What is it about the NHS????

[Gary Prentice]

I've had quite a few A&E visits over the last four years which fortunately have always been first class, but you do pick up a few titbits from staff along the way. One paramedic commented towards the end of her shift, that although they'd been non-stop all night, I was the only patient that actually needed an ambulance!

 

One evening, as an inpatient on Oncology I was told that A&E were looking for 40 beds. Yes 40 admissions from A&E, no wonder that department backs up when there are no available beds to move folks into.

 

Hospital managers were suggesting putting beds into a day clinic which was scheduled to open at 8AM. Bare in mind that that clinic is treating patients undergoing chemo who have little or no immune system, so that the entire clinic would have to emptied of admission patients and then be 'deep cleaned' prior to eight o'clock monday morning. I think eventually the hospital had to transfer admissions to other hospitals. 

[Matthew Storrs]

52 minutes ago, Ty Korrigan said:

In France, you pay around €25 to visit a GP.

It gets refunded up to 100% if you have appropriate cover.

The poorest still pay upfront but have a full refund.

 Stuart

 

Yeah, I’m sure something along those lines could be done. Granted there may be a few genuine hardship cases- but in many cases it’s not being too poor thats the issue but prioritising cigarettes, drugs, booze, gambling, crap single use toys (for the kids) instead. Sweeping generalisation I know, but plenty claim “poverty” but still somehow  find the money for the above...

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Just scraped this off a FB post, not fact checked but appears plausible - and certainly fits my opinion of the general mismanagement and abuse inherent in public services - so I’ll float it and wait see if there is a credible challenge:

 

How ill are you? Some more than others, but we need to have a serious think. 

In 2015, some 7,300,000 prescriptions were written for ibuprofen, racking up a bill for £27,000,000 - a cost of £3.74 per lot compared to 25p a box from the high street.

In total, prescribing four common painkillers - including paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin and codeine phosphate - cost the NHS £161,500,000 in 2015. This is the equivalent of up to 19,000 heart bypass operations, or 30,000 mastectomy ops

[Pete Mctree]

Let's be honest, the NHS is being run down, dismantled & sold off, like the railways etc were.  I looked on the gov.uk tender site the other week and there were approximately 30 million pounds of NHS contracts up for bids including those directly relating to patient treatment.

Soon it will be so poorly underfunded that it will barely function and people will start getting private medical insurance if they can afford it. It will reach a point when the government will "sadly" say that they are going to have to privatise it as it is so underperforming that it is no longer viable. People will accept it as the alternative will look so much better. Then we will find out how expensive medicine can be!

 

(sorry for the rant, but I can see it happening already) 

[Pete Mctree]

9 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Just scraped this off a FB post, not fact checked but appears plausible - and certainly fits my opinion of the general mismanagement and abuse inherent in public services - so I’ll float it and wait see if there is a credible challenge:

 

How ill are you? Some more than others, but we need to have a serious think. 

In 2015, some 7,300,000 prescriptions were written for ibuprofen, racking up a bill for £27,000,000 - a cost of £3.74 per lot compared to 25p a box from the high street.

In total, prescribing four common painkillers - including paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin and codeine phosphate - cost the NHS £161,500,000 in 2015. This is the equivalent of up to 19,000 heart bypass operations, or 30,000 mastectomy ops

That would be an easy problem to solve - quit prescribing cheap over the counter drugs!

[Baldbloke]

Hmmm,
that merely tells me a certain section of the population belonging to certain sectors of our socio-economic spectrum, cannot be managed!
Short of employing good numbers of ExParatroop/Royal Marine types, and not always in a strictly medical capacity.

Up until 5 years ago our out of hours managers were ex service people and the service worked. They’ve now retired and been replaced by politically correct incompetent others. Last night we were covering twice the (already vast) area for visits. It also took us 22 minutes to get through to Ambulance Control to collect someone, and we finished an hour and a half late because of the distances. Sickness, and employees taking advantage is one of the biggest issues. Also the fear of litigation if you call someone out on taking time out for a supposed health problem. Piss poor management and too many people who have only ever worked within the NHS without having the necessary management skills.
Just two more 12 hour shifts then off for four[emoji3]

[difflock]

And, anecdotally only, but on reflection it tests true, at least here in NI,

patients abusing the NHS, its Dr.'s and free prescriptions,

to prove how ill/sick/disabled they are, in order to qualify/requalify for DLA/PIP.

And mental Health issues are now being sagely exploited because of the difficulty in medically disproving their exaggareted, much exaggareted or downright spurious claims.

Sad, but true.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

59 minutes ago, Pete Mctree said:

That would be an easy problem to solve - quit prescribing cheap over the counter drugs!

Easy for ‘us’ to see....

 

Maybe not so easy for 6 figure salaried GPs and NHS managers maybe....

 

Everybody seems willing to seek MORE money for the NHS, few seem keen enough to examine what’s happening to the existing money....

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

2 minutes ago, difflock said:

And, anecdotally only, but on reflection it tests true, at least here in NI,

patients abusing the NHS, its Dr.'s and free prescriptions,

to prove how ill/sick/disabled they are, in order to qualify/requalify for DLA/PIP.

And mental Health issues are now being sagely exploited because of the difficulty in medically disproving their exaggareted, much exaggareted or downright spurious claims.

Sad, but true.

Absolutely bloody sad but true...

 

If we actually have ½ the number of genuine DLA claimants the state of the nations health, more accurately its deterioration over relatively short time, is the real issue. 
 

Create a ‘system’ then sit back and watch as it is abused....

[struie]

20 hours ago, Stubby said:

If you need to go to A+E and can get there yourself/wife/friend etc then do it for 06:30 on a Monday morning .  That's when I went after being poleaxed by that Labrador .  Hour and a half tops .

one to maybe cheer ye up stubby after your run in wi that lab,mine did the same wi my bad knee yesterday.THE LABRADOR,only dog that drools when yer chewin on yer nails.