To thnk the NHS is a waste of time, space, money and effort?

[NigellaTheOriginal]

I should know I work for it but that's a whole new thread.

this morning get a letter from Hospital A -

;'You didn't bring DD2 to appointment with paediatrician so you'll have to wait until December for another appointment' HUH - what appointment - I knew nothing about it.

Second letter from Hospital B -

'DD2s appointment with gastro specialist booked for next week has been cancelled and her next appointment will be in October'

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Bastard, stupid, feckers.
am fecking, bloody furious. Stupid administration shite - couldn't organise a cup of fecking tea withou screwing it up.
Will be making a number of irate phone calls.

Try getting therapy on the NHS. Non-existent in our area - DS2 was referred in September for physio, OT, SALT and portage, and since then he has had three different physios, who until yesterday hadn't seen him since April, an OT who only wants to push special equipment, a SALT who only offers group sessions once a month (which coincided with DS2's private phsyio so we didn't get ANY) and a portage worker, who is not a portage-trained worker, but only agency staff, who since september came three times (she's not coming again because they are term time and they are going on strike for Wed and Thurs this week).

Needless to say we have gone private. I am seriously considering sending the local PCT a bill for all our private expenses. It would horrify you the amount we have spent...

yabu - I would be incredibly frustrated with your situation but imagine where we would be if we had no free healthcare.
My family are from Africa and my Auntie had a stroke my mum was able to fly out she had to pay for everything right down to needles, catherters, physios etc. Luckly mums a midwife and could take care of the nursing duties otherwise she would have had to pay for that as well. Without my mum her sister would have died.
The NHS has also saved my friends son who where diaognised with a brain tumor at two and now been given the all clear at 7 after serveral operations.
Yes everyone has had good and bad experiences and it could do with improvements but I am gald we have the NHS as we could not afford private healthcare.

The NHS is great in an emergency but they are crap at the day-to-day stuff.

We changes servers recently

It's only weakness is that there are so many of us - it is fucking miraclous that it works at all!

I'm an administrator in the NHS.

It's not always the administrator's fault that appointments get cancelled. Some doctors are notoriously bad at booking leave and not telling anyone until a few days before.

I have had Consultants that I work for summoned to a meeting by the Senior Managers who have insisted that a full clinic is cancelled.

In my last job (13 hours) my full-time colleague left and not replaced. I was expected to cover her job as well as the one I was already doing - still in 13 hours. It was impossible. I decided my priority was to process the referrals and get patients booked in to the clinics. I was berated by the Management because I hadn't submitted my statistics and waiting times. They tried to tell me that I had to do this instead of booking the clinics, leaving clinics empty and patients waiting longer.

Other countries also have bureaucracy that drives you mad, you know!

Just try living in France where you bloody know it's certainly not free at the point of delivery and it takes ages to get the money back!

MM

YABU but I understand your need to vent - my DS seems to always go into the systems twice so I end up with 2 letters for appts; he doesn't have a very common name, so you would think they might be able to spot he is the same person, iyswim.

I might be slightly biased too as I worked for them for 11 years! But had excellent service when I had DS.

blame the fecking computer systems and the post!

considering the pressure,targets, limited resources and volume of work i think it is pretty damn good considering

it is free at point of delivery,eg pint of receiving clinical intervention/treatment
give birth in NHS suite ,
recover from Surgery,
survive an RTA
spontaneously attend the A&E without an appt (long wait though!) without getting an invoice
GP attendance free

many recognisable problems too
infection control
Consistency of standards
Satisfaction with care received
limited community/pct resources
waiting lists
huge case loads
dreadful pay considering challenges remit of role
Poor recruitment and retention
Admin staff paid appalllingly low wages
HCA paid appalling wage

BUT actually vent your anger at the Director or Chief Executive of your trust. these are the anonymous suits and button monkeys who claw back money, squeeze resources, decrease budgets.

genuinely most clinician comes into NHS out of a sense of vocation and desire to do the right thing

but you have to work within the constraints of the system.acknowledging its many faults but trying to change from within. VVEasy to be ideologically pure should do this that etc until faced with the actual real pressures.

the move towards foundationstaus has resulted in a financially competitive model having precedence over everything else inc good clinical

the NHS relies heavily on the goodwill of all its staff most people do extra hours here there, work through lunch,cover absent colleagues workload, cover for frozen posts and for sweet FA thanks usually

nigella, sorry to read about all your hassles

me- well i had severe PE, HELLP and an emergency CS and 4lb baby. so yes VV Grateful

oh yes, and the managers - most of whom never worked in the NHS and therefore have feck all knowledge of how to manage the system

As you say, you work for the NHS, so truthfully you know how hard everybody works to get waiting times down and patients seen !

You are just angry with the mix up. Also, if so pissed off with work, leave and go and work private instead.

NHS mangers come from different backgrounds some clinical some not. prblem being even the clinical ones have been away from real life practice for so long they forget the pressures

really how it works is a competent Nurse/Doctor can go for a manangement role and never actually practice again. so they are promoted out of what they did best. Desk job with budget,strategies,DoH targets, Foundatioin status no pesky pts though

Of course YABU, it is clearly not a waste of time, space, money and effort.

Lots wrong with it, including your recent experience, very annoying. But having seen that programme recently about it's beginnings, the number of people with serious conditions who had not gone for treatment because of the cost, the reduction in infant mortality and all that, can't possibly say those things about it.

I think we all take it for granted a bit too much. Not to say it doesn't need vast improvement, absolutely, but it's there and it is free at point of delivery. Far as I know the only things we pay for are dental treatment and prescriptions (some people).

More than happy to be corrected about that if I am wrong.

YABU
I don't feel like humouring you
I work for the NHS too. I'm not perfect and I bet you're not either.
Try being reasonable. Most people do their best for you if you don't treat them like morons.

Yes because of course you'd be so much better off if there wasn't a paed or a gastro specialist to see your dd. If instead you had to pay £thousands to see someone privately.

If you seriously think the NHS is so bad why don't you opt out and go private, or just not bother getting any medical help for you dd?

Sorry, but YABU. You have obviously had a hard time of it and it must be frustrating, but the NHS as an institution is something we should all be proud of and support. The alternative - such as in the USA - where you have to pay it would be a lot worse, believe me. If you don't like it, you do have the option of going private and paying for your care. I am eternally grateful that i can go to my GP or to the A&E department with my children and not have to be worrying about how I will pay for it - unlike fiends of mine in other countries. I also work as a nurse for the NHS and, believe me, the pay, the conditions and the bloody targets have driven me mad over the years but I would so much rather have this than a private healthcare system. No system is perfect, none, but I guess you really don't know what you've got till it's gone.

It's the admin side I find totally incompetent. For emergencies they are fantastic without a doubt, and I speak from a couple of experiences. But for routine stuff like follow up appointments to the emergencies - awful.

Ds had a follow appointment last week at the fracture clinic. I was actually impressed - he was x-rayed and seen by an SHO and Reg. within an hour of arriving. But apparetnly that clinic was an extra one they fitted in, so those patients who the Dr. wanted to have follow ups the next week have no clinic to go to - ds is one of them. Yesterday I phone (again) to be told that they will see only 3 follow up cases from last week on top of the normal fracture clinic appointments. The clinic is tomorrow and I am STILL waiting to hear whether ds is deemed urgent enough to be seen tomorrow, or whether he has to wait two weeks. (FWIW if he isn't seen tomorrow I will be spending the day in A & E becuase I am not happy with the progress he is making) - but it shouldn't be that way.

However to answer the OP - no I don't think the NHS is a waste of space, money etc. just that it could be so much better.

Oh, and my comments are made having experienced a couple of horrendous mistakes when giving birth to DS leaving me very ill and untreated.

But I still think YABU.

Titchy that sounds to me like a manager has approved an extra clinic to cut down waiting times, but hasn't thought the whole thing through with regard to the follow ups. And it might be that the doctors haven't prioritised the patients yet so the administrator can't let anyone know. They are quite possibly sat in their office right now tearing their hair out because they need to be contacting people and are on the receiving end of stroppy phone calls.

YABU.....totally. My partner works for the NHS....if you dont like ir requalify in a different feild or go private...i would say the same to anyone who moans about their job....you are the only one that can change that...get over it.

The NHS has helped memebers of my family through cancer that would otherwise have killed them as they could not afford private. It has its faults LIKE anything....but come on....jeez....{incredulous look}

I'm sorry you are frustrated but at its best the NHS (IMVHO) cannot be beaten.

surfermum - yes I think that's exacty what happened - but surely they are experienced enough to realise that some patients will need another follow-up! And having had the extra clinic last Wednesday why are they waiting till this morning to go through the notes? The receptionist last Wednesday alerted them to the fact that they hadn't any provision for extra follow-ups!

Funny you should say this I got a hospital appointment card for a man I had never heard of sent to my house. I tried to find out if he lived locally using various address/phone websites but couldnt find him (I would have posted it on to him)

Then I tried to ring the phone number on the front of the card...I looked too short but I thought Id give it a shot anyway...obviously the hospital were meant to put extra numbers on the end of it so it was unobtainable!

So I posted it back to the hospital...where I am sure they lost it.

Im guessing he didnt make his appointment