Who hates the NHS

Doodledog My recent experience hasn't been great. The staff I have seen have all been caring and skilled, but there has been little communication between departments (specifically between the GP and hospital, and between different consultants)..I realise that I am lucky to be seen at all as others are on very long waiting lists

Indeed.

Forcing me to private knee surgery avoiding a 2yr wait.

M0nica

Maizie Where is the evidence that the NHS is being run efficiently and well. This is the [problem we do not know because no one is looking at it.

Any company that has been running for 75 years would more than once in that period had major upheavals when it looked at its organisation, and how it is run and emasured its efficiency and effectiveness. When has the NHS done this?

Twice in the last 13 years.

I don’t hate the NHS by any means but they really annoy me sometimes.

Just this week I have received the same letter in two separate envelopes cancelling my appointment. My husband rang the hospital yesterday to ask a question about his appt this Thurs. He was told it is cancelled but we have received no letter. A trip to hospital for us is a 60 mile round trip so we would have been really annoyed if he hadn’t rung them.

It also irritates me how they have to follow NICE guidelines even though some of it is stupid.

Doodledog It sounds as though the pathways for your particular condition(s) aren't working well. Maybe you could contact PALS.

Over the last six years, I've been treated for diabetes, a heart attack and breast cancer and am now being monitored for osteopenia. They're all relatively common conditions and everything has run like clockwork. I've even been booked in for mammograms for the next five years and a DEXA scan next year. Test results are available online (to me, my GP and all hospital staff) within days - usually 24 hours.

growstuff just reorganised or had a root and branch review of how it operates?

M0nica

growstuff just reorganised or had a root and branch review of how it operates?

The two major re-organisations have had significant impacts on how the NHS operates in England.

What kind of changes would you like to see?

Most of the complaints which have been mentioned on GN seem to be local problems with pathways not working well.

M0nica

growstuff just reorganised or had a root and branch review of how it operates?

I suspect, MOnica, as I have said before, possibly on this thread, that a root and branch review of such a massive organisation as the NHS would be a very big and very expensive exercise which would provoke howls of 'more money being thrown at the NHS' from the opposition (bound to be tory in 18months time) and the media.

I think it would be an excellent thing to do but I can't see it happening.

Meanwhile, with the NHS being kept short of staff, equipment and money by this government, which is determined to destroy it, can you point to anything non anecdotal to justify your conviction that the NHS doesn't deserve even what funding it gets?

The King’s Fund is a very good place to start for reports/research as this charity specialises in different aspects of the NHS. It is a known authority.

I have just posted a longish post, that has disappeared.

The long and short of it was that the NHS came close to killing DD during lockdown through the incompetency of the GP service. She was told after, they finally did the blood test that diagnosed her severe anaemia that she was so anaemic she could have a fatal heart aattack at any moment and if she thought that was happening she should immediately go to A&E (she lives alone)

DH had no rehabilitation after heart surgery( all done by phone) because no one would listen when we tried to explain that lung damage meant he couldn't follow the usual exercise plan. It was follow the plan or nothing. Last week our GP sent him to A&E, despite talking to staff, handng over papers which they looked at and checked on a screen, when 3 hours later I asked when we would be seen, they couldn't find him anywhere on the system and didn't know he was there.

I was diagnosed with osteoporosis over a year ago, promised medication in January, I still haven't received it and I have yet even to see a doctor. After I chased them I was offered a face-to -face appointment with a doctor this month, this was cancelled two days later and replaced by another phone appointment in late August.

I am glad everything has gone like clockwork for you. Please can I borrow your watch.

The changes I would like to see is in admin systems in hospitals and how they are run. The horrors that have been revealed in many maternity units, and problems elsewhere, are almost always the result of poor management and communication, within the hospitals involved.

Every one of these events happened with different hospitals.

What is not going to help at all is this, it slipped under the radar for me yesterday that further cuts to public services are likely to be made to fund their own pay rises. Morale will hit rock bottom if that happens.

www.itv.com/news/2023-07-10/chancellor-says-schools-and-hospitals-must-make-savings-to-fund-pay-rises

Primrose53 I don’t hate the NHS by any means but they really annoy me sometimes.

Agreed.

Hate is perhaps the wrong word, maybe annoyed beyond beyond.

Norah - disillusioned, wary, no faith or trust left perhaps? To be avoided except in an emergency (just like the police, as I said earlier).

The O/P asks do I hate the NHS.

No. I hat those who have starved it of recourses. But like many here I have struggled greatly because of the result of that starvation of resources, and worry about the future as I cant afford most private medicine..

MOnica That is exactly what I said - you have described local problems within hospitals/GP surgeries. Massive organisational changes wouldn't help.

Incidentally, I don't know what rehabilitation you were expecting for your DH. I had everything. It consisted of educational sessions, which weren't very helpful at all. Your DH could just have read the many booklets available from the BHF. The exercise sessions weren't exactly very strenuous. I'm surprised anybody wouldn't be able to do them because they were designed for very unfit people and patients were required to wear heart monitors at all times. I don't know what alternative could have been offered.

Doodledog It sounds as though the pathways for your particular condition(s) aren't working well. Maybe you could contact PALS.

Maybe. But for now I'm too exhausted to think about it.

I hate what the NHS has become. I hate that my MIL will be discharged home tomorrow with a care package and a floor bed to spend nights alone at the age of 92, despite being confused and incontinent. I hate that money is wasted on pointless ventures and ‘care’ seems to be a dirty word. I hate that it takes weeks to get an appointment with a GP. I spent 20 years as a woman's health nurse and I would not go back.

I was very shocked about the way an elderly relative was treated (or rather, very seriously neglected) during lockdown and that, unfortunately, has badly dented the trust I once had in the system.

I seem to know an awful lot of quite ordinary people who've given up on the NHS and, if they can, pay for private treatment. Only the other day I encountered an acquaintance who's spent a large chunk of her retirement savings on having bones in her foot fused and a bone spur removed. She was facing a two-year wait to see a consultant and then another year or two before it could be done on the NHS. She said the private consultant who did the operation had a four-month waiting list himself and that while she was there, the private hospital was very busy.

A local surgery has changed the way appointments are made to online triage. There’s now a communication process between doctors and patients for making an appointment. So rather than phone a receptionist for an appointment at 8 am only to be told there are none, an online form is required and some form of medical help is provided. This can be an appointment in the surgery, telephone consultation or home visit. The surgery is open daily 8 until 7 and Saturday 9 - 5. I hope this system comes to a place near you. For anyone without internet/smart phones, a receptionist will help fill in the online form.

ronib I think most surgeries have adopted some form of this system. My surgery is on the third different version. The latest one is called e-consult. These are some reviews of the service:

uk.trustpilot.com/review/econsult.net

Growstuff the local surgery is greatly improved so let’s hope more can be too. E consult reviews are very poor so why? It is an ongoing process towards better ways of access.

My surgery has been using a similar system for about a year. Personally, I liked it, but I think that might have been because I'd worked out what to write to get what I wanted. I know that it hasn't been popular. I think those who didn't like it are the ones who used to queue up outside the surgery at 8am, while those on the way to work or taking children to school couldn't get appointments because they'd all been taken. There were also some who didn't like the technology and others who who didn't know how to describe their symptoms.

The surgery abandoned two similar systems and has now adopted e-consult. I'll wait and see what it's like.

I am intrigued as to where these savings are to come from to pay for wage rises. I know nothing about health, but have knowledge of schools and these economies have already been made. The MP's pay award was not funded by economies in the House of Parliament as far as I know. Does anyone know differently?

Chocolatelovinggran

I am intrigued as to where these savings are to come from to pay for wage rises. I know nothing about health, but have knowledge of schools and these economies have already been made. The MP's pay award was not funded by economies in the House of Parliament as far as I know. Does anyone know differently?

Cuts to NHS services will be made if it goes ahead Chocolatelovinggran, it works exactly the same way as it does in education. Effectively the base budget is slashed to fund the pay award, and the only way to pay is to employ less staff.

growstuff The rehabilitation package was an excellent mix of exercises and walking to build up those who had had a trouble free bypass operation. But not suitable for someone who had been in hospital 8 weeks, had 4 operations, had tubes in his lungs, which had permanently damaged them and elsewhere throughout that time and had lost three stone in weight.

How you can read about the problems in maternity units, Shrewsbury and Nottingham, to name but 2, read the constant stories of administrative cock-ups that members post on GN. Read what IwasaMaidofKent above and say and still dismiss them as local problems within hospitals/GP surgeries. and not see that the nationwide spread of these problems deonstrates the deep failings in the NHS, I do not know. Then I read your dismissive remarks about patients at your surgery who have problems with the new consultations system.
I think those who didn't like it are the ones who used to queue up outside the surgery at 8am, while those on the way to work or taking children to school couldn't get appointments because they'd all been taken. There were also some who didn't like the technology and others who who didn't know how to describe their symptoms. So thats all right then, just chuck them on the rubbish heap. You are OK, you know how to describe your symptoms and get the results you want.

Effectively the base budget is slashed to fund the pay award, and the only way to pay is to employ less staff.

Which is exactly what the govt. is aiming for, isn't it? Fewer staff = greater inefficiency, more mistakes made and more staff leaving or going on long term sick because of the stress.

Death to the NHS through budget cuts and let's welcome in a service run by the private sector..