What is it people want with the NHS?

[stripyleopardsleep]

Had a lunch gathering this weekend and as often is the case, covid comes up and the vitriol towards the NHS was quite a shock to me.

• NHS is awful, not fit for purpose
• NHS staff are lazy, time wasters
• NHS staff waste appointments and don't know what they're doing
• NHS staff waste money, they shouldn't get any more
• no one wants any more money going into the NHS

The discussion went on....

I'm a hospital worker who has worked through the pandemic and I was quite bruised to hear what they thought about my work life and colleagues who I believe work incredibly hard in a huge unwieldy organisation.

But no one could say what they wanted? What would make it better? What does everyone want from the NHS and how can it be achieved?

People want the best consultant, immediately, GPs to not have a home life and do house calls if need 24/7 on demand, and it would have to be the GP of their choosing.

And lower taxes.

More funding and also a charging system similar to NHS dentists

I think it would be better to privatise healthcare completely.

The majority of the staff I've encountered have been amazing and doing the best they can with what they have but it's not good enough. The NHS is not fit for purpose. The quality of care just isn't there and its very scary.

Yes, we do need changes : more money going into NHS, more doctors and nurses, some hospitals need new equipment, I personally don’t like the idea of mixed sex wards, etc But it’s not the point, the point is that the comments you’ve heard were greatly unfair. I wouldn’t be able to stay at the table listening them and I’m just ordinary service user, not an NHS worker. How awful it was for you, OP, after all your hard work. Believe me, it’s very tiny minority who’s got such a disgusting attitude towards NHS workers, the majority of us really appreciate what you’re doing.

It took me over a year to get diagnosed with cancer because they wouldn't listen to me.

The reason I got cancer is because they convinced me to try a treatment only 10 years old so with limited date but showing a high risk of cancer.

I'm now left with long term side effects of the cancer treatment which wouldn't have been so severe had I been seen earlier.

I haven't had any positive experiences with NHS at all. I've had two operations during covid and the wards were 50% occupied and nurses pretty lazy and quite clearly not short staffed.

How could it be made better - scrap it .

@stripyleopardsleep I want the NHS to be properly funded and supported. My job (bit outing) gives me an insight into how hard you are all working.

I'm fully aware that all of you are doing your absolute best in the most awful of situations.

I have had amazing NHS care during a scary illness over the last year. Right down to the nurse who put her arms around me and held me tight when she wasn't really allowed during a really scary procedure that had me in tears.

I have nothing but love and respect for you all.

Love the nhs

I rarely hear those opinions OP - I hope that’s a comfort.

The NHS is amazing. We have no idea how lucky we are. I’ve personally always had good experiences, although I know people who’ve had mediocre, and a couple of tragically bad ones. I also know from times my work has involved NHS stakeholders the administration can be poor.

We need both better funding combined with better management of resources, which will mean a hefty shift in communications tech, plus a lot of effort put into staff retention, and a drive in primary care to self-monitoring of self to improve health in old age for those that can.

We need to be brave enough for massive overhaul basically - which I think everyone is terrified of, because of the constant evolution, but I think it’s the only way. Some mistakes will be made, as they were when the NHS was set up.

We have to be willing to pay A LOT more, but in return there needs to be accountability.

There also needs to be a parallel revolution to improve lifestyles - and actually I think that’s more of a worry than the NHS, because when commerce (coffee shops, addictive food, diet industry) comes up against health, commerce always wins because it makes money. I don’t know if accepting that climate change comes before economic growth will help us accept health must too. I hope so.

My mum was a nurse, training in the 70s. She always says the rot set in when the nurses stopped cleaning the wards!
The point being, there are just not enough people on wards to service patients. The stories you hear of patients being unable to feed themselves, left in wet bedclothes etc. It would be unthinkable to her. My view is we need more - more beds, more staff more more more. But that's all mo ey and who the hell would choose nursing now when everything you hear is so negative? God knows where we'll end up.

I love the staff in the NHS who for the most part are very caring and doing best with underfunding.

To really see what is best we would need to increase funding significantly and sustain that. At the same time there must be funding for social care. It doesn’t matter how good the NHS is if once people are well enough they can’t leave as have nowhere suitable for step down care. Social care funding must be immediate not in a few years and not out of current local authorities spending or it won’t happen or something else will give.

I will pay more tax, so would DParents.

Harsh comments. I have never worked so hard since I joined the NHS two years ago, I've worked in offices all my life and this has been the biggest challenge.

I would be more surprised to hear that anyone actually thinks the NHS is fit for purpose, when the reality is that it so clearly and obviously isn’t. Compared to healthcare systems in most other comparable large developed countries the NHS is a failed organisation which fails the people who pay for it every day.

People in France, Germany, the Netherlands etc etc don’t get fobbed off by GP receptionists when they need to be seen, or have to wait months for appointments or have to wait years for operations which are cancelled umpteen times. When my bloody dog is ill or injured he gets seen and treated the same day by my fantastic local vet but my mother can’t get the treatment she desperately needs from the NHS. It’s a fucking disgrace, and one we are expected to uncritically worship.

Funding is an issue which needs to be addressed. But so does the structure of a monolithic state bureaucracy in which waste and inefficiency are endemic. The NHS does need more money but I, for one, am not prepared to pay more tax to be poured into the black hole until the government tacles the fundamental structural reforms which are needed.

NHS isn't fit for purpose but it's not your fault.
Due to a alarming number of NHS blunders I lost my triplet sons, however they accepted blame and did make massive changes to ensure it never happened again.

It hasn't been fit for purpose for over a decade... but that's not yours or your colleagues faults. It's the governments for severely underfunding the NHS.

The nhs is shit though. Not individual staff but the system as a whole. It’s a massive waste of money.

Unfortunately the NHS is largely not fit for purpose. This isn’t a slight on anyone working in it.

It’s a severe lack of funding and staffing.

It’s not fit for purpose. It also shouldn’t be seen as ‘free’. People take complete advantage of this knowing their medical condition will be dealt with.

Look at co payment systems. Allow people to take some responsibility for their own health. It’s not free free free and pensioners shouldn’t always be exempt from any charging. Both my PIL are more than comfortable. Women didn’t always pay in in the past. My various relatives well over retirement age either worked part time, or didn’t ever work after having children.

So you now have the working population paying more and more. People are often living well into their 90’s with the kitchen sink being thrown at them every time sometime happens to them.

It’s a brave government who will try and introduce nominal charges. People won’t want to pay a single penny. After all it was free.

What about a referendum regarding charges?

I was a supplier to the NHS, the waste was shocking, no one wanted to make a decision so they have meetings often about meetings and pontificate for months on end about what to do next. It also meant their jobs were protected and justified

Franklin12

I think the opposite can also be true in a way - people don’t complain or are chided for doing so because “it’s free”.

I'd like the NHS staff to just be nice.

I always turn up to appointments, clean, tidy and polite. "Hello thank you for seeing me"

To be met with rude, accusationary staff, speaking to me like I'm a child

I've cried all the way home on numerous occasions

They want instant access to high quality healthcare with no responsibility for their own lifestyle choices and lower taxes.

You need better friends.

I want to be able to call my GP and be seen within a few days not weeks
I want to order a repeat prescription through the app or over the phone, not have to trek down to the surgery to do it
If I have to have further tests I want to have these done straight away
I want to be referred to the hospital and have my appointment within a few weeks

I know at an intellectual level that all areas are chronically underfunded and that’s the root of the problems. But at a user level it’s frustrating, inefficient and hard to navigate.

The NHS is wonderful as a concept, but right now, is broken.

The screenshot that came out where jobs for diversity officers where being advertised at 70k sums up the problem with the structure. Far too many people in the middle on salaries that are far too high when put against the salary that a nurse receives.

The NHS also needs to stop being used as a political weapon, and be open to fair and balanced observation and criticism. The amount of people who just jump on either "the NHS isn't fit for purpose" or "the NHS is only struggling because of the tories" is quite staggering.

I would like the nhs to be funded properly, so that they have enough staff that it's not always on its knees. I'd like those staff to be paid a good wage so that people want to actually go and work in the nhs. I would happily pay increased taxes for this to happen.

Isn't that pretty much what anyone would want?

The nhs is fit for purpose, it's the corrupt government that needs replacing.

Oh, and I've never heard comments from anyone I know criticising the staff in the nhs, everyone I've ever spoken to has the utmost respect for nhs staff (especially my dad, who's having inpatient cancer treatment)

Im an ex employee and I think the NHS is fantastic..........if you get taken in in a dire emergency eg car accident or major accident. However the vast majority of it is a complete shit show. Yes it could do with more funds but it also wastes vast amounts of money. Some staff a rude and surly knowing that aside from medical negligence or gross misconduct they are basically untouchable because the NHS is always so short on staff. Also the general public need to take some of the blame, going to A&E for pathetic reasons or because they can't get a GP appointment when they want one! Not turning up to appointments without bothering to cancel it, demanding cheap medicines etc on prescription because they can get it free! Ringing ambulances because they have a bad toothache or severe period pain, trust me I've seen it all! Then they go on social media and slag off the hospital because they were waiting 6 hours to be seen, conveniently ignoring the fact that if you are waiting 6 hours in A&E then its not a medical emergency and you don't really need to be there!