I think the reasons for the increased demand are fairly clear: much more elderly population, much more we can do for people and much higher expectations.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
It seems that several people whoâve posted on here need to speak to a doctor and presumably havenât brought their problem on themselves by excessive eating, drinking or poor nutrition. A basic appointment within a reasonable length of time and being dealt with in a professional manner surely isnât too much to expect?Â
We can all say what the public health service in this country âshouldâ be like and how it âshouldâ be run. Itâs easy to suggest long term aims or to compare the U.K. with other countries. The reality that both patients and health service staff are trying to cope with in the here and now in the U.K. is very different. When people are advised to âhave a word with your doctorâ if concerned about something, that suggestion is often met with a mirthless laugh nowadays.Â
@white rabbit - if you don't use common sense when crossing a road you shouldn't be surprised or blame anyone else when you get run over. The same applies to looking after your own health.
Back in the 50s, it's true life was simpler with fewer media pressures but there was also far less industrially processed food full of empty calories, the only take-away was fish and chips for the overwhelming majority and people ate seasonal home-made meals.Â
I can remember using a slate and chalk in my first year at primary school but also learning my 12 times tables as well as 13, 17 and 19 because the teacher thought they'd be useful. The others up to 20 were easily fathomed from multiples of the smaller ones, she said. Kids who were bright were pushed to do more, even at 5.  The others were helped to do as well as they could.  That changed in the early 70s when comprehensives proliferated and started to fail so many children for many reasons and on many levels - teaching ideology and training rather than funding at that point as well as Margaret Thatcher changing teacher academic level requirements to get them cheaper and Labour run education authorities tended to fail more than others.
I could go on but it's cumulative and on many levels and both right and left are wanting in my view.
@Liriodendron it's 25⏠here and yes, people make far more use of their pharmacies before going to the GPor A&E. We also have to pay for certain procedures and some medicines but many medicines are free at point of delivery and others, as well as procedures, are partially or fully reimbursed shortly afterwards.
Medicines are paid for here, whatever your age - though you can get a drugs payment card which limits the amount a family has to pay, to âŹ80 per month, if you need anything really expensive.
Many people - including OH and me - have private health insurance here, because the public system is even more creaky than in the UK. It's against my principles, to be honest, because in effect we are paying to queue jump, but there's not a lot of alternative. We were told when we planned to move here that waiting lists for things like hip replacement on the IHS were so long that you were likely to die before it happened. Â
@KT53 - I got an urgent appointment a fortnight ago, within a couple of hours of ringing the surgery (which is half a mile away). We can also make non-urgent appointments easily. However, I don't think that's universal in Ireland - there's a shortage of GPs here too.
Before we moved here in 2019, @Helios , you could get a same-day appointment at the health centre in my town (in west Yorks) by joining a queue outside, waiting for reception to open at 8am. That system has now been scrapped, apparently, so you can only attempt to get an appointment by ringing incessantly and hoping eventually someone will answer the phone.
My heart bleeds for you all.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
My brother-in-law had a hip replacement 5 or 6 years ago and until recently everything has been fine. He suddenly started to get shooting pains in the hip so phoned to get an appointment. When he arrived he was seen by a physiotherapist for only 2 or 3 minutes who's considered opinion was "You're getting older so hip pain is normal". End of consultation. There are days now when he can barely walk but doesn't see any point in going back to be dismissed in the same way again. He's not in his 90s, he's 66 and underweight if anything. Doesn't smoke and meets up with his mates once a week for a couple of hours for a natter and a couple of pints. He hasn't brought this on himself, unless you class working all his life in manual jobs 'his own fault'.
He needs to persist @KT53. No-one should have to live with treatable pain and a new hip should last a lot longer than 5 or 6 years so either he has another problem or his new hips has failed for some reason and needs sorting. Don't let him give up.
Would one of you like to come down and try to convince him please. He is ridiculously stubborn and several family members have tried to convince him, but currently there is no changing his mind. We were with them on Christmas Day and it was obvious at times that he was in agony, but still won't give in. You can't help those who won't help themselves. His wife had made appointments for him in the past but knows it is currently pointless as he will just cancel it.
The situation isn't helped by the fact that he has absolutely no faith in his GP surgery either. Just one example of why he feels as he does - he attended an appointment, not to do with the hip, and had blood tests done along with an appointment made to get the results. A couple of days before that appointment he had a call from the surgery to say the results were fine and he didn't have to attend the appointment. Fast forward a week and he had a snotty letter from the surgery demanding to know why he didn't attend the appointment and warning him that if he failed to attend another appointment he could be struck off the GPs list. His view is that if they can't even manage their appointment list what hope is there for the medical side?
Incidentally, he doesn't attend the same surgery as me.
In December we had literally 100s of people visiting the doctors and our pharmacy and presumably the local hospital demanding appointments and antibiotics for a rather nasty cold and cough doing the rounds. Everyone insisting they had a chest infection or Strep A. I had the same cold before Christmas and still have a lingering cough but wouldnât dream of bothering a medical professional about it. We ran out of many antibiotics very quickly and I am sure most of those prescribed were unnecessary but the media terrified parents in particular into overloading the NHS which is already on its knees.Â
If I had ÂŁ1 for every non payer of prescription charges who says they will â just take them as they are freeâ or who has a prescription for items they can buy over the counter I could retire. And donât get me started on the massive amount of unused drugs we get returned to us every week which are incinerated. It is truly shocking.Â
Posts
much more elderly population,
much more we can do for people
and much higher expectations.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Back in the 50s, it's true life was simpler with fewer media pressures but there was also far less industrially processed food full of empty calories, the only take-away was fish and chips for the overwhelming majority and people ate seasonal home-made meals.Â
I can remember using a slate and chalk in my first year at primary school but also learning my 12 times tables as well as 13, 17 and 19 because the teacher thought they'd be useful. The others up to 20 were easily fathomed from multiples of the smaller ones, she said. Kids who were bright were pushed to do more, even at 5.  The others were helped to do as well as they could.  That changed in the early 70s when comprehensives proliferated and started to fail so many children for many reasons and on many levels - teaching ideology and training rather than funding at that point as well as Margaret Thatcher changing teacher academic level requirements to get them cheaper and Labour run education authorities tended to fail more than others.
I could go on but it's cumulative and on many levels and both right and left are wanting in my view.
@Liriodendron it's 25⏠here and yes, people make far more use of their pharmacies before going to the GPor A&E. We also have to pay for certain procedures and some medicines but many medicines are free at point of delivery and others, as well as procedures, are partially or fully reimbursed shortly afterwards.
Â
Many people - including OH and me - have private health insurance here, because the public system is even more creaky than in the UK. It's against my principles, to be honest, because in effect we are paying to queue jump, but there's not a lot of alternative. We were told when we planned to move here that waiting lists for things like hip replacement on the IHS were so long that you were likely to die before it happened. Â
@KT53 - I got an urgent appointment a fortnight ago, within a couple of hours of ringing the surgery (which is half a mile away). We can also make non-urgent appointments easily. However, I don't think that's universal in Ireland - there's a shortage of GPs here too.
Before we moved here in 2019, @Helios , you could get a same-day appointment at the health centre in my town (in west Yorks) by joining a queue outside, waiting for reception to open at 8am. That system has now been scrapped, apparently, so you can only attempt to get an appointment by ringing incessantly and hoping eventually someone will answer the phone.
My heart bleeds for you all.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.