On several occasions I've fallen foul of the four and a half day week syndrome of the NHS - DO NOT fall ill on a Friday afternoon - it will be Monday before you will get treatment.As you say great for rare and acute. We walked in to A&E on a Friday evening and in 30 minutes had seen 3 nurses, 2 doctors and had an x-ray.
I could be writing a reply for this thread all night but I will limit my self to saying that it is an amazing organisation staffed by exceptionally dedicated people.
Of course it has its problems but where would we be without it.
I have a rather more jaundiced view of the NHS - even though my grandfather founded the dental side of the business!
The NHS is excellent for rare or acute problems - terrible for chronic conditions such as rheumatism.
On several occasions I've fallen foul of the four and a half day week syndrome of the NHS - DO NOT fall ill on a Friday afternoon - it will be Monday before you will get treatment.
As for the nurses standing round talking to each other...well blow me down with a feather! Quite often they don't have a dinner hour, like the nurse who looked after me. She was on for 12 hours, no set dinner time and grabbed a cuppa and eat her sandwiches, in the sort of control room where she monitored me and others throughout the night.I guess that I hit a raw nerve, not intended but when you see nurses standing around for 20/30 minutes and not dealing with issues then you are likely to have a jaundiced view although accepting that NHS is a valuable service. 12 hour shifts are, in my knowledge, preferred especially at night. No set dinner time as you say "well blow me down with a feather". I am happy to fund the NHS but it is not an open cheque book it can always find good ways to spend more money.
I have tried not responding to this but after working all my working life in the NHS retiring as a prof and senior bod in the service, after nearly 40 years it is hard not to.
I had no idea you were a prof :o
There is definitely a North South divide.. Why is it the population of the South won't say hello when out in the Countryside or have half the manners that the folk in the North have
As far as the NHS goes, if we were all more pleasant, thankful and kind to each other, the folk that have the difficult jobs in the NHS might actually get less stressed.. The NHS isn't failing because the people that work there are making it fail, it's failing because the Government are deliberately underfunding and making it fail so they get the support of the population to privatise it.. We shouldn't let this happen because then the NHS will turn into a Corporate Tax dodge just like the UK Utilities and rail system.. There's a whole other discussion for another time... SUPPORT THE NHS... SUPPORT THE NHS.. SUPPORT THE NHS.. SUPPORT THE NHS.. SUPPORT THE NHS..
What the individual should do of course is find out the facts for themselves.Totally agree with the first and last paragraph but isn't that at variance to the 2nd paragraph. :-\
The NHS is failing because the Government are deliberately underfunding and making it fail so they get the support of the population to privatise it.
I would prefer people to use their brains more and mouth less, no one is interested in being force fed pointless opinion.
Totally agree with the first and last paragraph but isn't that at variance to the 2nd paragraph. :-\
I have tried not responding to this but after working all my working life in the NHS retiring as a prof and senior bod in the service, after nearly 40 years it is hard not to.Well said
I have heard all that time how bad we are, what a lousy job we do, how it should all be privatised, etc etc. Patients in the latter years of my practice would come in and say how surprised they were that the staff were so pleasant how they saw me quickly and were pleasantly surprised at the speed and standard of care. They had taken in all the negative press. The fact that we have a staffing problem is understandable given this constant undermining. If you say what you do there is always someone who will stop you in the pub to tell you their bad experiences of the NHS, never their good, and by implication blame you. I am free of most of that now.
Let us consider the public responsibility to the NHS. The real threat to the NHS for all of us is the health behaviours of the UK population leading to obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, increased cancer, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and more all of these are avoidable if people took responsibility for their own health but there it little evidence that the UK population is willing to do this- they keep getting fatter and more sedentary. But even there the NHS gets the blame for the public failing to take responsibility for themselves. Chronic conditions (my area) are, by their nature not curable, they are persistent and require a combined approach to care for the patient and the clinician to maximise benefits. I don't think clinicians are very good at managing this because they have been taught to see lack of a cure a failure and are not geared towards helping people cope, and many of the general public want nothing short of a cure without the responsibility of doing things for themselves.
The NHS is not perfect we all know that, there will always be examples of bad behaviour in a huge organisation and the NHS is the biggest organisation in Europe. If many people in industry do not do their job to 100% the consequences are negligible in healthcare they can be fatal. We spend less on health care than comparable nations, have fewer staff, especially specialist staff as the report published today highlights. We have a recruitment problem exacerbated by underinvestment in training and a cap on allowing overseas workers.
The NHS is by international standards and comparisons the most efficient health service for health outcomes. Efficient means the best outcomes to the amount of funding and there is the rub. If we spend the average others spend, invest better in the staff, we might start doing better.
Sorry for the rant.
I must admit that I find it bizarre that any comment that suggests NHS is less than perfect, however worded, is taken as inherently rude, or suggestive of a deep desire to privatise it all.
I’d have thought some of the scandals over the years suggest that overall checks and balances leave something to be desired...and that pretending all is perfect will not lead to improvements.