Hospital

[Igottastartthinkingbee]

Anyone watching? A stunning insight into the running of a busy London hospital. Cannot believe the amount of time highly skilled doctors are forced to waste waiting for beds to become available. And the poor man with oesophageal cancer who's operation was cancelled for the second time. Wow. NHS is at breaking point!

Was wondering as my hospital does putbthem in recovery.

You can push it with recovery if you think you're going to get a bed fairly soon. It's a big gamble if you've no bed in sight. Depends on how sick you expect the patient to be after surgery too I think.

How gutting to get so close to starting.

You can't keep a patient in recovery for days though.

This is terrible- all these highly skilled people, all this organisation, months of hard work getting everything organised only for the operation to be cancelled at the last minute! How much money is that down the drain? Because I am assuming all these people still have to be paid? And what about the patient?

I know there are problems but the NHS is awesome, and I am so proud to work for it!

This programme just highlights how stretched the NHS really is. This is normal, cancelling life saving operations shouldn't be normal but it is.

I don't think I've seen so many people in an operating theatre.

Oh, how sad.

Oh how sad. I was willing him to survive.

Oh he was lovely. I thought he'd be ok. So very sad.

Oh no, poor Mr Lai. How devastating for his family and everyone involved in his care.

My operation was cancelled.

My work replacement had been hired and been trailing me for 10 days; I had relatives travelling many hundreds of miles to help with the children; I'd hired a cleaner etc

A lot of prep goes into going into hospital. It added tremendously to the worry & stress already felt about the operation.

*at the last minute.

Prophet. Yes it's incredibly stressful. I had my MS treatment delayed by a week last year and had to phone every day for a bed. Was really stressed this year as its scheduled for next week and the hospital it going between black and red. Fortunately they told me the other day I can go to day care. Huge relief. Just wish they'd told me a while ago though!

So sad for Mr Lai and his family

and Dolly, not being able to go home, i think times have changed when family cant take you in, on the ground floor with help, that she had to go to convalescence.
people are too busy trying to earn a living
i wonder what happened to the man who slept in the car too?

as pointed out, it is social issues that are impinging on the NHS. we all live in box houses with no room for extended family and no time to care.

The programme is shocking at showing the absolute gridlock the hospital beds, icu and theatres are in.

It was so sad that Mr Lai died as he and his wife were so close. It was not clear if it was directly linked to his operation through. I know the NHS has problems but I am soimpressed by the commitment and care the staff put into saving individual lives.

I fear what will happen if we suffer another terrorist attack or a big motorway crash etc. The NHS is simply at breaking point after years of under funding, not just itself but in social care and mental health funding.

This programme provides a vivid insight into the pressures the the NHS is under. I am so impressed by the professionalism of all the staff shown. I really do not know how they cope with what must be the relentless stress.

It maybe the way that the programme was edited but I would question why the discharge nurse was having to wander the hospital corridors asking seemingly random members of staff whether they spoke Polish. Would it not be better for HR to have a database of staff who speak different languages and are prepared to interpret.

The news about Mr Lai was so upsetting. My heart goes to his wife. It was clear that they had a very strong a loving relationship.

I'm just watching it now and had to go on to MN to see if anyone else. It's heart breaking. I actually feel for the surgeons who are battling to save their patients lives. It really makes me think about what the Red Cross said about this being a 'humanitarian crisis'. Making a cancer patient sit on a chair for hours and sending him home for the second time is inhumane.

I was in tears at poor Mr Lai.

Mainly I was angry though - all those surgeons, theatre staff, cleaners, equipment, unused because there just aren't the beds to let the surgeons get on with their jobs. The NHS needs more money, but you can almost see the ££ mounting up as one op after another is cancelled.

Not to mention that surgeons shouldn't be stalking the corridors horse-trading over beds and discharge times.

Incredibly upsetting.

Thank you to everyone in the NHS - you do a great job in difficult circumstances. I'm sorry you're hobbled like this.

I've just finished episode 1. I'm so gutted for Simon and his lovely wife. When they walked out of the hospital after being told the cancer hadn't spread, they reminded me of dh and me when we got the news that dh's cancer hadn't spread. Life is so cruel but I suppose we can say the medical staff did everything they could for him.

Regarding interpreters - we have immediate access to phone interpreters but it's not always easy to use and not a great experience for patients. People tend to get to know who can speak which language in their own area but you have to be a bit cautious. Fine for the porter or whoever it was to interpret that sort of conversation about social arrangements but if it had been an in depth medical conversation they would probably have preferred to get a trained interpreter. Like everything else in the NHS it's more complicated and expensive than it seems. The turnover of staff is massive. I doubt any HR department could keep up with a language register.

I'm just home from work. I am a NHS manager. Good day today as we had a little bit of movement and the emergency admits were down on what we've seen this month but still struggled with electives and getting patients out of ICU. It's really hard.

As a senior ward nurse I spent many a day organising beds. Id go home and think I've not even spent time with a patient. I got tired of getting shouted at everyone about the bed situation.

Nurses took on jobs from doctors, dieticians, pharmacists and physios. However nobody took the slack off us.

Then go home and read how we were too posh to wash. It's soul destroying. However I hold to the times when I helped save a life, or made sure someone's death was as pain free with dignity.

The NHS ruined my health and I've left. Now I need care and I don't get it. I feel let down in many ways.

This programme should help ppl see that the cause of this is reduced government funding. Let's stop blaming each other and make a stand against Jeremy Hunt whose life ambition is to run the NHS into the ground.

I'm not sure many 'lay' people understand that a bed is not just a bed. It's the staff and equipment and other resource that comes too. So it's not as easy as just buying more beds and having somewhere to put them. I think it's a popular misconception that excellent programmes such as this can help to educate about.
Full respect to the Trust for allowing what is essentially a warts and all documentary. Not sure other Trusts would have been so open to such public scrutiny.