There is more options than 1) NHS 2) America.@FBi7 I'd give up pal. No reasoning to be had here. The reality is the nhs is underfunded and understaffed.
Sure people will be over the moon if private health insurance kicked inJust look at America where an average ambulance ride costs $1200
NHS=Negligent Health Service
- Thread starter 1664kronenbourg
- Start date
I have to say I'm massively disillusioned with the NHS now. I've never had any problems with it personally, but I lost my Dad at the end of February, he was only 58 and frankly he was failed multiple times over the last 2 years. First through his GP and various consultants, and secondly whilst in hospital before he died, the treatment was just crap.
The crux of it is, he had a CT scan of Kidneys/Bladder/Urinary Tract because he was peeing blood. The CT also caught a bit of his liver in the scan, the CT showed that there was evidence of cirrhosis. The guy said that to my father, he wrote it in his notes, but he didn't refer him to a liver specialist/gastro specialist. This was in October last year. He's been seeing healthcare professionals for various other scans because his body was going to crap (liver failure) from October onwards. He was visibily jaundiced from November time, not once did his GP/Nurses, people doing the scans etc, remark it, his tummy had swollen (Ascites), but again no one seemed to notice it, he was just prescribed diuretics by his GP. Eventually he gets to having a colonoscopy in January 2022, because he's having blood coming from his back passage. They can't get the camera 'round the bend' so to speak, because his abdomen was so full of fluid and water doesn't compress. The guy doing the colonoscopy was the first person to notice how ill my Dad looked, looked through his history, saw the CT from the Urologist in October 2021. He just so happened to also be a liver specialist, and he said to my Dad "you should have been referred to me straight away". He told him he was going to order a full chest CT, as well as some blood tests and an Endoscopy, he also told my Dad that when he comes in for his follow up after the CT to bring a loved one with him. So obviously it wasn't going to be good news. Dad had the CT in early February and bloods, but by mid February he was admitted to hospital, with the Ambulance driver still saying "he doesn't look jaundiced" despite the fact he looks like Homer Simpson he was that yellow. He was admitted into hospital on a Thursday, he died the following Friday. We were only told "he wasn't going to make it" at 4:30pm the Thursday before he died. All the other doctors who had seen him whilst he was in hospital were talking about stabilising him to see if his liver would recover and/or get him on the transplant list. So we were all hoping and hoping.
There were various **** ups. I arrived on the Tuesday to see my Dad at about 3pm, he had a drip of Albumin. I didn't pay much attention to it. My step mum arrived at about 8:30-9pm, and said "what's this?" to the Albumin, followed the tube. It wasn't even attached to his cannula, I hadn't noticed, I felt terrible. But what is worse is that he was on a ward, various nurses had been and seen him whilst I was sat with him and not one of them noticed. When I told the nurse who had just switched over from the day nurse to the night nurse. She let out a sigh and a facial expression that was clearly "for ***** sake!".
There were loads of other **** ups and I won't go into more detail but frankly it was crap. And I have no confidence in the NHS now really.
My Dad wasn't a heavy drinker, he smoked, was overweight, was a Caeliac that didn't follow a gluten free diet, and all of us would pester him about those things. We never pestered him about drinking because he drunk so little. I have seen my Dad in a state you would call 'Drunk' once in my entire on life, on Holiday in Cuba. He would drink 1 or 2 beers an evening, but unfortunately it would be most evenings. So if you clock up the units, then it's consistently over the weekly limit. Watch your drinking everyone. Most of the information going around is on binge drinking and how damaging it can be, it is damaging. But the slow and steady, constantly drinking 1 or 2 most nights of a week is equally as bad for you.
The crux of it is, he had a CT scan of Kidneys/Bladder/Urinary Tract because he was peeing blood. The CT also caught a bit of his liver in the scan, the CT showed that there was evidence of cirrhosis. The guy said that to my father, he wrote it in his notes, but he didn't refer him to a liver specialist/gastro specialist. This was in October last year. He's been seeing healthcare professionals for various other scans because his body was going to crap (liver failure) from October onwards. He was visibily jaundiced from November time, not once did his GP/Nurses, people doing the scans etc, remark it, his tummy had swollen (Ascites), but again no one seemed to notice it, he was just prescribed diuretics by his GP. Eventually he gets to having a colonoscopy in January 2022, because he's having blood coming from his back passage. They can't get the camera 'round the bend' so to speak, because his abdomen was so full of fluid and water doesn't compress. The guy doing the colonoscopy was the first person to notice how ill my Dad looked, looked through his history, saw the CT from the Urologist in October 2021. He just so happened to also be a liver specialist, and he said to my Dad "you should have been referred to me straight away". He told him he was going to order a full chest CT, as well as some blood tests and an Endoscopy, he also told my Dad that when he comes in for his follow up after the CT to bring a loved one with him. So obviously it wasn't going to be good news. Dad had the CT in early February and bloods, but by mid February he was admitted to hospital, with the Ambulance driver still saying "he doesn't look jaundiced" despite the fact he looks like Homer Simpson he was that yellow. He was admitted into hospital on a Thursday, he died the following Friday. We were only told "he wasn't going to make it" at 4:30pm the Thursday before he died. All the other doctors who had seen him whilst he was in hospital were talking about stabilising him to see if his liver would recover and/or get him on the transplant list. So we were all hoping and hoping.
There were various **** ups. I arrived on the Tuesday to see my Dad at about 3pm, he had a drip of Albumin. I didn't pay much attention to it. My step mum arrived at about 8:30-9pm, and said "what's this?" to the Albumin, followed the tube. It wasn't even attached to his cannula, I hadn't noticed, I felt terrible. But what is worse is that he was on a ward, various nurses had been and seen him whilst I was sat with him and not one of them noticed. When I told the nurse who had just switched over from the day nurse to the night nurse. She let out a sigh and a facial expression that was clearly "for ***** sake!".
There were loads of other **** ups and I won't go into more detail but frankly it was crap. And I have no confidence in the NHS now really.
My Dad wasn't a heavy drinker, he smoked, was overweight, was a Caeliac that didn't follow a gluten free diet, and all of us would pester him about those things. We never pestered him about drinking because he drunk so little. I have seen my Dad in a state you would call 'Drunk' once in my entire on life, on Holiday in Cuba. He would drink 1 or 2 beers an evening, but unfortunately it would be most evenings. So if you clock up the units, then it's consistently over the weekly limit. Watch your drinking everyone. Most of the information going around is on binge drinking and how damaging it can be, it is damaging. But the slow and steady, constantly drinking 1 or 2 most nights of a week is equally as bad for you.
Hospitals have GPs if your desperate, just turn up at A&E then go to triage and explain your situationThis is what I thought, but based on my experience, they have built walls less then 1 mile around their practice... If the only GP whose receptionist seemed willing to consider my application rejects it, I'll either be without a GP (and having to buy my current quarterly prescription online...) or paying for a GP appointment privately... To be honest, I'm not against the private cost for GPs, but really, GPs need a top down restructure, they hold far too much power...
Associate
Just caught up with this thread after a while.
I'm glad your experience was so positive and I hope you're now feeling better. But, also, thank you for highlighting what a pain in the backside 111 actually is, especially from an ambulance service point of view. I'm convinced 111 answer the phone by saying, "111, an ambulance is on it's way." I can count on one hand the number of times they have got it right (in my experience).
Chris is absolutely correct here. GPs have always had sloping shoulders, even more so when coupled with the covid cloak, but it's a shame you now have to point out their failings to get anywhere. They're not all bad though, there are some brilliant GPs out there.
Wow, I've seen some crap on this forum, but this takes the biscuit. Do you honestly subscribe to the BS that fell from your head onto your keyboard? This is exactly what I envisage a copy and paste of Tracey's Facebook post would look like.
Yes of course that's all A&E departments are capable of. Aren't you glad you didn't waste all those years of your life at university becoming a healthcare professional, unlike all the Consultants, Registrars, SHOs, Junior Doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Paramedics and Nurses who would eventually come to the same conclusion as you?
Just to educate you further:
Blood pressure can be recorded at home, just usually using an inaccurate machine. I prove this almost on a daily basis.
Smart watches CANNOT perform ECGs.
Blood tests are extremely valuable. If the results are inconclusive, that pretty much means that the really bad stuff has been ruled out.
Finally, using your analogy of getting a private diagnosis of a blood clot before going to the NHS, I'd like to point out that a blood clot, had it been a suspicion, would have been detected in your NHS A&E blood test.
Never before have I read such utter crap.
I'm glad your experience was so positive and I hope you're now feeling better. But, also, thank you for highlighting what a pain in the backside 111 actually is, especially from an ambulance service point of view. I'm convinced 111 answer the phone by saying, "111, an ambulance is on it's way." I can count on one hand the number of times they have got it right (in my experience).
In casual conversation with a barrister i know, (no, no, not a babysitter, bloody computer....) he gave me the following advice, gratis. If you ring your GP's surgery and they fob you off from a face to face appointment for something you yourself consider a potentially serious issue, ring them back, record the conversation, telling them you are so doing, and insist their refusal of a face to face is entered in writing and dated, in your medical records. Apparently this usually triggers a change of heart, not that one should have to go down such a route. If it doesn't and you peg it, it at least gives your next of kin something to take to law, to finance a decent interment for you
Chris is absolutely correct here. GPs have always had sloping shoulders, even more so when coupled with the covid cloak, but it's a shame you now have to point out their failings to get anywhere. They're not all bad though, there are some brilliant GPs out there.
Wow, I've seen some crap on this forum, but this takes the biscuit. Do you honestly subscribe to the BS that fell from your head onto your keyboard? This is exactly what I envisage a copy and paste of Tracey's Facebook post would look like.
Yes of course that's all A&E departments are capable of. Aren't you glad you didn't waste all those years of your life at university becoming a healthcare professional, unlike all the Consultants, Registrars, SHOs, Junior Doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Paramedics and Nurses who would eventually come to the same conclusion as you?
Just to educate you further:
Blood pressure can be recorded at home, just usually using an inaccurate machine. I prove this almost on a daily basis.
Smart watches CANNOT perform ECGs.
Blood tests are extremely valuable. If the results are inconclusive, that pretty much means that the really bad stuff has been ruled out.
Finally, using your analogy of getting a private diagnosis of a blood clot before going to the NHS, I'd like to point out that a blood clot, had it been a suspicion, would have been detected in your NHS A&E blood test.
Never before have I read such utter crap.
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Commissario
I suspect that will depend rather strongly on the exhibited symptoms, my father has had several over the years*, and last October my brother in law had chest X-rays, an MRI and an endoscope test all within the space of ~10 days (I took him for an appointment with the consultant in the morning and we'd just got home when he got a call asking him if he was free that afternoon for the MRI).
Doctors tend to try and rule out the more basic stuff first, so something like an MRI tends not to get done unless the symptoms or injury require it as a primary/urgent thing, or until other tests are done that can rule out the more common things.
You'll get an MRI almost immediately for a bunch of urgent things, but for other things they'll try other diagnostic tests first because those tests might pick up the vast majority of things.
Oddly under "privatised" health care like in the US you're probably less likely to get an MRI for certain things where over here they're considered a "must do" due to the nature of an injury.
In my brother in law's case he had a short infection and turned yellow, when the urgent bloods didn't show anything they did the tests to rule out cancer or liver damage before anything might have gotten a lot worse.
*And going way back, I had one back when there were only a handful of machines in the country and you had to go to a major teaching/specialist hospital for it.
I considered that, technically it is closer to me then the GP but suspect the extra distance to a GP will be worth it over waiting 4+ hours to ask for a basic prescription repeat. I'm hopeful the one I applied to will accept me or at least their receptionist will guide me better then the others who didn't want to know. The CCG was useless when I asked where am I eligible to apply. Just said to try anyway or write a complaint email.
Soldato
- Joined
- 29 Jul 2004
- Posts
- 7,109
A privately run healthcare system with the budget of the NHS would absolutely give better health outcomes. NHS isnt fit for purpose, currently been waiting 8 months for an MRI on my knee
The problem is the NHS is underfunded and there resources are over stretched. The Tories don't see a reason for the NHS existing because its for a lower class of people therefor it will not get the funding it needs and at some point the NHS will get so bad it will be sold off altogether and the UK will have a health insurance system in place. I'm sure people will then be convinced by the Tories that the NHS needs to go.
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Soldato
Some would argue they're not underfunded but choose to spend the money unwisely!
One wonders how long it takes to sort out such a huge health service, simply slashing budgets to force efficiency, better value for money, better outcome for patients etc doesn't seem to make sense to me, not on the scale they want and time they want it in.
A cross party agreement that locks in a long term 10+ year plan, that can only be changed when another vote of sorts is made, basically to stop the next party from ripping up the idea. I know there's this thing about not allowing successive Govs being locked into things from the prior but for such a huge organisation this is turning into a mess.
Soldato
Are budgets being slashed though or is the money just not being used wisely or enough of it actually going on treatments rather than IT projects. The fact that each trust and NHS org duplicates a lot of stuff as they run like separate orgs is also a part of the problem. Before ESR each trust did its own payroll, had its own software vendor that differed from everyone else's. Even if two trusts had the same software it wouldn't be used identically as processes weren't unified and/or software being customised to the whims of each trust at further expense. Outsourcing to private companies such as IT infrastructure costs a bomb. Then they keep many existing staff from pre outsourcing to add another layer. So internal staff become support ticket admins to liaise with the outsourced companies. You wouldn't run your own company with the same regard for costs that's for sure.
They could probably cut some funding to clinical research as well. There's plenty of cases and existing treatments that should be prioritised.
Then there's also the whole mess of those not wanting to work on public sector pay so are employed as contractors instead.
Its the same with a lot of public services, the little money they get they don't spend it wisely or maybe they are told what they can and can't spend it on by the government. There is a lot of waste everywhere you look, in all kinds of public services and even some private services. With all the money that is wasted I'd be a trillionaire.
The NHS will not be around for long because the government don't want it. I think its a shame because this country has "or had" a really good healthcare system which is free. No other country has that I don't think. In today's society everything revolves around money, greed and profit. The NHS doesn't entirely fit in with that currently.
Don't underestimate the cost of change either. Aligning processes and databases can be very challenging and expensive. The integration of clinical systems within a single Trust is massively complicated, let alone what would need to be done to consolidate it into a single system.
It is a shame that Labour were too early with the national programme for IT. A few more years later and it might have been possible.
Soldato
Was over a year when I did my back in but when I eventually got referred to muscular skeletal consultant she saw how long i'd been waiting and referred me to a private hospital. Same happened when the MRI showed I wasn't imagining the pain and got private Nuffield hospital for epidural.
Soldato
Yes I've been involved in a few NHS projects. Some of their legacy vendors totally haul them over a barrel with huge costs to extract data. This tends to be due to inadequate contracting in the first place. Too eager for the shiny new and not enough thought put in to the day that they may want to migrate away from a vendor.
So I've had this cough since before / after covid. Probably going on 8-9 weeks. Was prescribed antibiotics but it didn't clear. Phoned GP again last Friday and he actually wanted to see me!!! So this is a picture from last Friday afternoon at the GP Practice.
Prescribed another course of antibiotics and got sent for an x-ray at the Hospital. Get results in 7-10 days but I'm already feeling better with the cough pretty much gone with this 2nd course of AB. I feel like a group of GP practices should get to share an X-Ray machine. Travel time was 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back. 30 minute wait to park and then the X-Ray itself was in and out in 30 seconds. Seems a waste of resources at the Hospital to be honest.
Prescribed another course of antibiotics and got sent for an x-ray at the Hospital. Get results in 7-10 days but I'm already feeling better with the cough pretty much gone with this 2nd course of AB. I feel like a group of GP practices should get to share an X-Ray machine. Travel time was 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back. 30 minute wait to park and then the X-Ray itself was in and out in 30 seconds. Seems a waste of resources at the Hospital to be honest.
As I say, it's like this across Scotland at the moment. Fair play that this GP eventually wanted to see me instead of phoning it in. I was 15 minutes early. No-one had arrived before me and there wasn't anyone else waiting when I left. Shambles honestly.
Wow My GP looks the opposite. Mine is packed out almost with a 3 hour wait until your number gets called from the ticket machine. I had an appointment at 10:30 this morning I was still waiting nearly 3 hours later.So I've had this cough since before / after covid. Probably going on 8-9 weeks. Was prescribed antibiotics but it didn't clear. Phoned GP again last Friday and he actually wanted to see me!!! So this is a picture from last Friday afternoon at the GP Practice.
Prescribed another course of antibiotics and got sent for an x-ray at the Hospital. Get results in 7-10 days but I'm already feeling better with the cough pretty much gone with this 2nd course of AB. I feel like a group of GP practices should get to share an X-Ray machine. Travel time was 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back. 30 minute wait to park and then the X-Ray itself was in and out in 30 seconds. Seems a waste of resources at the Hospital to be honest.