For me the NHS has been broken a long time. Back in the 80s I had a cracked kneecap and torn ligaments "treated" at a major teaching hospital n Harrow. The service and treatment were so bad I didn't go near them when I had 3 cracked ribs the following year. The problem seemed to be poor admin, nobody at treatment level talking to the others, nurses in A&E over stretched and doing jobs badly, inexperienced junior doctors with inadequate supervision.
Just a few years later and in the Belgian system, OH was diagnosed with a cataract brought on by a detached retina when playing rugby a few years earlier. Surgeon apologised that he couldn't fix it that week so he'd have to wait till the following week and then fixed OH's lens while he was on so he no longer needed a contact lens in that eye.
Roll on just a few years and I have 3 slipped lumbar disks. Saw a surgeon, a neurologist, pathologist and physio expert who all discussed my case after all sorts of tests and scans and decided together that I needed epidural infiltrations of cortisone. No waiting and still working 20 years later. I'd probably still be waiting to see a back specialist in the NHS. Later on I had a cage to support dodgy neck vertebrae and then 2 new feet the following year. I'd never have got those on the NHS in Harrow.
The NHS has been neglected and under funded by both major parties in the UK and is expected to do too much social care for the elderly rather than concentrating on acute and chronic illnesses and accidents. It needs a re-think so that staff and buildings and resources can work at some level of efficiency and the complacent and inefficient - such as those involved in the case of that nurse in Bristol - need weeding out with prejudice.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I have to disagree with a lot of what you say @Picidae I was an NHS consultant for 25 years [ no private practice, don't agree with it ] If I ever needed major surgery done, I would never go to a private hospital, they are very shiny and have lots of staff, but at night the doctors are very inexperienced and there is no guarantee the consultant will be available. Many things that go wrong in the private sector are transferred to the NHS, it was a regular occurrence during my time. The consultants in the private sector are nearly always the same as those in the NHS, there are very few full time private consultants. I would advise anyone needing major surgery to use the NHS. Private sector is great for speed and luxury, but otherwise no.
We probably need to re think a lot of the NHS, but I believe it to be the best system in the world, and having worked in the USA and Holland as well, I think I am reasonably qualified to judge.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
I agree with you Punkdoc about the quality of the surgeons in the NHS, exemplary in our experience. The issue we had was with nursing care and there standards are sharply different, or so we have found.
On the matter of major surgery I agree it is almost always wise to have it performed in major NHS hospitals and that is mostly where my wife’s more significant cancer treatments were done but the brain aneurysm was dealt with on the private ward of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery so there were definitely no issues with staff not being on call.
One other incident which shook our confidence in the NHS was when my wife’s brain tumour-induced headaches started to get really debilitating. She was sent for tests at an NHS hospital who gave her the most perfunctory of examinations and diagnosed it as migraines. Had they had done more thorough testing they would have picked up the brain tumour seven years earlier and it is likely her eyesight would not have been permanently damaged. Even more shockingly, when we later examined her records it stated tests had been performed which had not been. One person’s word against another. What can you do?
I think you are probably uniquely qualified on this forum. @punkdoc, to make these comments. Thank you.
The problem, as I see it, is what we have to do in order to mend the NHS. The wonderful insurance systems many of you have described, inevitably disadvantage the poor, and this is surely the reason that we need the NHS to provide first-class treatment for everybody. Comparison with the shiny private sector just shows what can happen when there's enough money (and yes, maybe the right management) to give everyone the treatment they need, when they need it.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Asolutely agree @punkdoc ... and how many times when the NHS consultant is unavailable is it because he or she is working in the private hospital up the road?
Dont forget get that the NHS trains the doctors and nurses ... if the private system had to train their own I wonder how much more they’d have to charge?
i broke my foot 18 months ago ... I was in and out of A&E and the fracture clinic (including xrays) and was home in under 2 hours, fitted with the supportive black boot and with a follow up appointment for a couple of days later to check that all was ok. Brilliant.
My my son went to his GP with an injury last week ... he was sent to A&E that afternoon for a scan and appointment with orthopaedic chap ... he expected to be there all afternoon but it all took an hour and a half at the most. The results were sent to his GP the next day ... he has anti inflammatory meds and painkillers and physio booked for ten days time when it’s thought the nerve damage will be a bit better. Superb treatment. 👍
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It is very sad that major mistakes are made and that people suffer because of them. A very few of these are made because of bad Drs., I am sure everyone realises that just as in all other jobs there are bad people. I can think of several cases where my car has been very badly looked after, but somehow we expect that. Good Drs. make genuine mistakes many times, or at least I did. We are really no different than any other profession / job, even though I think a lot of people do not accept that. If one of my trainees ever said to me, that they had never made a particular mistake, then I would reply, that they had not done enough of that particular thing, and needed more practice. Probably the saddest thing, is that whilst the problem caused by your plumber leaves you with a wet floor, if I make a mistake, you might die.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Hubby had a hernia op done privately ( Nuffield ) and it went wrong. The message he got was along the lines of " oh, don't know what happened there. It normally works fine" no follow up, and left to the wonderful NHS to pick up the pieces. For those singing the praises of private health care /insurance schemes: what if you can't afford it? Ask yourself how much of YOUR tax actually goes to the NHS and ask yourself if you think YOU'VE paid in more than you have had/ expect to get back
When my brother in law finally had his hip surgery, it was done in a private hospital but paid for by the NHS because it had gone beyond the permitted waiting time. The surgeon was the NHS consultant he had seen at all appointments. The big difference was a private room so less likelihood of cross infection, plus plenty of staff.
I think 70 years of treating the symptoms of failure in the NHS has meant that nobody has been able to tackle the causes. It's grown exponentially and you can't just stop and start again once you've worked out the best approach. I'm very grateful that I can be treated sooner or later for free but I'm fortunate to be pretty healthy and haven't had any serious accidents (fingers crossed). I would be willing to pay more income tax too if I knew it would help improve things across the board.
The problem with agreeing to pay more tax is then seeing it being wasted not put to good use. I don't want to earn less just to fund scraping drunks off the streets on weekends, I don't want to have to tighten my belt so that people can have free prescriptions when they can afford to pay for it or maybe don't even need the meds in the first place. I don't want to pay more tax for a cleaner to sweep up the cigarette butts dropped outside the hospital front doors.
Anyway moaning about it is about as likely to fix the situation as it is moaning about free roaming cats.
My major gripe this morning is why the bleedin' sparrows need to keep picking all the buds off my trees when they've got 2 feeders full of food
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Posts
Just a few years later and in the Belgian system, OH was diagnosed with a cataract brought on by a detached retina when playing rugby a few years earlier. Surgeon apologised that he couldn't fix it that week so he'd have to wait till the following week and then fixed OH's lens while he was on so he no longer needed a contact lens in that eye.
Roll on just a few years and I have 3 slipped lumbar disks. Saw a surgeon, a neurologist, pathologist and physio expert who all discussed my case after all sorts of tests and scans and decided together that I needed epidural infiltrations of cortisone. No waiting and still working 20 years later. I'd probably still be waiting to see a back specialist in the NHS. Later on I had a cage to support dodgy neck vertebrae and then 2 new feet the following year. I'd never have got those on the NHS in Harrow.
The NHS has been neglected and under funded by both major parties in the UK and is expected to do too much social care for the elderly rather than concentrating on acute and chronic illnesses and accidents. It needs a re-think so that staff and buildings and resources can work at some level of efficiency and the complacent and inefficient - such as those involved in the case of that nurse in Bristol - need weeding out with prejudice.
I was an NHS consultant for 25 years [ no private practice, don't agree with it ]
If I ever needed major surgery done, I would never go to a private hospital, they are very shiny and have lots of staff, but at night the doctors are very inexperienced and there is no guarantee the consultant will be available.
Many things that go wrong in the private sector are transferred to the NHS, it was a regular occurrence during my time.
The consultants in the private sector are nearly always the same as those in the NHS, there are very few full time private consultants.
I would advise anyone needing major surgery to use the NHS.
Private sector is great for speed and luxury, but otherwise no.
We probably need to re think a lot of the NHS, but I believe it to be the best system in the world, and having worked in the USA and Holland as well, I think I am reasonably qualified to judge.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
On the matter of major surgery I agree it is almost always wise to have it performed in major NHS hospitals and that is mostly where my wife’s more significant cancer treatments were done but the brain aneurysm was dealt with on the private ward of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery so there were definitely no issues with staff not being on call.
One other incident which shook our confidence in the NHS was when my wife’s brain tumour-induced headaches started to get really debilitating. She was sent for tests at an NHS hospital who gave her the most perfunctory of examinations and diagnosed it as migraines. Had they had done more thorough testing they would have picked up the brain tumour seven years earlier and it is likely her eyesight would not have been permanently damaged. Even more shockingly, when we later examined her records it stated tests had been performed which had not been. One person’s word against another. What can you do?
The problem, as I see it, is what we have to do in order to mend the NHS. The wonderful insurance systems many of you have described, inevitably disadvantage the poor, and this is surely the reason that we need the NHS to provide first-class treatment for everybody. Comparison with the shiny private sector just shows what can happen when there's enough money (and yes, maybe the right management) to give everyone the treatment they need, when they need it.
Dont forget get that the NHS trains the doctors and nurses ... if the private system had to train their own I wonder how much more they’d have to charge?
i broke my foot 18 months ago ... I was in and out of A&E and the fracture clinic (including xrays) and was home in under 2 hours, fitted with the supportive black boot and with a follow up appointment for a couple of days later to check that all was ok. Brilliant.
My my son went to his GP with an injury last week ... he was sent to A&E that afternoon for a scan and appointment with orthopaedic chap ... he expected to be there all afternoon but it all took an hour and a half at the most. The results were sent to his GP the next day ... he has anti inflammatory meds and painkillers and physio booked for ten days time when it’s thought the nerve damage will be a bit better. Superb treatment. 👍
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
A very few of these are made because of bad Drs., I am sure everyone realises that just as in all other jobs there are bad people.
I can think of several cases where my car has been very badly looked after, but somehow we expect that.
Good Drs. make genuine mistakes many times, or at least I did.
We are really no different than any other profession / job, even though I think a lot of people do not accept that.
If one of my trainees ever said to me, that they had never made a particular mistake, then I would reply, that they had not done enough of that particular thing, and needed more practice.
Probably the saddest thing, is that whilst the problem caused by your plumber leaves you with a wet floor, if I make a mistake, you might die.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
For those singing the praises of private health care /insurance schemes: what if you can't afford it?
Ask yourself how much of YOUR tax actually goes to the NHS and ask yourself if you think YOU'VE paid in more than you have had/ expect to get back
I'm very grateful that I can be treated sooner or later for free but I'm fortunate to be pretty healthy and haven't had any serious accidents (fingers crossed).
I would be willing to pay more income tax too if I knew it would help improve things across the board.