Save the NHS!

SexyGreyFox said:
It happened to me last year but it was no bother to walk 100 yards back to the office where other patients can be driving 40 miles and then can't find a parking space.
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I remember asking the receptionist at the RSCH eye clinic some years ago (After had a particularly hard time finding somewhere to park) "Just how many patients DNA simply because they cannot find a parking spot and have to go home again?" The shifty look and under breath mumbling suggested to me that the answer was "Quite a Lot actually!"
 
tom_nieto said:
Charging patients a nominal fee is backwards thinking. There are some people who genuinely struggle to afford the bus fare to the hospital... usually the same people who are desperately in need of NHS services. Further discouraging them from attending is madness. It will cost more in the long run when they arrive in a collapsed heap to A&E and require more intensive therapy.
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And how are these people who genuinely struggle to pay a nomimal fee going to afford private insurance which i am sure will be more than a fiver?
 
Orionaut said:
I remember asking the receptionist at the RSCH eye clinic some years ago (After had a particularly hard time finding somewhere to park) "Just how many patients DNA simply because they cannot find a parking spot and have to go home again?" The shifty look and under breath mumbling suggested to me that the answer was "Quite a Lot actually!"
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If you know that the parking situation is that bad, why drive there? Do you expect to have a parking space reserved for you when you go to your bank for example?
 
c1tro said:
If you know that the parking situation is that bad, why drive there? Do you expect to have a parking space reserved for you when you go to your bank for example?
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Not everybody lives 2 miles from a hospital.
Poster above drove 30 miles, what do you expect him to do get a taxi to the train sation, train to City, taxi from train station to hospital and then do the return?
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Not everybody lives 2 miles from a hospital.
Poster above drove 30 miles, what do you expect him to do get a taxi to the train sation, train to City, taxi from train station to hospital and then do the return?
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Drive to a park and ride or park nearby the hospital (I am sure there are places to park within 2 miles)
 
;)
c1tro said:
Drive to a park and ride or park nearby the hospital (I am sure there are places to park within 2 miles)
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Yes, plenty of time to think about this when your friend is bleeding to death.

I agree wrt a&e.. consolidation is dangerous. Also agree about community services as I've seen someone begging to be committed who then took his own life after he was ignored.

I still say that if we want nice things, we have to pay for it. Unfortunately people have a fit if you say their taxes are going up. Unfortunately I think we currently have the most dispassionate, vile people recently known in charge so don't expect anything magical in the next few years...
 
Narj said:
I still say that if we want nice things, we have to pay for it. Unfortunately people have a fit if you say their taxes are going up. Unfortunately I think we currently have the most dispassionate, vile people recently known in charge so don't expect anything magical in the next few years...
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And that's because a majority of people voted for them.
 
Narj said:
;)

Yes, plenty of time to think about this when your friend is bleeding to death.

I agree wrt a&e.. consolidation is dangerous. Also agree about community services as I've seen someone begging to be committed who then took his own life after he was ignored.

I still say that if we want nice things, we have to pay for it. Unfortunately people have a fit if you say their taxes are going up. Unfortunately I think we currently have the most dispassionate, vile people recently known in charge so don't expect anything magical in the next few years...
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It's ever so easy to blame successive governance when every 4/5 years the face changes and the blame subsides.

Yet its the voter that is ultimately the deciding factor, It has decided time and again to destroy itself, so let it - the ignoble result happens always.
 
c1tro said:
And how are these people who genuinely struggle to pay a nomimal fee going to afford private insurance which i am sure will be more than a fiver?
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They won't. The nominal fee will open the floodgates to a paid by patients NHS. It cannot be allowed to happen with the sort of short sighted thinking that dominates Westminster.
 
Minstadave said:
Pretty sure it's been touted for decades. Problem is it will cost more to enforce and get people to pay than it will make.
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Are you in paeds Minstadave?
I love it. Just done a month in a DGH paeds A&E and was great fun. Really enjoyed it. Always considered it as a career, but every paediatrician has warned me away!!

So - pros and cons? Knowing the state of the NHS, the future and especially paediatric staffing levels, would you do the same if you had to go back through it all tomorrow?
 
tres said:
Are you in paeds Minstadave?
I love it. Just done a month in a DGH paeds A&E and was great fun. Really enjoyed it. Always considered it as a career, but every paediatrician has warned me away!!

So - pros and cons? Knowing the state of the NHS, the future and especially paediatric staffing levels, would you do the same if you had to go back through it all tomorrow?
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Yup I'm 18 months from finishing my training.

I love my job deeply, despite the NHS, the nights, the responsibility of keeping a city full of kids alive on my own for 12hrs straight, being called to A&E to see a bunch of kids who really just need a sensible parent.

There is literally nothing else I would rather be doing and I go to work happy every day.

I'm coming to the end of my training and I'm a proper grubby DGH paediatrician - I do everything from constipation clinic to my own intubation/arterial lines and PICU/NICU management.

The big downsides are:

- resident on calls as a consultant for several years, potentially your whole career, that's a lot of time away from your family but it's compensated by days off
- long training (8 years as a ST doc)
- staffing isn't great, but no worse than anywhere else really
- moving everything but the really dull stuff to regional specialist centres makes the DGHs a little dull at times

The big upsides it is wonderful working with kids, you're well protected and supported through the early years and DGH life is awesome. Paeds will always be protected no matter how bad the NHS gets.

You're welcome to email me any questions.
 
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Uther said:
I've driven 30 miles to a hospital appointment before, then had to turn round and drive home again because there was no parking available. Should I be charged? If no, then surely everyone could just make that excuse. It would be a nightmare to enforce.
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As someone who works in the boring/constantly blamed management of the NHS I can honestly say it'll never happen partly as there are so many appointments missed due to letters not being delivered to the correct address (thanks Royal Mail/TNT etc), systems sending them to the wrong address, systems not sending them at all, systems sending incorrect letters to the correct address and human error.

It's easy to blame the patient until you look inside the systems and realise we're still at least partially reliant on staff to update demographics, that we're still reliant on patients to update their GPs when they move house etc. Basically it's a muddle of human/computer problems.
 
Halfmad said:
It's easy to blame the patient until you look inside the systems and realise we're still at least partially reliant on staff to update demographics, that we're still reliant on patients to update their GPs when they move house etc. Basically it's a muddle of human/computer problems.
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I never thought about that.
The next patient I get that riles me up with several DNAs I'll check the appontment letters to the demographics.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I never thought about that.
The next patient I get that riles me up with several DNAs I'll check the appontment letters to the demographics.
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I've had more than one very apologetic patient in clinic who DNA'd their first appointment because they couldn't read the letter that was sent to them. If we start blaming patients for everything we've already lost the battle. NHS staff in my experience are very resilient and can stomach a bit of blame and anger in a way that the sick and vulnerable cannot.

Tres - 33 is not too late to start. Even if you took 10 years to do specialty training you'd still have 25 years of life as a consultant if you retired at 68 when you are entitled to draw your pension. Definitely worthwhile if you're motivated to do it.
 
Go stand in any A&E in the country this evening and you'll soon get the crisis vibe. We're barely keeping our head above water.

It's not even the usual dross, genuinely sick people overwhelming a creaking system.
 
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