• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

The NHS - Is it that bad?

  • Thread starter Thread starter graj0
  • Start Date Start Date
Two hospitals that I visit:

1) my diabetic consultant goes in on a Sunday morning as A&e is overflowing and they need beds... So consultant goes in to discharge sick patients because they have relatives to look after them. Ones that are classified as healthy without relatives or someone to care for them upon discharge stay in because social services don't work weekends.

2) another hospital recruited 8 doctors from a foreign country on one day to start in A&E. They ALL left on the first day. They saw the CEO of the hospital, informed her and left. Due to the pressures they were put under.

Examples like this are nationwide.
There is a shortage of Consultants throughout the UK.
Patients are also going to A&E for drunkedness and stuff they could go to walk in centres for etc

The NHS is really struggling and goodness knows where the answers are going to come from...
 
As has been mentioned, many countries aspire to have our health service, so why are the politicians trying to privatise through the back (& front) door. When these other countries, like the USA under the democrats trying to bring health service to the needy instead of exclusively to those who have insurance or can afford it.

Everybody falls ill, why should it be only accessible to the few. Especially as politicians are voted in democratically (!!)
 
I had water infection off and on for 9 months. I was taking samples into the gp that was bright red. I was in so much pain, shooting pains down both arms when going to the toilet. The gp said i needed a blood test re my diabetes. Went back for result, i had gone from 7 to 7.3 so he gave me another tablet. I asked why i was getting blood in my urine, he said, I dont know. I came out feeling so low. The following Christmas it was back again, doctors closed, i was in so much pain over christmas. When gp surgery opened i said in need to see a doctor this morning, if not i will be going to the hospital. I was in agony . Saw a different doctor, he said this has nothing to do with your diabetes, he refired me to a urologist.
Lots of tests, I have an inflamed bladder. I am on perminant antibiotics, I had a flare up last week, but mostly its under control.
From my first infection to the time i was referred was almost a year. I am so glad that first gp I saw has left the practice, no way I would ever see him again.
 
It's our NHS.
It might have its faults but it's ours.
We the people built it brick on brick.
We the people paid for it and still do pound on pound.
Some politicians and corporations will try and convince you it's not really ours and would be better if you paid some business man and his share holders fat profits.
Remember when we the people owned the railways?
We the people paid X amount of quids into it and then the fares.when using it.
Then the fat cats came along and took it away and the people now through taxation pay twice as much and may never use the railways.
Twice as much as before so that a fat cat and his share holders can have your money.
Super fast line about to be built that will cost the tax payer fifty billion quid.
Hang about .... why are the tax payers paying for this when the fat cats now own it?
The vast majority of us will never use it either but .... pay for it we must because our elected dictators say so.
 
Janiept said:
Wish I could give your post 100 likes @JACKTHELAD .
All so true but why do they get away with it
Click to expand...
We don't know how to stop them.
We don't have a very strong kind of democracy.
Sounds good on paper but consider this ....
Cameron and Osbourne assured us that should they take power they would not put VAT up.
One of the first things they did was put VAT up.
If you're angry about that then you can attempt to sack them but not for five years.
To late though as the damage has been done.
The next lot you vote in will make and break promises too but ... we can always sack them .... five years later.
The system we have seems to me to be elective dictatorships.
The reality too is in the west governments don't create the money they need they have to borrow it at interest from the international bankers.
IOur money is created as units of debt instead of units of value.
The axis of evil anyone?
The axis of evil was any country left that was still creating it's own interest free currency.
Iran is the last one standing.
 
Oh wow! You do need the whirlwind back. Can the good efficient GP chase it up?
 
Pipp said:
Oh wow! You do need the whirlwind back. Can the good efficient GP chase it up?
Click to expand...
She's on the case Pipp.
Wrote this week saying I need to be seen urgently.
She can't phone this guy like she could the first.
She has phoned his registrar is it?
I'm hoping my whirlwind starts up again next week.
 
JACKTHELAD said:
She's on the case Pipp.
Wrote this week saying I need to be seen urgently.
She can't phone this guy like she could the first.
She has phoned his registrar is it?
I'm hoping my whirlwind starts up again next week.
Click to expand...

Hope so. That has been going on too long.
Keep us updated.
 
The issue with the NHS is the expansion of services it offers as free. As medical technology and practice has gained additional techniques and knowledge, so they are expected on the NHS.

Should expensive cancer drugs that cost a fortune but offer only one or two months extra life be free on the NHS? Should gastric bypass surgery be offered to morbidly obese people who could be treated by extreme lchf or left to kill themselves by eating? Should plastic surgery to improve self confidence be funded? Should IVF be paid for?

All expensive procedures, none of which existed when the NHS was founded and the principles of what it does were set up. Should any procedure or medication that one could consider a privilege rather than a necessity to remain alive be NHS funded? That's one of the items at the heart of the problem. What can be done has expanded dramatically. The percentage of the tax pot to cover it hasn't. It has to break somewhere!
 
A problem no one seems willing to tackle or maybe don't know how to tackle.
 
Govts supposedly will lose us voters as it was brought in on the premis of free at point of call.

I certainly wouldn't mind having a charge levied specifically towards drunks at A&E etc... Or missed appointments...

They are charging diabetics that fail to have exemption cards and they've found a way to do this... So why not send this company they are using peoples names and addresses and fine them for missing their appointments or being drunk at A&E?

Their advisers probably have private medical insurance....
 
If vanity surgery were to stop as in plastic surgery boobs etc then skills would be lost.
If we privatise that bit then we would have to have a lot of people coming in from abroad for such a service cos I'm guessing here in the U.K fewer and fewer people can afford such luxury.
More and more people can't afford house insurance let alone medical too.
More and more jobs are low paid part time zero hours etc.
Short term employment is affecting peoples ability to have tv and phone contracts as they swap and change jobs.
The majority of people on benefits apart from pensioners are working people.
The tax payers have to subside each others employment by effectively subsidising the low pay bosses.
 
What is a diabetic exemption card Don?
 
donnellysdogs said:
The 5 year card that exempts diabetics from paying any prescription charges in the UK.
Click to expand...
Ahhhh .... no such thing in Wales as all scripts are free for everyone here.
 
My parents treatment under the NHS has been superb .My father is 86, he has in recent years had a heart valve replacement, two knees replaced (and about to have one redone), he has had blood clots sorted, a melanoma excised, expensive lucentis injections for macular degeneration (and that's just the start). He is always at the hospital or the GPs and the service is basically keeping him alive(and still independent). I cannot imagine how much his treatment has cost.

He would get similar care over here in France but it isn't well co-ordinated and depends on an individual taking responsibility (making appointments, keeping records (test results, xrays etc); works fine if you can do it.
It would cost him a lot more from his own pocket. He would have paid higher contributions when working, continued contributions when of pensionable age, 30% co-pay on medications and treatment of non chronic conditions though this is usually covered by additional insurance. A contribution to board and lodging as an in patient (again often insured against) and a small additional and noninsurable contribution on every box of pills, blood test, doctors appointment etc (destined for expensive cancer treatments)


The UK system is actually run on a shoestring compared to other countries and still achieves good outcomes. It came top in this recent comparison France which has had a good reputation in past comes 9/11 on the criteria looked at , Canada and the US are at the bottom. it ).http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror
 
The NHS isn't that bad!
The way it is funded is!
The tax system has change dramatically and the expenditure has multiplied multi-fold. Originally set up and run on National Health Insurance. Because most of the country was working. The politicians changed the way it was paid for because the business community (and very rich) were screaming for it to be changed and the lost revenue from that system impacted so much on the funding. Tax was diverted from the NHS to income tax rebates. This has happened as every government has come in for about the last 20 years.
So the cuts came in restricting service, accessibility, standards.
There is an explosion of private healthcare as big business demanded immediate care. Hence the likes of BUPA. We have two local BUPA hospitals in Merseyside. There is a crisis of care in local NHS hospitals during this winter. One of these BUPA hospitals was closed for two weeks over Christmas and new year!! For the benefit of staff holidays.!
There is an undercurrent of misrepresentation abound in the newspapers and the media about how the NHS is failing! It is NOT the staff, it is the lack of staff in the front line. How can waiting time for an ambulance be over half an hour because they are all trying to get patients into hospital! Crazy!
 
Just want to add. I've just had a phone call from my father. He had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop today, iit sounds trivial but he is on warfarin and also very anaemic .He phoned for an ambulance which came immediately. Within an hour he had been triaged, initially treated and sent by ambulance to another nearby hospital .He's now quite comfortable in a single side room (not so happy about that as he likes to chat)
I don't think that he could have had better or more prompt care.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…