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.

laparoscopic liver resection?Oh remarkable on way to recovery up and mobilising-fab. are you ok post-op?definitely hope you continue to do well

and yes health children do not routinely need to see a paediatrician.at all

the best assessment is the parents who know their child best

Glad to hear you are up and about, ThingOne. Hope they've got it and you recover really well.

You are quite right about the private sector - full of dodgy docs who don't know what they are doing (and some good ones - but as a patient it's very hard to spot the difference). There's one high profile private maternity hospital popular with celebs that has managed to kill several women and children through basic neglect.

And my poor 88 year old godmother has been left permanently disabled by a 'successful' double knee replacement at the Nuffield. The actual op was a success, but appalling nursing care left her with a serious infection that has snowballed into permanent disability. She was lucky not to lose her foot - no thanks to Nuffield who said 'piss off and by the way, here's a bill for £15,000'.

Btw, it's the NHS that saved her foot after the Nuffield told her to bog off.

yes edam and thingOne private not necessarily best.what dreadful experiences!

the thing is majority of the private hosp do not have full clinical provision eg ICU and will transfer to to NHS if things deteriorate

the programme about the private mat hosp didnt imbue me with confidence either, looked bit slap dash.yes also some horrific avoidable deaths and malpractice their too

My dad (a retired consultant) used to complain abiut the number of times that they in the NHS had to fix cock-ups from the private sector.

Yep! I had laparoscopic liver resection on Friday. I came home on Sunday. The surgeon was happy for me to be discharged on Saturday evening but I couldn't face the two hour drive, nor was I wholly confident about the idea.

I am mobilising very well. I can't bend very well yet so I'm taking that carefully. My bum is sore from previous treatment so I usually stand all day rather than it down but I have had to take the hit and sit a bit more this week.

The surgeon has been doing the operation for over a year and is in "double figures". I decided that makes it "pioneering" rather than me a guinea pig . Mind you, I'd have said yes to being a guinea pig. And said surgeon does obviously also have a thriving private practice .

I agree anbout the private health sector - I was on call in the labs one night when a lady came in to our hospital (NHS)- she had been a patient of a private maternity hospital and 2 weeks previously had gone to them and said "my waters have broken". "Rubbish" they said, "go away". [paraphrasing, you understand!]. So she went back after 2 weeks to the same hospital, for them to discover that she had a dry uterus with infection (luckily the baby was alive, god knows how) and she was rapidly transferred to our hospital to sort it out.
Which we did!

And it doesn;t even need ICU sometimes - one of our staff had varicose veins stripped at the adjoined private hospital, but when she went back to them with what turned out to be a deep vein thrombosis, they bunged her back to the NHS again - it's not THAT hard to treat a DVT!

I know it's frustrating at times but it makes me cross when people slag off the NHS. I really think many people don't realise how lucky we are to have it at all.

My DD is alive and thriving. Without it she would be dead. There is no way on earth we could have afforded the treatment she needed in the first few months of her life if we had had to pay for it. It's as simple as that.

there is a huge amount of work seen and unseen(labs,pathology,pharmacy,admin) that all contribute to care.it is actually pretty remarkable

elsewhere it is not free

scanned thread, and for the second time ever in MN history, i agree with scottishmummy

Steady on i had a ready reckoner of 3 affirmatives from you

Yes it's shite.

It's a service that for non-fatal conditions prioritises 'easy to fix' over need.

Utter shite.

have you had a bad experience?

Nothing is worse than the fear of people who aren't rich who live in the USA! That is really scary when you can't afford the treatment and you can't get insurance for your condition!

I love the NHS, warts and all, I've lived in the US, it's terrifying.

The average cost of having a baby there in 2004 was $7,600.

Ouch

Well, I'm currently experiencing a top-class service from the NHS, including all aspects of admin and communication. For a condition of DS's which is neither an emergency or life-threatening - but is a huge very very expensive procedure as an answer to a long-term quality of life / future health issue.

The only problems we have had have been with services which have been 'externalised' by the NHS to private companies - i.e orthotics, and a high st pharmacist who nearly did for DS last week by mis-dispnsing.

Sorry your DD is so unwell, and hope the cock-ups re her apointments are sorted soon It is immensely, unbelievably frustrating when that sort of thing happens, and sucks the capacity fo reason out of you. So, YABU but understanably so.

Was that to me scottishmummy?

I have had years of banging my head against a brick wall. Most of my experience is with SALT. If you have a condition that can be fixed in 6 weeks you'll get it. If you haven't, you won't. If you can't communicate because you have no speech at all you will get no SALT unless you reach 5 and can access it via a special school.

I've watched children with the most severe and profound disabilities unable to get wheelchairs that fit or special shoes that fit. And so on and so forth. The more complex your condition the less likely you are to get anything.

Ds1 desperately needs OT. This need greatly affects his day to day functioning. It would be of huge benefit to him. None is available (although he had an NHS distance assessment that told us he desperately needs an OT ). I can't even pay for it down here, it doesn't exist. I'm taking him to shiatsu (paid for by me of course) on Saturday to see if that helps.

I had very quick and efficient service when a lump on my lip was removed. But for anything complex and non life-threatening? Forget it. Even if it has a massive effect on your daily life.

Jimjams - you are right about the on-going support services...and suspect that those are most subject t the 'poscode lottery effect, as often come from the local PCT. Or are services that have been externalised.

Community services (which includes most paediatric therapies) have a tendency to get squeezed whenever there are financial pressures. This is because the big money all goes to hospital service (by their nature acute). Under payment by results if the service is used then it has to be paid for, so PCTs have no control over their costs (this is where most overspends occur). GP services also eat a big chunk of the budget, and again the payment systems are set nationally and PCTs find it hard to control them - when the Quality and Outcomes Framework was introduced (with the idea of paying for quality as well as volume) PCTs were told they were not allowed to use it for performance management (ie pay less to poor practices) as that was the agreement between the government and the BMA. So what a surprise, it was hugely expensive. The result is that PCT budgets are pressured from two directions, and community services get squeezed because that's the only area money can be cut from, and there are no targets for community services (the government is just not very interested in these services) Mental health has in the past been an easy target too.

Do you think the Bercow report will help SALT nooka?

Depends what weight it is given by government. Recommendations like "We further recommend that, when issuing guidance to local authorities and schools
on the use of funding, including that for personalised learning, the DCSF emphasises
the importance of meeting the needs of all children and young people with SLCN." This does not imply any additional funding will be identified, and I think there will be a fair amount of resistance to calls for SLCN to be considered more important than all other calls on resources, especially given that in many areas SALT is much better resourced than physio or OT services. However as I'm on a career break I don't know how local commissioners have reacted to this one.

YANBU, but.....

Like OP, I work for the NHS and I know its many faults from the inside.

I had my daughter in April, and I was astounded, yes really. by how wonderful my care was. I had a main midwife, with other midwives covering her breaks, for 14 hours and was never left alone for a second. And they were all fabulous. I was very proud of the NHS, and proud to be a part of it.

Also, NHS in england and Wales and NHS in Scotland are very different beasts, with very diverse populations to serve so I appreciate that experiences will differ..in all the home countries.

Hmm good point nooka. OT is even worse.

I've had exactly the same thing with appointment letters - a letter telling me that an appointment I knew nothing about was cancelled. and 3 changes at very short notice. it's incredibly annoying but other than that I am amazed how good they can be when needs must.

The campaign to be had is to introduce targets, at least for waiting times for community services. Of course targets create distortion, but they also make services much more visible, and there just aren't any meaningful ones for community services. The other thing that will probably make a difference (although in principle I disagree with it as it's very simplistic) is to move community services to being commissioned, because that would make the temptation to slice money off them when times are tough less easy. It's crazy in a time when services are supposed to be moving to the community to have all the power in the hands of the hospitals, but unfortunately for many people NHS = National Hospital Service, not health service. Interestingly the one good thing about the States (and this was a big surprise) is that children's therapy services seem to be accessed through schools, and are therefore free. ds is going to have OT support for his handwriting next term, which is something I hadn't even thought to try and access in the UK (he did have one OT assessment where they thought he was borderline - just minor sensory issues).

I'm glad we have the NHS, but I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. On one hand, it kept my mum alive and treated for 25 years (despite some horrendous and indefensible mistakes), but it also gave up on her in her last few weeks- even to the point of making sure she was comfortable when she was dying - basically she died after being left without any treatment over a long weekend because her named doctor was on holiday and, reading between the lines, she wasn't worth it . Also watched my FIL die in agony and without any dignity, due to lack of basic care. I am a vet and would never allow a dog to die the way he did.

The NHS is only as good as the people who work for it. I have some good experiences and many bad ones, but on the whole I'm glad we have it. As a vet, I am aware of the cost of medical care/ drugs etc. But I have to say I'm usually far more impressed with the hospital staff than any GPs I've seen (with a few exceptions) I expect the same service I would give a client with an animal, and depressingly rarely get it. No history taken, no clinical examination, just a cursory nod and a prescription. I know they are busy- so are we!! We never refuse to see any animal, so are often double booked, and still make sure each case gets the proper care and attention- maybe because people are paying we feel we have to offer more, I don't know. I can't help being not very sympathetic to "poor" GPs with their salary 5x ours, and their ability to refer all troublesome cases to a handy specialist! I don't doubt that they SHOULD earn more than vets- of course they should, they are responsible for humans who are obviously more important than animals. But you would think that that being the case, they would be thorough and diligent, which is often sadly not the case. I'd be happy to get the same level of care for my kids that I would give a cat or dog!