The NHS: ain't it marvellous

[policywonk]

DS2 poked me very hard in the eye today (so if you've ever imagined poking me very hard in the eye, you're in luck).
So I took myself off to my local walk-in centre and was seen within 20 mins by a nurse who was skilled, fast, kind and funny.

This is on top of having two other kinds of outpatient hospital treatment in the last six months, which between would have cost me thousands of pounds.

Without exception, the staff I've seen have been fantastic, the treatment has been swift and effective, and the waiting times have been minimal. The worst I can say is that the premises won't be featuring on 'Grand Designs' any time soon.

Admittedly I live in an affluent area and I'm sure that helps - but I was thinking on the way home today how lucky we are to live in a country that provides us with such a fantastic service.

Bless you my children.

I have to say I feel quite differently towards our local hospital than I do to the specialist unit.

Our local was filth, real deep ingrained filth. I used to catch the cockroaches and hand them to the night sister. I took my own cleaning products and scrubbed the rooms whenever my DD was admitted. The cleaners were morose, sullen and rude. they would barge into our room using brooms etc that had been used in other rooms. My DD had no immune system and an infection could have killed her. I have bitter memories and dreadful flashbacks because of this. Of course we met with wonderful compassion and received fantastic care but the fear that that dirt caused stays with me now. That is avoidable. Using cleaners who go from ward to ward and have no investment in what they are doing causes sloppiness and lack of care. How can take pride in your work if you dont work in the same place from day to day.

The NHS DID make mistakes in my DD care. She had so MUCH of it, something had to go wrong every now and then. But it was how those mistakes were handled that made the difference. I remember one poor nurse who was absolutly distraut (sorry sp) that she had punctured a bag of chemo. How could we be angry at a geninue accident? It put us out quite a lot but in the scheme of things it was not life or death. When a my DD had a severe reaction to blood products and almost died it was decided she must not recieve blood out of hours. The very next day she needed a transfusion. The blood was not ordered till much too late, arriving at past 8pm. I tried to chase it up, frantic with worry. i was told by a nurse 'there are lots of sick people who need blood you know, not just your child'. He had not even bothered to read her notes and had no idea why I was so worried. He had me down as a selfish, neurotic mother. Did he apologise when he found out? What do you think?

Unfortunately the bad times do stick in your head. they are what keep you up at night. They are what I see in my nightmares.

This is why all care professionals are under such pressure to be at their best at all times. I am not sure I would be up to it.

policyW This sort of thing happened fairly often in my local, not always with chemo but with stuff my DD was violently allergic to. Eventually I made it known that nothing at all could be done to DD without me there. It sounds paranoid but it was something that had to be done.

But I still firmly believe that the NHS is bloody wonderful.

Thanks dustbuster.........i channel myself towards helping others by always telling people in similar situations about Winstons Wish
[[http://www.winstonswish.org.uk/]

When i have my 40th birthday party in April i am not having presents but will asking for donations for WW and my sons school for deaf children.

Sorry to hear about your DS and DH too, Lottie.

The outsourcing of NHS cleaning services seems to have been a truly disastrous decision. As you say chegirl, anyone who gives it a little bit of thought should be able to see that agency workers on the minimum wage aren't going to have much motivation to do the sort of in-depth job that's going to be necessary.

LottieJ

Winstons Wish are a fantastic organisation and have been very helpful. I only wish they could have a service in every part of the country.

what a lovely positive nhs thread....must admit all my ersonal experiences with the nhs have been great....
I , however, will refrain from going back into nursing, because I think nurses get the hardest deal here....and it's sooo wrong.....

but, I am now training/studying to become an OT

"suspect specialists only take a genuine interest and try to be nice when you are a paying customer, it's only human nature. " That's absolutely not my experience, higgle, and I genuinely don't believe that humans in general are primarily motivated by money. The NHS and most UK universities wouldn't exist if that were the case...

Personally I have not noticed much difference between the behaviour of specialists in a private or NHS context. Sometimes it has even taken me longer to see a consultant privately because there are fewer clinics. However privately you probably get 30 minutes including small talk, whereas is the NHS it's more like 15 minutes with less small talk. Clinic timings can be more accurate in the private sector as well. Same medical content and outcome though.

Administrators can be more efficient in the private sector, but not always. They do tend to be more polite though.

Nurses and midwives have more time to chat to you and offer emotional support in the private sector. They are less likely to be rushed off their feet. Similar standard of medical care though.

You do get more peace and quiet in a private hospital, and more choice of food, as well as the option of being able to buy the same food for your guests relatively easily, and eat sociably with them. The food is less carb-based and more modern and healthy.

Also some private hospital have no MRSA cases at all, which is very reassuring.

Free parking near where you are going to be is a big bonus if you are unwell.

However the best of NHS care meets all these standards, which is something to be proud of.

I had a fabulous NHS gynae.......he looked after me with my first pregnancy then when my son was born and sadly died the gynae met with my husband and i to explain everything. When i was pregnant with my second son he treated me like cut glass, he saw me every two weeks, he had me admitted for a weeks bedrest too as i had pre eclampsia. When my second son was born he wouldnt let me leave the hospital till he had been to meet him!

That is lovely to hear lottie, and I am getting similar care from my NHS obstetrician at the moment, which just goes to show what is possible.

I have worked as a nurse in NHS hospitals, and also private hospitals.

I would not allow one of my family to have an operation in a private hospital. The back up system is just not there.

Sure, you get a nice private room. But who wants to be blue lighted across town to the NHS hospital when things go wrong?

I have to agree Cheshirekitty.

Ensuite bathrooms and tea trays with doilies do not make up for the fact that there is no medical cover after 1800. When I did my first night shift at Bupa I was horrified to hear that if any of my post op patients went off I was to call 999!

As a nurse I think a lot of the problems in the NHS frustrate ground level staff too - poor cleaning, expensive parking (staff have to pay to park too), overcrowding and understaffing. But most staff in the NHS work there because they are genuinely kind, caring people who want to do the best for their patients.

Without the FANTASTIC NHS DH would now be dead (it was a miracle they pulled him through and they even admitted that).

We were given the option to go private but declined as we found that the nurses seemed much more experienced and interested in you as a person.

Only thing I noticed (and this is not a bad thing)is that the urgency of treatment is high/fast when needed but you sometimmes have to chase when it is minor.

I bloody LOVE the NHS

I will always remember my DD's face when she was old enough to go on the teenage cancer trust's unit and saw her room!

It had a flat screen telly attached to the internet, colour therapy lights, photographic murals and really nice en suite.

It made SO much difference to her well being.

When she was first DX and she opened her eyes in the old Middlesex Hospital (now sadly gone) she bawled 'you told me it would be niiiicce!' Poor child was expecting a lovely kids ward but got a crumbling, ancient ward with only a few private 'cells'. But we LOVED that ward, loved it. As soon as we got there I felt safe and hopeful. The nurses and drs were wonderful. It was my safe haven. When we had to leave the ward for scans etc there was sometimes trouble and I had to be larey and pushing (not want you want to do when your world has fallen in). We would get a call to go down to the scan and then be told 'go and wait over there'. My baby would be in pain, immuno suppressed, embarrassed and very ill. They expected her to sit around until they were ready, surrounded by germ ridden people (not their fault) and those pissed or off their nuts. Just because it made thier life a bit easier. When I would tell them to call me when they were READY they would look at me as if I were mad! When my darling relapsed she had to have a scan before treatment. She was screaming in pain and every movement was agony. We got her down to the scanner and this bitch looked at her watch and said 'well I really havent got time to see her now, and she cant come in on that bed' She refused to bring the portable scanner up to the ward. This voice came out of no where screaming that some one better do something now and that someone had better be flexible this child cant be. I realised it was me, screaming my head off . I wasnt proud of it but it worked and my girl was scanned and started chemo which stopped her pain.

How could someone look at a 13 year old girl , crying in pain, newly relapsed with a terminal illness and look at their fricken watch?!

I hope that woman wakes at night at the memory because I bloody do.

I STILL love the NHS though

Your story is very similar to mine, lottie - the cons treated us like royalty, we had every care, and the sonographer who gave us the bad news about dd1 came rushing up to the ward as soon as she heard dd2 was born - apparently the whole ultrasound unit was all excited!

Its great isnt it. all the same staff were on the ward when we went back and the midwife who supported me when Jack died kept in touch with me and delivered Wilf. When he was a few minutes old all the midwives came in to see him!
The hospital chaplain wasnt in the hospital when Jack died and the sister on SCBU christened him. The chaplain came to see me afterwards and again when Wilf was born she came onto to ward and blessed Wilf and gave him a small copy of the NT. In fact he must have been one of the most welcomed babies. After the service in the hospital he was christened in our family church where my late dh and i were married and Jack is buried, he was then welcomed at our local church. The vicar who married us and buried Jack was due to retire when i was pregnant with Wilf and asked to come out of retirement to christen Wilfred. He also did the same when my DH died.

Oh, how lovely! Yes, dd2 certainly felt like a celebrity baby. It's a huge hospital, but we were certainly not just a number to them, and I've heard that from people who've had "normal" births at our hospital. Love it, love it, love it. And love our GPs too. Fucking excellent, the lot of them.

Yes. It is.

not quuite as dramatic as you and habs, lottie, but when i was in with prem dd2 soooo many of the daycare staff and sonographers who'd seen me with dd2 AND even dd1 came to visit. imo they really care.

the hospital where I worked had a private hospital attached to it - I agree that having an operation on private health can be quite risky, as if anything goes "wrong", the patient has to go back to the NHS hospital for further care. Whenever there was a serious heart op due in the private hospital, it couldn't go ahead unless there was an ICU bed available in the NHS hospital for the aftercare.

One of our staff got her varicose veins done in the private hospital - when she got a DVT, it was straight back to the good ol' NHS to sort it out.

Many consultants work in both the NHS and the private hospitals, and they were fine, but I had to deal with some truly dreadful registrars and more junior doctors in the private hospital who had no clue how to behave. I should add that the private hospital of course used the NHS labs - while they paid for it (or rather, their "customers" did) they were still using NHS resources (and therefore our time) and these occasional arrogant bastards seemed to think we were there for their sole benefit. WRONG!