I witnessed how fucked up the NHS is

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Last night I had an asthma attack and got a taxi to the nearest A and E. it was like a scene from a zombie movie!

I was rushed through triage and given 2 nebulisers and some oxygen, along with some steroids. After I was stable I was told to wait in the waiting area. It was mostly full of people on drugs, drunks and people asleep on the row of chairs surrounded by multiple carrier bags. I am not trying to disparage these people as they were also patients and needed to be seen. Just describing the waiting room at 11pm on a Bank Holiday Monday in a city centre a and e department.

After 6 hours I still hadn't been seen by a doctor but had to leave as my DS was staying over at my parents and they were dropping him off at 8 am as they were going on holiday. My DH was stuck in Newcastle following a stag break and couldn't get home at 4am. Usually I could have stayed.

Now I am at home with a tight chest (DH rushed home early but a taxi from Newcastle to Liverpool at 5am was too much money). I tried to call my GP for an appointment to get more steroids but after 45 minutes of ringing from 8 there were no appointments left.

This is not the fault of the doctors, nurses, other staff, any patients. This is the fault of this government dragging the NHS to the brink. Please vote them out in May

Sorry, never heard of NHS direct - when was it and where was it - only heard about the 111 and used them as well as the minor I juruies units

However, NHS could be a lot better and sadly, Labour wont be any better but keep on blaming the previous lot until they are kicked out of number 10 again. That politics, playing with peoples lives

@DistinguishedSocialCommentator NHS Direct was introduced by Labour under Blair and ran in England from 1998-2014. As PP said, it was staffed by nurses who could give actual medical advice. The Tories replaced NHS Direct with 111; unlike NHS Direct, 111 is staffed with “telephone advisors” so is cheaper.

Here you go @DistinguishedSocialCommentator: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Direct#:~:text=It%20was%20discontinued%20on%2031,as%20a%20non%2Dgeographic%20number.

NHS Direct was like 111 but better in every way - patients spoke to senior nurses and got actual treatment advice over the phone, not just someone to make an appointment at an out of hours GP service. Labour introduced NHS Direct, but David Cameron abolished it and replaced it with the cheaper and less effective 111. I think that’s an accurate reflection of the Labour and Tory approach to healthcare.

The NHS is screwed and it really scares me. Firstly, not being able to see a GP or waiting weeks for an appointment.
A&Es look like war zones or something seen in third world countries. My 93yr old Dad went to A&E after a fall last year and it basically was responsible for his demise. He was in there for 72 hours waiting for a bed. It was horrendous. So understaffed with people lying everywhere. He became incontinent for the first time. When he was admitted to a ward for help with mobility it got worse. He wasn’t mobilised, fed or washed. He got Covid for the first time. He basically blocked a bed for weeks waiting for a social care package. He died soon after. We need a new system and to look at other countries for better models of health care. The NHS was once great but it certainly isn’t now.

The NHS is terrible under Labour in Wales too, and the SNP in Scotland. I’m in Scotland where the NHS is fully devolved and had to wait over two years for an op. My DD had to wait two years for a surgical tooth extraction for orthdontics and then another ten months to get administrative approval for orthodontic treatment on the NHS even though the NHS had taken her teeth out for it. And don’t get me started on CAMHS and the multi year waits for therapy….

Of course it doesn’t help the NHS in England that they are still paying out billions to cover Labours PFI spending.

Backlog from Covid and worn out staff from Covid.

I was not aware of that. Where would they get the nurses these days??

I guess we can all become experts with the help of a few hours training and a question and answer AI on our computers and this is where 111 comes in - yes, phones are manned by, often by non medically qualified staff and they ask you standard questions, then deviate from the standard questions - then they either tell you to go to A/R or await a call back from doctor/etc

I want a better NHS, but I'm certain Labour is not capable as they are the friends of unions

@gocompare it's a mix of issues really:

• lack of staff (a good number left due to Brexit and there were changes to the funding process for healthcare students, which put a lot of people off). Nursing vacancies in the UK are just over 45,000 and rising for example.

• increased pressure on elderly social care, home carers and care homes. Again, staff vacancies are a problem and a lack of spaces within these services whilst the number of elderly people continues to rise

• massive pressure on mental health services, with particularly severe staff shortages in this sector

• increased poor health within the younger generation (mental and physical, plus addictions that become a healthcare problem later)

• lack of leadership- the NHS has haemorrhaged experienced staff and some managers just don't have the necessary experience to be effective. It can also be difficult to manage ineffective or difficult people out

• the fact that now we can do more to keep people alive for longer means more people with complex health conditions need support

• funding. Very complex- I see so much money wasted every day, that simply flinging money at the NHS won't fix it. It does need more money, but there needs to be an urgent review to look at what current funds are being spent on (in my opinion)

• difficulties accessing GP/outpatient and other community services. Let me point out that a fair number of these are privatised

• increased population means that some healthcentres and hospitals are just not equipped to deal with the numbers of patients they are now expected to see.

OP, I'm sorry that you had a horrible experience in ED. I hope you feel better now and have a productive appointment in August

difficulties accessing GP/outpatient and other community services. Let me point out that a fair number of these are privatised

GPs were always private businesses, like dentist, opticians and pharmacists.

Don’t know why people think the NHS will be any different under Labour. The main issues that need addressing are the multiple layers of management, most of which aren’t needed. The other issue being educating the public when they need to use A&E - a lot just use it as a walk in GP surgery, which obviously impacts those who are there for genuine emergencies. GPS need to pull their fingers out of their arses, and actually do the job they’re paid for - seeing patients. Instead they seem to prefer the idea of doing telephone appointments - it would be interesting to see how many patients they actually see or speak to on a daily basis. I suspect very few.

Yep. We were in a Welsh a&e recently. You phone 111 and they give you a slot for triage.

We were there about four hours in all, DH got his head stapled (he had a fall). A trolley came round at one point with free hot drinks and sandwiches.

Don't believe all you read in the Tory press about Labour run Wales. Things are tough here as they are everywhere, but we're not living in some dystopian hell scape.

@Sloejelly indeed. I don't think I was clear that I meant a lot of community services have been privatised, e.g community nursing and physiotherapy

I agree the NHS is on its knees. It’s absolutely terrifying to think that you cannot rely on an ambulance these days if you should need one.

I cannot see how it could be fixed in the short term and although I saw Starmer say that there’d be millions more GP appointments I am more concerned about the appalling waiting lists in hospitals.

All I want is good schools, safe communities, a safe NHS and a decent welfare state.

We no longer have a minor injuries clinics in my area.

If I was at my old GP practice I would be screwed as people would queue outside front in the early morning to get an appointment as they didn't pick up the phone.

Current GP practice are more responsive so no physical queues and they always try to make emergency appointments as they are managed better.

Oh they were right that it was quicker. My 95 yr Dad had a fall in February. . Fell forwards but was in pain. He had to wait 10 hours for the ambulance. He would have been longer but when he spoke on the phone to the ambulance controller he had the good sense to say that he might have hit his head (in fact later bruising showed that this was true). It pushed him up in terms of priority.

It was awful. We could not pick him up without the help of the paramedics when they came. He wanted to wee, but we could not find a way to help him.

The paramedics were wonderful but when we got to the hospital I could not understand why they had to wait so long to hand over the patient. There seemed to be a log jam in a and e with patients on their trolley waiting for the handover. I wanted to scream to the paramedics to get back out there and pick up other patients who were in the pain Dad had been in.

At the end of the day I had to go into a and e to find a taxi home. It was awful. The place was crowded with a girl in pjs screaming that no one was listening to her. I assume that she wanted some pain meds.

I cannot fault the NHS in the way they looked after Dad once he was admitted to hospital. They kept him in for a couple of weeks and then sent him to a rehab hospital AND sent carers to look after him at home because he and mum are both 95 and live alone - family all live minimum 3 hours travel away which is not ideal but it is what it is. Now 3 months post accident we have to start paying. If they had been more astute their savings would have been put into trusts and then they would not have to pay for their care.

Starmer is trying to get two terms. This is why he let that Dover MP into the party.

@Shortkiwi same sort of experience here.
My dad was knocked over by an ambulance in the car park on the way to an eye appt. Xrayed his head when he insisted it was his leg. Took him home totally immobile where he rang me 3hrs later to say he was stuck on the floor. Waited 5 hrs for an ambulance and another 4 in a and e. No pain relief and sat in his own pee.
3am he was taken to the ward, given paracetamol and put in a gown with his wet clothes shoved under the bed.
Two days of agonising physio and pleading for pain relief and an xray, they decided he'd broken his knee resulting in a thigh to foot cast.
He was in for 6 weeks. Left in wet clothes because he couldn't get to the loo and noone answered the bell. Rang me at home when he couldn't breathe and asked me to ring the ward because noone answered the bell.
Horrendous bedsores.
Wouldn't listen to him when he said he had stomach pain.
Didn't give him his wafarin, diabetes and blood pressure meds were hit and miss.
He died of a perforated bowel. They knew this was the case at 3am. They didn't ring me till 8 when he was already unconscious.

Nhs is very broken.

@Rowgtfc72 I am so sorry. How traumatic that must have been for you. Absolutely disgusting treatment. Your poor father.

@Rowgtfc72 I’m so sorry to hear this - absolutely shocking and heartbreaking - one of the worst things I’ve heard -it’s hard to believe this kind of thing is happening but it is.

I'm sorry for what you went through, but the NHS has seen a record amount of money pumped into it for over a decade and is in it's final stages of decay. It will eventually fall and take out private healthcare with it, and then nobody will have access to any healthcare.

Changing the ruling party doesn't fix anything and more money doesn't fix anything. Labour privatised parts of the NHS over its 13 year tenure, the Tories then ramped up spending and are printing money like never before to try to keep up. The country is fucked six ways from Sunday, which is why Sunak called a GE.

It's not about party politics and it's not about money, it's about how the NHS is run and how money is spent. I don't know how many more years of chucking money at stuff it's going to take for people to realise this.

I'm far and way beyond sick of paying taxes these days.

I've heard that during Covid, people who needed a hospital referral / appointment were not seen as Covid patients needed to be seen first. Now the people who had their appointments deferred are much sicker, so they need more aggressive treatments which take up more time. Also, some doctors, physios, radiographers and nurses have left the NHS due to Covid PTS so there are fewer medics around to deal with the backlog. Any medics around to confirm or deny this?

Sounds awful. I can however only go on my own experiences of the NHS.

Husband broke his collar bone going over his handlebars - he was seen within an hour at minor injuries and had next appointment to discuss options within a week.

Son broke a bone in his foot playing football - went to A&E and was triaged almost immediately and x-rayed within 1 hour.

MiL has cancer. Her treatment has been nothing short of fantastic.

Our GP service however, is pretty crap.

18 months ago my father had numerous falls and collapses from unknown causes. I honestly can't fault the ambulance service in our area. Paramedics came very quickly each time we called them out and the only time we had to wait in an ambulance outside A and E, it was only for a short time. There was one occasion when he was kept in the A and E assessment ward on a reclining chair overnight - and that certainly wasn't ideal - but our NHS experience was fine. It seems that there are areas in England where our experience isn't the norm, but it's not awful everywhere.