What’s the point in the NHS?

[younknow]

I fell over at work today. My ankle was immediately black and blue and swollen, so I hobbled off to urgent care in a taxi.

I waited for four hours, I was x-rayed and told there were no breaks and a severe sprain. The doctor told me I’ve likely torn ligaments in my ankle and will be sore for three months.

I asked what sort of follow up would be given and she all but laughed at me, saying that I could get myself a support on Amazon if I wanted. I said I couldn’t even weight bear and she said I could also pick up crutches if needed. She then said I could refer to physio but “ChatGPT would give me a plan”. I asked if I’d be scanned to find out how badly damaged it is and she said there was no chance.

What is the point? Genuinely, what are we paying for when even things like this are being directed to Amazon and A.I?! I can’t believe it.

I remember 15 years ago my mum tore ligaments in her ankle and she was scanned the same day it happened, put in a boot and on crutches for six weeks, had a course of physio and consultations with an orthopaedic surgeon to discuss a plan if it didn’t improve.

What’s going on?!

Actually I do. I have first hand knowledge of the two hospitals I mentioned. I know which one I’d be asking an ambulance to take me to if I were capable of asking.

People do ask paramedics to take them to a particular hospital and sometimes they do

I know.

Hospitals are run by people. That means there will always be differences.
Even at McDonald's there are ones that are better than others because of the people working there.

Absolutely but there should be universal standards and a fundamental like MyChart is one of them.

But we’re talking about general admin and management which should be consistent not just across trusts but in different depts within the same hospital, such as a consistent system for seeing letters and results on apps, sending out appointments, ability for patients to easily change or cancel appointments etc. That is nothing to do with having more resources to deal with smokers in high smoking areas.

I agree. Or at the very least have all depts in a trust using the same system and all being consistent even if different trusts use different systems. My do has 3 different health conditions at the moment, all dealt with in the same hospital but even appointments are made via different systems, no consistency as to what test results are on the apps, etc. and yes one dept still mostly paper based.

They all use the same ordering app and the same delivery mechanism to deliver the same menu.

Those are the basics were talking about not whether someone cooks a burger better than someone else.

Between us we have visited 6 ologies in 5 different NHS hospitals in the last 18 months and we've never even heard of MyChart!

I'm sorry but we know to our cost that we aren't the ones who don't know what they are talking about here. You sound as though you don't use multiple hospitals/specialisms enough at the moment to understand what's going on in them. I hope you don't get to that point but if you before they get to grips with it, you will find out.

Nail on the head. Even different departments of the same hospital use different systems for the basics like checking in and appointments and test results.

Again, nail on the head. My DH has 3 different serious conditions so we see it almost every week. Different depts in the same hospital may as well be in different countries. Not just lack of consistency in the basics but they are also incapable of direct communication even if just across a corridor. As for the “link” between the hospital and gp surgery, they may as well be on different planets. Enormous amounts of time and money could be saved with standardisation of the basics to stop all the time wasting, wasted appointments, duplicated tests, etc. People can’t appreciate the scale of the problem until they experience it for themselves. Trouble is the staff within the NHS are silo-d in their own departments and don’t see how things work in others until they experience it themselves as a patient/carer. Far too much “re-inventing the wheel” by managers in their own personal fiefdoms.

GP last year ordered hand x rays in February. Rheumatologist in April can't see them because they were ordered by the GP, so orders more. I can't see either set, or even the fact they were taken, on the NHS App or anywhere else. But I can read how desperately short of radiologists the NHS is reported to be.

And until they get to grips with this nonsense, which is being repeated thousands of times a day up and down the country across all sorts of disciplines, then I don't support any calls to increase to the NHS budget.