OK I was 2 hours waiting in A&E when I had unusual chest pains but once I was seen I was admitted to hospital for nearly two months . This is back in October 2019 .I can only say the care I was given was outstanding. It turns out as well as needing a triple bypass I had anaemia quite badly which I was unaware of . This meant they could not operate until they had discovered the source of the the problem . They gave me every test they could in that they screened my whole body I would say. Eventually after finding nothing they gave me blood transfusions and in the end was able to operate - I had to wait for a space for some time as it is quite a turnover.
In the same year my son had to drive himself to the same hospital in a delirious state because the ambulances were busy . It turned out he had severe sepsis and was nearly dying . He was admitted to a special unit where he literally had one to one treatment. I can only say that they saved his life. I was astonished by the attention he was given.
Yes there were down sides -I noticed like certain lavatories were out of use longer than they should have been as I had a very dodgy stomach post op . Yes we were lucky when I read the awful accounts of people waiting in corridors and the awful time they have being attended to today. The NHS gets very bad press and people have a right to feel angry if they are in misery with pain and are afraid .I can really understand.. I can only today feel grateful that I am here today to write this account and my son is alive . I can only give my account of how it was and today I feel gratitude .
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the staff do an amazing job, the technology is incredible and the science behind it outstanding, unfortunately its been underfunded for far too long. The public turn up at A&E with minor ailments because they can’t get GP appointments, this is a massive drain on resources. Beds are blocked by patients who should be in long term facilities, but there are no spaces available.
Not sure what the answer is but like so many others, like you I am eternally grateful for the NHS
I wouldnt say its underfunded, no matter how much money you chuck at it it wont help, its broken because they want it broken so they can continue to rinse and steal from it, the squeakiest wheel gets the oil.
I have lived in France and the difference in health systems is amazing. We need to start changing to a similar system asap, it will probably take years, but change we must. I do not advocate copying to USA system, which they keep frightening us with, as if there is no other joice! Unfortunately, it will probably involve the laying off of a large number of unnecessary staff, as a properly run European system does not tolerate waste.
I think it depends ward to ward and hospital to hospital. I have noticed the treatment and staff at my old hospital Chelsea and Westminster were amazing could not fault there care and professional attention to detail. Now I live in out London so my Nearest is Northwick Park Hospital. The stroke ward is amazing. The Darwin ward considering the nearest built part of the hospital was something out of the third world. They didn't even have 1 pillow per patient. I litterly had to roll clothes up to make hubby a pillow. The same with Kings College Hospital the transplant team and department/wards were amazing. But other wards my husband was on well they were despicable. i told the nurse my husbands canular was bleeding no reaction 10 minutes later I told her again. Then she came meanwhile there was a large pool of blood by that point.
the nhs is the best thing in the world we do not want to loose it this conservative goverment is a sham people in this country don't realise how lucky we are the doctors and nurses work very hard and should get a rise all my experiences in hospital have been outstanding
The NHS is fundamentally different from its early days, so purposes and priorities need to be addressed. Healthcare should be properly and evenly funded across the UK. More health care professionals need to be trained and, even more importantly, retained, through better working conditions, opportunities, and salaries. Cottage hospitals should be available for convalescent and community-centred care. GP practices and the services available in them should be extended and better supported. The thorny issues of private health insurance and taxation need to be at least debated. And so it goes on.
The NHS is as it is, and patient gratitude, alas, is not enough to fix it.
But, it's good to hear of your positive experiences, Pollypuss 😀, and I hope that you and your son are now fully recovered 🙂.
In huge organisations you will always get some bad bits, but overall the NHS is awesome. Often the glowing reports will come from life-threatening conditions, whereas complaints are from less serious situations. As GFFF pointed out, the NHS are being flooded unnecessarily. When a nurse is supposed to look after 8 patients, and she has 15, her quality of care is bound to suffer no matter how caring she is and how hard she tries.
they need to bring back the old way of training to , 8 weeks in the training school then straight on the wards to learn as you go . They need to waste less too , so much equipment goes into land fill crutches , walking frames ect it’s actually a disgrace what they waste . I help at a cancer charity and we are offered equipment that hospitals just won’t or can’t take back .
Hi Soapylil, thank you for your reply. Total agree, I worked in a hospital switchboard for a few years and even that department is badly run. Take care.
absolutely! With my daughter suffering from severe malnutrition (aged 50) i had to wait twelve hours in hospital A&E before she was admitted. Even then her bed was an examination couch that night!
Once an inpatient she was treated very well but was recommended to stay in hospital until social services could agree to help. She was bed blocking, but discharged herself. In fact it took fourteen months for social services to agree the support she needs!
After a year of health problems, including severe aortic stenosis, I retain a lot of respect, appreciation and admiration for the staff - and, I hope, understanding of their problems and pressures. The only medical person whom I didn't take to was an eye consultant at a private company to which NHS patients were being referred; he didn't seem interested and lacked empathy.
(As a footnote though, I've just had a text from the local hospital saying that it will be three months before they can give me a date for an appointment about a new orthosis. I'm not complaining, it's not a problem.)
Ive found private care to be cold and uncaring. Its just a job and youre part of a production line of patients being processed. You may get a private room but i didnt feel as cared for than when i was on the CCU. I had a private room then but they at least checked in regularly on me. Ive always felt you just get dumped in a room and forgotten about with Nuffield. The food isnt that much better than NHS either.
Having a private room gave me privacy and quiet - another patient who had an NHS op at the same hospital as I and who posted here mentioned the noise in the "public" ward.
Im not knocking the private room on the NHS CCU i was in back in December or the staff who were awesome.
Im on about my experience at the Nuffield private hospital where you feel like youre neglected once theyve put you in your room. Ive had to go there 3 times over the years for different treatments and you dont feel properly cared for.
Hi Baron, I had a back op in the Cleveland Nuffield Stockton-on-Tees (I lived in that area at the time) and I had salmonella, I was told it was a non-notifiable animal strain - in other words a mouse dropping and this was not acknowledged on their paperwork. Shocking.
Depends on your postcode, broke my collarbone in January. In and out of A&E in less than 50 minutes. Treated for basel carcinoma, 8 weeks op from initial diagnosis and prostate reduction surgery 6 weeks from asking for it. My heart diagnosis similar, waited a while for the scans but they came in rapid succession and consultant follow up was quick
It's the UK Government that is at fault. They have underfunded the NHS for 14 years ..they want to run it into the ground so they can use that as the excuse to privatise it and line their already over stuffed pockets. I'm a retired nurse..43 years service..I saw 1st hand . The staff do a heroic job with the resources they have left believe me.
Don't you think that 40%, which equates to 50 billion is enough? If the NHS was a private company it would have been bankrupt years ago. Controversially, it's overstaffed with people doing unnecessary jobs (largest employer in Europe) and is run appallingly. If they doubled the funding it still wouldn't be enough!
If only it was that simple. When initially set up, the NHS cost was justified on the basis it would save more than it would cost in the medium term. Initially it cost 3.5% of GDP, it’s now in the region of 7%. In real terms it’s cost now is 10x what it was in the 50s. It’s becoming more and more obvious that it’s the structure that is not fit for purpose. Even the Labour shadow health secretary is beginning to accept this. Just throwing more money at the problem is not the long term answer. It needs a radical rethink. Unfortunately it is now a political football and we need a non-partisan National discussion about what to replace it with. It should not be seen as a sacred cow. We should look at the structure adopted by other countries that we consider offer a better service than our NHS.
I must emphasise it’s the structure and not the staff (though junior doctors have done themselves no favours over the last few decades) that needs changing - I personally have rarely had anything but excellent service from all the staff.
Gosh you and your son sound like me wrapped into one, I am also forever grateful to the NHS for saving my life! They do get a bad press but they are so under funded and under a lot of pressure.A few years before COVID I was also unknowingly dying from sepsis, when I got to A&E it so busy I thought I was just going to die in the waiting area, luckily I got seen within 20 minutes, the admin staff may look like they are just signing you in etc but they also assess how serious you need help, once admitted I was told I needed and operation asap! All I can say is the treatment from the nurses and surgeons I received was top class, was also surprised how thorough they were.
Then during the height of COVID I had a sudden HA while out running, manage to get home and my wife rang the emergency services, due to the amount of COVID cases filling up our hospitals I thought again I was going to die in my bed but again the ambulance came within 15 mins, took me to a specialist HA A&E, they drove me straight into operating theatre and surgeons was waiting and ready to operate, in the I needed a stent for a sudden blocked artery, again the trearment I received was outsanding and post op follow up was very thorough.
So when the medical profession hold strikes I will always support them because all nurses etc. work so hard, under paid and under appreciated!
I agree. I’ve just had an A&E experience, and for the first few hours I was ‘in corridors’ and in and out of cubicles. However - I was being cared for even when the appropriate spaces were not available.
The most annoying thing was seeing, and hearing, those who were giving the staff a hard time - and likely slowing things down for others. After those initial hours I was in the acute medical unit, then moved in the middle of the night to a ward. Then there was another move within the ward, and for the last night a move to the ward that usually deals with day cases. Musical beds - but the purpose behind it was very clear, to keep folk moving away out of A&E and the acute medical ward.
Definitely a sign of the demands put upon the system, but I can’t fault the care that I received. I shall be a lot more wary of what is meant by ‘waiting in a corridor’ from now on. It can well be ‘being cared for in a corridor’ while a space is found.
I think that when the chips are down, the NHS still comes up trumps. That was my experience 16 months ago when I was treated for pneumonia and sepsis. I will always be grateful for the speed with which they recognised and treated my condition.
I think you have to speak as you find. Sadly in my area it's not good, and it isn't new. Back in 2003 my mother was in the Higher Dependecy Unit following major abdominal surgery. She was very rapidly transfered to a ward; I went in early the next morning to find her having a heart attack and the staff hadn't noticed. She was transferred back to HDU where for 2 days she wasn't expected to survive. I stayed overnight, I was given the code for ICU so I could make a drink during the night. I went to do so only to find my mother's nurse, (it was a one to one nurse/patient ratio), sleeping on the couch in there.
Sorry, but just one of the instances of poor care I have either seen or experienced.
The nurse was probably taking her break. Most shifts are 12 hours long and some staff choose to sleep through their breaks.Other nurses take over the care of patients whilst their colleagues go for a break.
Its not the staff its never been the staff, its the way its run, its doesnt need more money it needs proper mangement, less corruption and less "managers" its rife with private companies taking the p#ss and over charging for cheap things, upper management creating red tape and generally very poorly run. so much time wasting and in efficiency its unreal, if it was a commercial company they'd all be fired.
I am extremely gratified to hear your comments and of course your treatment and recovery of yourself and son. Of course there are folk who may not be so lucky but often this is due to underfunding and staff issues which are a different matter to physical care - although connected. I am a British guy of 80 and have lived in Singapore for 25 years - my treatment is also amazing - truly fantastic, however not of course Free at point of delivery. I have to be insured up to the hilt at my age and this is extremely expensive. Yes my choice but I can only reiterate my treatment by NHS in my younger days was more than adequate - God Bless you xxx
I agree when you get to hospital the treatment is amazing. Also
My husband had an ICD fitted without it he wouldn’t be alive due to NHS care and BHF research therefore last week when BHF were promoting the BHF lottery we had to join the research is invaluable for further research ❤️
It's often overlooked about the costs of equipment in hospitals as technology has advanced. Those little trolleys that have a screen and take your BP etc 1k each and how many do you see trundling around. The linear accelerators for radiology 10 years ago were over 3 million a pop that doesn't include installation, servicing and maintenance. MRI scanners, keyhole, laser surgery. Specialist training to use the equipment. None of this was envisioned in 1946 and certainly not accounted for by any government by the looks of it
Very true. The expectations and demands on the NHS from a growing and ageing population and the exponential increase this costs is just not sustainable under the current NHS model. Just throwing more money at it will not resolve this. A grown up, none partisan conversation by all political parties is needed but I can’t see that happening as long as the NHS is just used as a political football. There is a glimmer of hope with the shadow health secretary recently observing models used by other countries. Who knows….🤞
History shows we are not good at making healthy choices when left to our own devices.. I believe in choice but maybe the government needs to recover the consequential costs where people make poor choices that lumps cost onto the NHS (so all of us as taxpayers). Maybe through higher taxes: (alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, fast food, processed food etc.). Obesity costs the NHS 10% of its budget and in the majority of cases, it’s as a result of poor choices. Either make better choices or contribute more to the costs you cause?
Correlated with but that’s not the same as caused by. The population was significantly poorer in the 1950s and yet there was only a fraction of the obesity….
We are no longer in the 1950s. We have a growing problem with obesity, and we have a growing problem with poverty. We need to deal with these in the here and now.
Quick google search "poverty and obesity uk" throws up 5,740,000 results. Current entries from NICE, the National Institures of Health, the Nuffield Trust, the King's Fund, the BMJ, the Cambridge and Oxford university pressses...
We are no longer in the 1950s and yes we do have a growing problem with obesity but we are no longer anywhere near as poor. So what has changed? Certainly social attitudes and a general feeling that if anything is wrong - it’s someone else’s fault, usually the government. You mention “poverty” but I think we can all accept that the vast majority of the population are much better off than the 50s. What is referred to as “poverty” in reported statistics is actually relative poverty, that is income relative to the average person’s income. So despite someone becoming more wealthy, depending on economic circumstances, they could still become classed as moving into poverty! In fact, during the financial crisis in 2008, whilst hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs. The statistics reported that poverty went down! This was conveniently overlooked by those campaigning against “poverty”.
Now whereas unacceptable levels of poverty do exist, and there are structural issues in the UK that have remained unresolved for the last 2.5 decades, and income can have an impact on obesity, in the vast majority of cases, avoiding it is down to the individual (or parents) behaviour.
In my personal experience, last year I worked away from home for 3 months. I was put up in a hotel with breakfast and ate out at restaurants each evening. In the 3 mths I put on 1/2 stone. I was not in poverty, I chose for the first few months to have a cooked breakfast every morning. I chose where to eat and what to eat and felt full all the time. I had puddings that I didn’t have at home. I drank beer with my meals. Fair to say I enjoyed the food. No one pressured me into eating / drinking anything. Towards the end I decided to cut back - over eating was my choice and my responsibility- no one else’s - not the hotel’s, not the restaurants, not the governments, and certainly not my relative wealth.
And remember, there are large numbers of obese middle class and wealthy people in the UK - far more than in the 1950s. Obesity does not just rest with the poor.
It’s time responsibility was passed back onto the individual and that they took responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
One (3) last point:
The US has higher rates of obesity and yet are more wealthy than the UK.
India is far poorer and have levels of poverty most westerners cannot imagine - yet they do not have a major obesity problem (though many middle class are obese)
Poverty is not the cause of obesity in the UK - it can certainly contribute, but lifestyle and personal gratification has a much greater impact.
Post surgery for me was mixed. From a nurses day station of usually six, the same three of them did all the work! It was very noticeable to me and the other "inmates"!
Atul Gawande - who gave a very interesting set of Reith Lectures for the BBC a few years back, which developed the theme of how to change safety cultures in organisations (such as the NHS) in a direction that actually makes people safer.
the NHS is in a mess because too much money is spent on managers. My daughter had a temporary position in an admin role last year and when she told me what some of the managers were earning I was shocked. She also said there were a lot of paper shufflers and money was being wasted. She actually left the job before her contract was up as she was so disheartened. Watching the recent drama on ITV about the hospital situation during Covid was truly heartbreaking. Medical staff deserve every Penny and more. I think politicians should start looking at the admin side of the NHS to see exactly where the money is going.
I agree with you. I have two hospitals in my area, quite far apart, which runs a&e. One is a total disaster and the other runs very smoothly. They even run 3 Gp surgeries there. People are triaged to where’s appropriate to them. The long wait is usually waiting for results like bloods.
After visiting both I now always choose the one used by ambulances as the overflow. I’m very fortunate that each time I’ve visited via an ambulance they’ve been diverted to my favourite as the other one is full.
Now if I’m very unwell I tell my daughter don’t call 111 just take me to the other one, as all the ambulances always go to the full one unless the controller diverts them. One ambulance crew actually told me they had diverted them after they had told them they were taking me to the quieter one.
Maybe that ones quieter because the area is quieter and smaller. I love that hospital and the way it works.
Back in 2016, I arrived in hospital by ambulance because I had collapsed at home. I'd had a cold that I hadn't fully recovered from which resulted in multiple organ failure as a complication. I waited on a trolley in a corridor for more than 18 hours due to the lack of beds in the assessment unit. I was finally seen in the unit and while a medical registrar was checking me out, I went into cardiac arrest. Three lots of CPR and a medically induced coma later, I was transferred out of ICU
My care went downhill from then. There were no beds in a female bay so I had to sleep in a male bay where I was left uncovered and with my curtain left open in full view of the patients. I was later moved to a female bay where there were six beds and only a lone patient emergency bell working. The sides of the beds were put up once visitors had left and I had to crawl out of bed and make my way to the toilet using a walking frame I found nearby. The nursing staff pointed and laughed at me as I struggled.
I agree, that in a real emergency, NHS staff do whatever they can to help, but my life experiences of the last 10 years I have lived in Eastbourne, inform me that my local hospital is the last place I want to go for non-emergency appointments.
NHS support varies and hospital support is patchy too. Many people from Eastbourne are sent to Hastings or Bexhill for appointments and treatment because my hospital is in serious need of upgrading and staff refresher training
Hi if anyone has read my previous posts you will know that I can't thank the NHS enough for the treatment I have had from diagnosis to scans and tests etc. it has not always been like that I have a couple of bad experiences in the general hospital, nurses that couldn't care less, treated elderly people appallingly, I was left for days with an untreated UTI it was horrendous. Wind the clock on a few years and I was amazed at the difference in the same hospital. When I was told my bowel surgery would be there I was dreading it, I had full confidence in the surgeon but in nothing else, it was a pleasant surprise when the after care was great everywhere was clean and being in a ward of 6 was actually good, time passed a lot quicker with people to talk to and no problems at night all very quiet,my transplant hospital only has single rooms and time did drag. In my experience over the last few years, maybe I have been just lucky with the NHS and just very unlucky with my health 🙄 I have found things have improved a lot except waiting times, I feel that has to be urgently addressed and people not left in pain for years. Char
I have never worked in the NHS myself, but ten years ago I was living with a doctor and I used to glance through the BMJ when it was lying around the house. A look at the back pages was revealing -- even ten years ago, the high number of vacanies for consultants and training posts all around the country, in every specialism, and I expect there were also high numbers of vacancies for nursing posts.
We do not train or retain enough British staff. For some time we have relied heavily on recruiting abroad (raising issues about whether it's fair to poach the most qualified staff from much poorer countries). Then there was Brexit and Covid. This government has an appalling record across the board, from dodgy PPE contracts to cutting student nursing bursaries in 2017 to the current quiet backpedalling on increasing training places in medical schools.
Training places need money; new equipment needs money (the last time I had an ECG at my local small hospital, the ECG machine was literally held together with sellotape and took three attempts to get it to work); and remember the RAAC (aerated concrete) scandal, which has not gone away?
Given the record number of people using foodbanks (fewer than 100,000 food parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust in 2010; nearly 3 million last year), and who face the choice 'heat or eat', how does anyone imagine that even nominal fees, such as a flat fee of £25 to see a GP, will be affordable for any of these people? Or even, one level up the economic ladder, for all those who are now cutting back on every other expense due to higher rent or mortgage?
The problems with the NHS are not mysterious; they are down to political choices. The evidence is abundant. If people choose not to see, I fear for this country, and I fear for my old age here as someone who would be excluded from US-style health insurance due to my pre-existing cardiac condition and who would be unable to afford to pay for all of it out of my own pocket.
Oct ‘22 my eldest son took me to A&E as I had chest pain and at reception we were told to sit in the waiting area.As my pain got worse my son went back to reception and said I needed immediate attention and to cut a long story short after triage I was blue lighted to LGI where a cardiologist and team were ready and waiting and my circumflex artery was stented and 4 days later sent home .NHS are just brilliant and I owe them big time .
As a fully trained nurse from the 1970s I do feel alot of the ‘care’ problems are because of the change in training nurses. I do understand that a higher education qualification is required for all the new technology but there is no way dealing with patient care can be taught in school etc. We were taught we were consultants eye and ears but you hardly ever see nurses interacting or actually observing patients these days.
I have had a rough couple of years with plenty of visits and stays in hospital. Whilst I agree with much of what has been said in regard to time and other constraints I believe we should go back to basics with regard to training all medical staff , years ago many would not even have got accepted for training in the first place , their priorities and demeanour are all wrong. Just as a for instance I do not believe they are even in the right VOCATION if they are even willing to think of striking they should just leave and go to a different working environment
And finally in a recent stay in hospital I thought I was losing my mind as one very nice young lady appeared in my room in 3 consecutive days under 3 guises, day one enrolled nurse: day two a nursing assistant and day three housekeeper! She also advised she was sometimes a cleaner 2 all different part time roles and all she could get in this particular Trust
My daughter has just qualified as a Doctor and the selection process was extremely rigorous including looking for empathy etc. however, the profession attracts alot of narcissists and they are hard to spot until it’s too late!
Sadly the failure of the GP system has severely overloaded the hospitals. This was typified the other day by a young woman being interviewed about how long she had been waiting in A&E for treatment.....for a sore throat to be investigated !!!!! something that should have definitely been a GP issue!
Not really blaming her, during covid I was trying to see my GP about my pee slowing up. Eventually I gave up as I couldn't get past the reception triage. I'm now being treated for advanced prostate cancer picked up by CHAPS, a free mens health charity giving me a PSA test. If picked up earlier by the NHS it would have been far cheaper to treat, but I wasn't dying so not a priority.
The NHS is not a health service, it's a disease treatment service, and a good one, but a true health service would be carrying out far more in the way of screening and disease prevention.
Unfortunately, the way it is structured, there will never be enough money to fully finance it.
When they need to, they move fast on things. I went in to A+E for a hypertensive crisis in December, and was seen within 20 minutes. All of my susequent appointments for my subsequent newly discovered WPW were done over around 4 weeks. I had 48 hour ECG tape, x-rays, echocardiagram, exercise stress test, and a 24 hour blood pressure check, and they rang and called me in twice, all within 3-4 weeks of the initial A+E visit. I have an ablation coming up, again within 3 months of the initial visit.
However, certain things they struggle with. I recently had a private ADHD assessment which took around 6 weeks to get . The current waiting list on the NHS is around 4 years. They have outsourced (via 'right to choose') to certain private providers (providing GP's are aware, which many arent).. so i agree in that essentially some parts are being sold off/tendered.
Unforunately, getting a doctors appointment in my practice is quite literally impossible. Phone lines are enagaged permanently from the moment the timeslot to call is open... often requiring 50-100 repeated phone calls one after another to get through... only to be told all appointments are gone.
The NHS is amazing, as are the people who work in it.. but there is no doubt as to what is going on.
Can’t you use e-consult? I get a response within minutes and if they want to see me they make an appointment for the same day or they call me. It’s fantastic!
I'd agree over all the NHS medical team are excellent alas it's a few bad eggs which give a bad name to a fabulous institution. An example of this was on Tuesday afternoon my attending nurse told me at 17:10 I was going home, l mentioned that my iron levels have not been taken care of , to which I was told don't worry they'll be in touch. I told her I was going no where as I was waiting for an iron infusion . That very same nurse, when asked her name a week earlier responded by telling me I'm not your nurse! Seriously!!
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