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.

nooka- I heard that SALT services are assessed on how many people they see. So of course they're not going to want to take on the complex cases.

That would be a trust assessment only I think (or possibly council or Surestart). There are no national ones. Acute services have the 18wk target, A&E have the 4 hour wait, GPs have 24/48 hrs. Community services have none. Which is why you can get huge hidden waits. Most PCTs will have done some modernisation exercises, and SALT is often picked for this because of the cost of the service and number of complaints about waiting times. My local PCT had something like 42 SALTS and maybe 10 OTs/physios, so people didn't take it well when the SALTs banged on and on about how important they were and how there should be more of them (and they get paid more than the other therapists too).

The waiting lists for SALT in Bromley were bloody dreadful. We fell foul of that and it completely cocked up ds1's assessment (meant he was 'missing from the system' for about a year),

Mind you it's just as bad here.

Agree with joolyjoolyjoo. I have always had a better experience at the vets (with cats and dogs) than with hospitals and doctors!

I once saw a french doctor..the difference was huge!

The reason why vets are better than the NHS service is because vets are private, but we all pay for the NHS through tax and NI contributions, so it is not free, but free at point of use.

I think that people's experience at the vet is likely to be as variable as those in the NHS because mostly problems are caused by interactions between people. I would also imagine that experiences might vary depending on how much the pet owner was prepared to pay, and whether they were insured or not. Our vet gives his home phone number for emergencies, and when our cat was run over opened his surgery at 12.30 on a Friday night to see him which was great - but cost I think 200 pounds. But I think that we would all have to adjust our expectations (perhaps appropriately). Our vet has told us on several occasions that it would be very expensive (and pointless) to have investigations undertaken and we have had a number of our cats put down. I have other friends (who went down the insurance route - we haven't) having lots of investigations, experimental drugs and keeping their pets much longer than seemed humane. Actually I think this shows the problems of insurance based medicine.

Yes you are being unreasonable. the NHS may not get it right all the time but when you need it is fab!

I am sick of people knocking it to be honest.

No, YANBU!

YABVU! There is no other country that provides health care to all for such a small contribution, no matter what your condition. If you feel so strongly leave Britain and get healthcare elsewhere, try Italy where no hospital food is provided.
Try Nicosia General in Cyprus- filthy and delapidated.
Try the States where you will need private insurance which you pay a fortune for, only if you have no medical conditions though!
Go to the third world and walk 5 miles to the nearest Dr................

The NHS was not designed for the number of people it serves now. Nobody could have known how quickly medicine would advance in the last 50yrs and all the new drugs/technology cost money. People are living much longer (down to the sterling job hospitals are doing with elderly patients) and therefore supply struggles to meet ever increasing demands. This obviously has an impact on secretarial staff who are under pressure to make all the aqppts etc and juggle patients to get sensible OPA's.

Top Tip don't be so bloody ungrateful

I don't think the fact that vets are private should be a factor in standard of care, tbh. We are all trained. We all know how to do a proper thorough clinical exam and take a history- those 2 things alone cost nothing except time and willingness, and are THE most important part of any investigation. There will be bad vets like there will be bad (or, not so good) doctors, but it seems to me that not-so-good vets lose out while not-so-good doctors have little or no incentive to improve. It's far easier to sue a vet than a doctor- less beaurocracy, doctors seem to have more shields to hide behind. As many have pointed out, the NHS is not free, we need to make sure we are getting the service we pay for, just like we would if we paid at the point of use.

Agree there are problems with insurance based medicine in the veterinary world, but any good vet would not distinguish between insured/ uninsured, and would always put the animals interests first, IME

YABU. The NHS is great

but the admin side of the NHS is shocking. We are currently going through yet another admin farce