHS but I truly think it’s an amazing service and am so grateful for it every day.

Where I live, the hospitals, both NHS and private, seem to be staffed with those from the four corners of the world. God knows what it would be like if they weren't here. During my last stay in hospital, I was looked after by people from practically every continent. My surgeon was Indian and the anaesthetist from New Zealand, my favourite nurse was from Zimbabwe and another was from SA. The theatre nurse was Austrian.

A Filippino friend is a nurse at a large general hospital in Kent. There are so many Filippino staff there that they call it "Little Manila".

I worked in the NHS for 35 years, DW still does , now in her 43rd year. What’s gone wrong, well from the perspective of people who were/ are frontline staff and it’s our opinion and won’t be shared by many,too many people who now don’t do frontline work compared to years ago, team managers and band 6 nurses who rarely actually see patients, a worrying trend where people are allocated to a specific nurse, which should work well, but no one else seems to have a clue what’s happening with them, over reliance on the information stored on the iPad/ computer without knowing the person, target chasing, dare I say it, nursing degrees which seem to have conspired to remove the empathic, non judgemental, non condoning mantra we learnt in the early 80s. Could go on and on and sadly have experienced much of this first hand witnessing the care given to my late mum when she was in hospital

It has not and I am sure you know that. Real time funding was higher before and after the 14 years of Tory.

I’ve seen and also heard about this too. I simply don’t understand how we can have such high unemployment levels but are so dependent on the wonderful people who come from abroad both in the NHS and in the care communities. It’s madness.

Real funding in 2024 was higher than in 2010. The NHS is just a crappy way of delivering healthcare. I like what they do in most of the other world.

Blair and Brown expanded the use of PFI.

Blair's government significantly expanded the use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), scaling it up from a relatively minor policy introduced by John Major’s Conservative government into a major mechanism for funding public infrastructure.

Agree on all those points!

@ExtraOnions

Try going to the USA, where being tens of thousands of pounds in medical debt is almost the norm.

The only alternative isn't the USA. Why don't you compare the NHS to the various different systems throughout Europe, or Canada, or Australia?? We need to look at Europe and adopt that kind of model.

Mental.health crisis is expanding yet i understand there is a recruitment freeze, so newly qualified mental.health nurses, are struggling to find employment. These are people who given funding to train. It doesn't make sense

Agreed, although It's not just the older generations, I'm a Paeds nurse and the improvement in NICU care has massively shifted our role and what we see come through.

The concept of specialist neonatal doctors didn't come around until the 1960s, and at that point, any baby born prior to 28 weeks gestation was unlikely to survive, now the age of viability has changed so much we offer 'active interventions' to babies born as early as 22/23 weeks. That's obviously amazing for those families, but does mean there's a huge increase in babies getting NICU care. Typically they are expected to stay until somewhere near their due date, so you're potentially looking at 18 weeks of (very expensive) intensive care, potentially with multiple surgeries. Large numbers of this cohort as well will suffer neurological or other physical impairment as a result of their preterm birth, meaning they may go home on oxygen, or go on to have tracheostomies, feeding tubes, stomas, catheters, they may require enhanced ongoing care for life, meaning community nurses, additional hospital appointments through childhood, and then into adulthood as well.

Even outside of preterm births, we can do so much to help children born with genetic/other conditions at birth that they too will require lifelong care - I've looked after families who have 5+ children, all with the same/similar conditions and complex needs.

I'm not saying we shouldn't treat these children, it's not my place to play God, but not only is the population growing faster than the rate of healthcare, there is an increasing percentage of the population who will require significant healthcare support. I work in a specialist area and to be blunt, the majority of children I see and care for wouldn't have still been here 50/60 years ago as the technology/knowledge didn't exist to save them 🤷🏼‍♀️

Agree. I hope Reform get in and overhaul it completely. It's a pile of crap.

Everyone trots out the USA as being the only alternative.

I think that the NHS should charge per appointment to keep the time wasters away.
£50 ought to do it.

Completely agree. I think even a charge for GP appointments of less than £10 would drastically reduce the amount of no shows.

The quality of care in the mayo clinic for example in the USA vastly surpasses our mediocre NHS

£50 would make it unaffordable to many who would put off healthcare until they present with more progressed illness at A&E and end up costing more.

Because this is Britain and our politicians copy the Americans at every possible turn. They love the place. It gives them the chance to turn us back into a full oligarchic state again - the empire government called itself not only a democracy but referred to ‘the mother of all parliaments’, a total lie - make more and more money for the rich, and slowly ditch all pretence of democracy and caring about people. We will not be given the choice.

Otherwise they’d be training up locals instead of hiring cheap foreigners.

The NHS has been seriously underfunded for years under the Conservatives. But also I think we should be focusing more on prevention. Giving people access to knowledge about nutrition, more awareness of their health stats and what to do to live a life free from chronic illness as long as they are able. Yes, poverty is a huge issue for many with access to nutritious food so should be tackled alongside. Complications arising from type 2 Diabetes costs the NHS millions and they are trying to educate people on the disease once they have it but would be better to prevent it as long as possible.