What has happened to our NHS.

[cuddlepop]

Mum had another wee stroke last wek and ended up back in Hospital.
Its only been two months since the last so expecting the worst we left straight away.

when we arrived ,which by this time was after 6pm she was still in her hospital gown from admission that morning,her urine bag needed empty and in general just needed some "care"No one had come near her for what to her seemed like hours.She was frightened and alone in a single room and seemed to be forgotten about.It took me two visits to the front desk to find someone that could speak to me and come and see to my mother.
I could have done what was needed my self and was sorely tempted but I'm not the proffesional.

what really got to me is that they had no drip stands and had attached her drip to the overhead bed light.:mad:

Someone needs to be accountable,where has all the millions gone that have been poured into our once great NHS

[The Pepsi Challenge]

Utterly sympathise with you. The NHS might look good when compared to other countries around the world but it's still nowhere near good enough. The amount of horror stories I've witnessed and came into contact with through 50-50 is enough to fill your boots with.

[sweetpea]

My Nana died of a stroke in Raigmore a few weeks ago and to be honest yes there were lots of things we said weren't right, like not having a bed in the stroke ward and stuff and moving her at the height of her trauma and we could have picked holes with everything but at the end of the day they really looked after her in the last couple of days. It all happened over about a week. And they were good because there were so many of us there all the time but they let us get on with it.
I'm mixed about this whole NHS thing because I also have people close to me work in the NHS and so can hear both sides.
One thing I will say is I never let anyone near her unless they washed their hands especially with wounds or drip holes because I don't trust the handwashing. I know lots of folk do this.

[Whitewater]

Can see where you are coming from. I find the whole system so slow, but I'm guessing it is lack of resources. But having said that I have had excellent service and treatment on the few times that I have been admitted.

[jim shoe]

My mother has an extremely rare form of cancer

and i must admit that most of the time she has been treated excellently in wick and inverness.

I feel the trouble lies with people clogging up the system for minor things.

I know a woman with diabetes and asthma smokes like a fish and eats chocolate by the bucket full and when her BREATHING TURNS BAD OR HER DIABETES FLARES UP SHE IS WHIPPED IN.

Please dont get me wrong i am not saying she dosent deserve help, its just that her problems are very much self inflicted.

one other bone the casualty departments of many hospitals tied up especially at the week ends by people who drink too much get in fights ect.

If i had my way they would pay for these visits, if they can get sozzled all weekend they could pay £20.oo to get stitched up or whatever.

one other thing in my opinion to many administrative staff and not enough medical staff.

also our nurses work for a pittance and are treated poorly by the public and the government, no wonder so many have gone abroad to work.

again we need a radical overhaul of the nhs and until someone with some common sense is put in charge of health, i am afraid we will have to make do with what we are given.

another thing i see heads of industry awarding them selves astronomical pay rises and and cabinet ministers as well, what do nurses and postal workers get a measly percentage paid over 2 years.

:~(Hardly worth the paper its written on

[jim shoe]

Meant to say cuddle pop hope your mum makes a full and speedy recovery.

also i think our parents are tougher than we give them credit for

my mum is 73 with the fighting spirit of a twenty year old

she still gives my dad hot tongue and cold shoulder for tea:Razz

[Dave Taylor]

Just down the road from where I live, there's a big hospital. Some of its departments are world class. There are plans to downgrade it...and to build a brand new small hospital (under the "PFI" set-up) a mile or two away. What a waste of cash.
One thing they could do to save the NHS is to bring back the matron! Instead of a top-heavy admin system, they need empowered people in the wards, and the old-style matron would fit the bill.

[JAWS]

The problem is that the NHS has, for a decades, been allowed to drift with no clear direction being given. For the last few years it has been subjected, as have many other Government run organisations, to constant fiddling simply to provide Politicians with eye-catching sound-bites.

The whole thing needs some ruthless pruning. The Staff at the Ward Level, as far as I have either seen or can gather, are having to bail like fury to stop the ship sinking. They struggle very hard to keep the water out as more and more holes are allowed to appear. The problem is the waste at the top as more and more levels of administration are piled one on top of another. The words "deckchairs" and "Titanic" keep springing to mind.

The NHS needs somebody in total control who is completely ruthless and is given free rein. The pruning needs to start right at the top and only work it’s way slowly down until all the unnecessary people at the top have either proved that their job cannot be dispensed with or have been sent packing. There are far too many “Non-jobs” with fancy sounding titles which need clearing out.

The NHS exists so that Doctors and Nurses can treat and cure Patients in safety and anything which is not directly involved in that is waste. The “Good Ideas Brigade” who have never been near a patient should be given their marching orders and the running of the
NHS be put back in the hands of the Medical Staff who have the experience to know what is really necessary.

The Government spin that it’s all the fault of Patients for not being healthy is just trying to shift the blame for their own total incompetence.
You might as well blame the murder victim for not getting out of the way of the bullet.

[squidge]

I have to say that whenever i have needed the NHS i have been pleased with what I got. However it does seem that when dealing witht he elderly there are problems - i have heard this time and time again.

[NickInTheNorth]

It is sad to say that the NHS as we have all known and loved it is probably due for retirement. Modern government just cannot manage such a delicate system as the NHS.

It is time that the whole bureaucratic nightmare was closed down. Replace it with a system in which the local hospital is managed locally. Provide services free to all at the point of delivery. Let the local hospital and doctors decide on what medicines treatments etc are needed, there is no need for a top heavy layer of pen pushers to dictate to the real experts what can and cannot be done.

Let the wards be managed by a "Matron". Let the clinicians be managed by a fellow doctor. Let's have local democratic health boards responsible for the proper management of the local hospital. Let's pay people proper money to clean hospitals properly.

Let's close the department of health, and let's pour every single penny saved by doing so into patient care. We'd have a health system worthy of the name.

I'm currently fighting a battle to not be put on pills for the rest of my life, but the department of health seems to have decreed that if you have high cholesterol levels you need to be protected from dying, whether you wish to be protected or not.

The NHS should be about one thing and one thing only. Providing the very best health care that can be provided. It should not be about meeting targets, and budgets and management and accountancy.

I'll willingly give the government a blank taxes cheque to provide world class health care free all citizens of the UK. All they need to do is remove the NHS funding from the general taxation system and make sure that every single penny they ask for each year for health care is spent on that and nothing else, and also ensure that we have a system which genuinely provides for all our health care needs. Oh, and make the local hospitals, doctors, dentists etc locally accountable.

[cuddlepop]

Thank you for all your kind words.

Mum is doing well but they've decided to give her a full body scan and keep her in until the test results are back which can be anything up to a fornight.:(

inverclyde hospital is under emence pressure to justifi itself and you can see this at every level.They have managed to keep there hospital open but its like no ones there.Staff are over worked, equipment is either not there or unavailable and moral is so low its like the building is crying out of neglect.

I dont know whats the answere but Sqidge is right, its the elderly care service thats really crumbling under the pressure.I've not had much dealing with this form of nursing in a hospital setting before but what I'm wittnessing now is scarey.:eek:

Mum has all her feelings back and is perfectly able to go home until the test results are back but they wont let her.Is this necessary are we not clogging up the system?

There's a young woman of 28 in her ward and it seems like thats not unusual to have someone so younge in.

[orkneylass]

I work for the NHS on the prevention side, which is very under-resourced despite all the political rhetoric about health promotion. The UK NHS is rated very low in the western world and yet somehow the myth of the best health service in the world remains. I want to stay healthy for lots of reasons but one of them is to stay out of the NHS....so that I don't have to get referred to a cancer speacialist who may or may not have the lowest success rates in the land (how would I ever know???), be on a waiting list to be treated in a crowded, dirty ward with no privacy and dignity by partronising nurses for whom I was just a statistic. To get third rate treatment compared to countries like France (best healthcare in the world).

Like others, I have had reasons to be grateful to the NHS but let's not forget that we do all pay for it through hefty taxes and national insurance and in return get poor quality and almost no choice. Our GPs are self-employed businessmen (they are not NHS employees, they work under contract).

[celtic lass]

all nhs staff do a wonderfull job under very difficult times .my mum was in hospital a few weeks ago the staff couldnt have been nicer but they were bursting at the seams with very few staff on still think we would be better of paying for treatment as i pay sweetly for vet bills but they get to the route of the problem very quickly and it would also stop time wasters at the docs maybe ill people would get to see a doc then

[Moira]

....<snip>
The NHS exists so that Doctors and Nurses can treat and cure Patients in safety and anything which is not directly involved in that is waste. .....

JAWS - this is just so not true. If this was a "Mission Statement" you read in Nineteen Oatcake, I'd be keen to know the source - please quote. Have you ever heard of the saying "Prevention is better than Cure" ?

Cuddlepop - best of wishes for your Mum's speedy recovery to full health. It's a scary time for you & your family. I hope you get the very best of attention.

[j4bberw0ck]

Modern government just cannot manage such a delicate system as the NHS.

Well said. I'd quibble only with the word "modern"; no Government can run a health service.


Let the local hospital and doctors decide on what medicines treatments etc are needed, there is no need for a top heavy layer of pen pushers to dictate to the real experts what can and cannot be done.Well, someone has to sort out funding and so on, but perhaps the trick is "do it the French way" with multi-provider healthcare based on insurance and State contribution.


Let's pay people proper money to clean hospitals properlyWe do. Let's just enforce the damn contracts...... :lol:


The problem is that the NHS ..........<snip>....... constant fiddling simply to provide Politicians with eye-catching sound-bites.

Yes.


The NHS needs somebody in total control who is completely ruthless and is given free rein.No. It might suit your mindset to be bullied and dictated to, but it's no way to run an organisation of any size, let alone the largest employer in the world outside the Chinese Red Army (and that fact in itself is a clue as to its problems).


The NHS exists so that Doctors and Nurses can treat and cure Patients in safety and anything which is not directly involved in that is waste.Wrong again, Jaws. The NHS exists (and I quote from its political founder) "to improve the health of the nation". That's a wider remit than young, handsome, godlike doctors and cute, sweetheart nurses bustling about "curing" people - you're stuck in the "Emergency - Ward 10" version of reality, I suspect, from the 1960's.


NHS be put back in the hands of the Medical Staff who have the experience to know what is really necessary.Sounds like an overdose of "Daily Express", to me!

Wrong yet again! So there you are as CEO of NHS Inc, employing lots of medical staff. Medical staff run to the linen cupboard for fresh bedsheets, say; oh look! It's empty. Medical staff may be great at medicine, but it doesn't make them great at organising and doing any more than being a car mechanic means that you're great at figuring out how to make a tyre.

[Angela]

Like others, I have had reasons to be grateful to the NHS but let's not forget that we do all pay for it through hefty taxes and national insurance and in return get poor quality and almost no choice. Our GPs are self-employed businessmen (they are not NHS employees, they work under contract).

I'm very fortunate with my GP practice -they've won Quality Practice Awards for the last 5 years. Not that awards always mean much, but in this case it does, imo. It's like a well run business -in fact, it is a well-run business. I've never experienced anything like it before and it makes such a difference. :)

Over the last 3 years I (and my family) have unexpectedly spent a lot of time in 4 different hospitals as patients and as visitors. I found most medical staff to be professional and caring, but the most obvious problem is the shortage of staff at ward level. Often no senior nurse in charge. Not enough qualified nurses, and they have to spend so much time on tasks that really shouldn't be part of their jobs -answering phones, handing out meals, mopping floors etc -that they never have enough time for proper nursing. Not enough physios or OTs either, which can prevent/delay recovery.

Of course there aren't enough care assistants or reception staff and cleaning services seem very variable.

Nurses aren't responsible for the lack of clean gowns available, or the poor standard of hygiene in the toilets and shower rooms, or any number of other practical "housekeeping" matters, but they do have to deal with the situations caused by these problems, all the time.

Not much seems joined-up, communication and co-ordination between different departments is often poor. Information isn't always properly passed on at shift changes and relatives are seldom given the information they would like, because there's just nobody about who can tell them.

At the sharp end, I believe the NHS is, or can be, very good. The one place I had excellent, life-saving care was the ICU in RIE. I'm living proof! But I have now heard that there are plans afoot to reduce the ratio of ICU nurses to patients from 1:1 to 1:2, which would undoubtedly put extra pressure on the nurses and compromise patient care.

So many NHS hospital patients are older, though, many have a number of chronic illnessses, and it's in this area particularly that I feel the NHS is failing. I don't know how much improvement we can realistically expect from a service funded in the way it is.

Cuddlepop, I do hope your Mum is well and gets home soon. They may well be keeping her in to be on the safe side, but sometimes they do this because if they discharge a patient, there's no guarantee of a bed if they need to take them back in. :confused

[cuddlepop]

Ones things for sure is there appears to be no "hand over " from one department to another.
The paramedics that arrived on the scene would have been able to take note of the condition my mum was in on arrival .The A@E department should have a record somewhere of the condition on arrival,plus paramedics notes who then pass them on to a recieving ward who..... and then on to the stroke ward once a bed becomes available.

They are still questioning in the stroke ward whether mum had one because by the time they recieved her she was back to normal.:confused
Surely if there was a weakness for a limited period of time down one side then it was a stroke
They wont let her home because she's on her own all day.

Does that mean its sheltered accommodation or what?

No one really tells you anything over the phone.:(

[celtchicky]

from experience people dont ask enough questions but then go about sayin that they never got told anything!! if you dont ask then staff wont know there is anything wrong and that you have any worries. if you dont get enough answers then make an appointment to speak to the consultant, thats what they are there for! :)

i appreciate that some people dont like asking but at the end of the day its your relation and youve a right to know whats happening

[cuddlepop]

from experience people dont ask enough questions but then go about sayin that they never got told anything!! if you dont ask then staff wont know there is anything wrong and that you have any worries. if you dont get enough answers then make an appointment to speak to the consultant, thats what they are there for! :)

i appreciate that some people dont like asking but at the end of the day its your relation and youve a right to know whats happening
I would ask the question if I could get hold of someone to talk to that knows whats happening.
As I'm over 250 miles way I've only got the phone as a means of communication.
Have you tried getting to speak to a busy consultant on the phone.:eek:

[Alice in Blunderland]

Have you tried getting to speak to a busy consultant on the phone.

:lol:I know the feeling ha ha. Seriously CP phone and ask to be put through to the consultant who is looking after your mums secretary. Ask her to make an appointment in his diary for you to phone back and talk with him about your mums care. Have all the questions you want to ask written down beforehand so that you dont come of the phone thinking I wish I had asked that.

I hope your mum is well on the road to recovery and is back home soon. :D

[celtchicky]

[quote=Alice in Blunderland;234909]:lol:I know the feeling ha ha. Seriously CP phone and ask to be put through to the consultant who is looking after your mums secretary. Ask her to make an appointment in his diary for you to phone back and talk with him about your mums care. Have all the questions you want to ask written down beforehand so that you dont come of the phone thinking I wish I had asked that.


totally agree. i work in CGH and the consultant has many a time spoken to relatives on the phone, especially if they live some distance away. just make an appt thru their secretary. oh the nurses on duty do know whats happening although in some wards they work in teams so you just keep asking to speak til someone who knows. they do get a handover!!!!

[Dusty]

I want to stay healthy for lots of reasons but one of them is to stay out of the NHS....so that I don't have to get referred to a cancer speacialist who may or may not have the lowest success rates in the land (how would I ever know???), be on a waiting list to be treated in a crowded, dirty ward with no privacy and dignity by partronising nurses for whom I was just a statistic. To get third rate treatment compared to countries like France (best healthcare in the world).

Orkneylass,
The Cancer Specialist with the "low" success rate may be the one who is willing to take on the toughest cases which could well have an effect on their percieved "success rate". If it were me, I'd want the attention of the doctor with the most experience to give me the best chance of survival.
The wards may be crowded but I doubt that they are dirty. With the current highlighting of MRSA etc. it is obvious that the wards might not be sterile or as clinically clean as may be desirable but I don't think that the nomal sense of something "dirty" can be applied to them.
My daughter is a nurse who works in HDU/ICU. Her nature, upbringing and training prevents her from being patronising or condescending and I can assure you that she most certainly does not regard her patients or their families as merely statistics. She and her collegues put in a lot of physical and emotional energy into their work, but like the soldiers in an army, they have to labour under the consequences of the decisions of their superiors.
In my experience, my daughter is not unique in her approach to her work. The accusations against the bean counters and innumerable management layers in the NHS are, I feel, nearer the mark.
I sincerely hope that you achive your aim to remain outwith the NHS, but I am sure that you would welcome their ministration as much as the next person should the need arise and that it would matter little if that organisation was percieved as providing third rate treatment or not. The NHS is an easy target and has undoubtedly a lot of failings but we have to make the best of what we currently have while striving for the desired improvements.

[Angela]

Orkneylass,
The Cancer Specialist with the "low" success rate may be the one who is willing to take on the toughest cases which could well have an effect on their percieved "success rate". If it were me, I'd want the attention of the doctor with the most experience to give me the best chance of survival.
The wards may be crowded but I doubt that they are dirty. With the current highlighting of MRSA etc. it is obvious that the wards might not be sterile or as clinically clean as may be desirable but I don't think that the nomal sense of something "dirty" can be applied to them.
My daughter is a nurse who works in HDU/ICU. Her nature, upbringing and training prevents her from being patronising or condescending and I can assure you that she most certainly does not regard her patients or their families as merely statistics. She and her collegues put in a lot of physical and emotional energy into their work, but like the soldiers in an army, they have to labour under the consequences of the decisions of their superiors.
In my experience, my daughter is not unique in her approach to her work. The accusations against the bean counters and innumerable management layers in the NHS are, I feel, nearer the mark.
I sincerely hope that you achive your aim to remain outwith the NHS, but I am sure that you would welcome their ministration as much as the next person should the need arise and that it would matter little if that organisation was percieved as providing third rate treatment or not. The NHS is an easy target and has undoubtedly a lot of failings but we have to make the best of what we currently have while striving for the desired improvements.

Dusty, your daughter has my total admiration! :)

I know from my own experience, and that of my family, how much of themselves ICU nurses put into their work, and how draining it must be. Without them I wouldn't be here today!

I haven't found any nurses (or doctors, for that matter), either patronising, or condescending, far from it. Sometimes there was a lack of communication, as there often is in most large workplaces.

Neither did I find the wards in RIE crowded - with a maximum of four beds to a large room for those well enough not to need single rooms.

I would only disagree with you about the standard of hygiene on the wards (not ICU/HDU I hasten to add) which left a lot to be desired, but that was not of course the fault of the medical staff, although they had to deal with the consequences.

I'm sure you must be very proud of your daughter! :)

[JAWS]

It might suit your mindset to be bullied and dictated to, but it's no way to run an organisation of any size, let alone the largest employer in the world outside the Chinese Red Army (and that fact in itself is a clue as to its problems).

Wrong again, Jaws. The NHS exists (and I quote from its political founder) "to improve the health of the nation". That's a wider remit than young, handsome, godlike doctors and cute, sweetheart nurses bustling about "curing" people - you're stuck in the "Emergency - Ward 10" version of reality, I suspect, from the 1960's.

Sounds like an overdose of "Daily Express", to me!

Wrong yet again! So there you are as CEO of NHS Inc, employing lots of medical staff. Medical staff run to the linen cupboard for fresh bedsheets, say; oh look! It's empty. Medical staff may be great at medicine, but it doesn't make them great at organising and doing any more than being a car mechanic means that you're great at figuring out how to make a tyre.

Very illuminating j4bberw0ck, you made my point quite well. Having a "CEO of the NHS" is precisely the problem. The Bean Counters who have been put in charge of the NHS might be very good at running a Business but not a Health Service, that requires a completely different mind-set as is shown by the problems the NHS currently suffers from.

If you read what I said, and not what you wished I had said you will find that I did not say that all non-medical staff should be dismissed.

Neither did I say anything to indicate that the Staff should be "bullied" but simply that the many unnecessary layers of "Administration" should be removed. There are too many Chiefs trying to justify their existence and too few Indians to carry out work at the "sharp end".

Your example of the Car Mechanic is very apt. The British Car Industry also suffered from excessive political interference and CEOs who know very little about Car Manufacture. What a successful British Car Industry we have now.

Keep guessing about which Newspapers I read, you haven't got it right so far, but that's no surprise. By the way, how do you know what is in the Daily Express, is it something you read on a regular basis?

[j4bberw0ck]

If you read what I said, and not what you wished I had said you will find that I did not say that all non-medical staff should be dismissed.

Jaws, my reading and comprehension is truly excellent. I believe the word you used was "ruthless"; in fact, you said:


The NHS needs somebody in total control who is completely ruthless and is given free rein. The pruning needs to start right at the top and only work it’s way slowly down until all the unnecessary people at the top have either proved that their job cannot be dispensed with or have been sent packing. There are far too many “Non-jobs” with fancy sounding titles which need clearing out.

The NHS exists so that Doctors and Nurses can treat and cure Patients in safety and anything which is not directly involved in that is waste. The “Good Ideas Brigade” who have never been near a patient should be given their marching orders and the running of the
NHS be put back in the hands of the Medical Staff who have the experience to know what is really necessary. So, if your use of precise English is lagging behind a bit, I must allow you more slack. Your ideas about what the NHS exists for is a bit wonky, too, as I pointed out.


Neither did I say anything to indicate that the Staff should be "bullied" but simply that the many unnecessary layers of "Administration" should be removed. There are too many Chiefs trying to justify their existence and too few Indians to carry out work at the "sharp end". You didn't use the word "bullied",no; but you did say "completely ruthless and given free rein" which must amount to the same thing or why would he need to be ruthless?. Or did I misunderstand? Is your super CEO only going to be completely ruthless with non-medical staff?


Your example of the Car Mechanic is very apt. The British Car Industry also suffered from excessive political interference and CEOs who know very little about Car Manufacture. What a successful British Car Industry we have now. Uh? What have car mechanics got to do with car manufacture?


Keep guessing about which Newspapers I readI imagine they're the ones your chips come wrapped in. It's enough for me to recognise the Daily Express mindset, though :lol: