NHS

Started by nibbler, January 12, 2017, 08:23:29 AM

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zilnor

We also had private health cover when working, but I got my money's worth !

As I said in my previous post Webe, too many chiefs and not enough Indians, in the NHS.  :banghead:


zilnor

Very sad about your friend Tets.

You are right in saying that the NHS does their best in difficult times. I am the first to say it is in dire straits and it is struggling to cope with over use of the system and underfunding from taxpayers and the government, not to mention bad management by overpaid administration bods. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians !

But I can relate a positive experience. My man got something in his eye on Wednesday while walking the dog in very high winds. By the next morning his eye was inflamed, bloodshot and painful . Off we went to A and E at Derby hospital
and within two hours we were on our way home. In that time hubby was fully examined, bloods taken, blood pressure taken, examined by the Opthalmic registrar , eye cleaned out, blood test results back, given antibiotic eye cream and an appointment made for him to see the Consultant in out - patients, in ten days time. Not bad !

I do think that the media prefer to print negative and bad news. It sells newspapers !


webejamin

I think the People on the shop floor are great generally, nurses, doctors, but it's just that there are too many people, or, not enough hospitals, same thing really, but gov.uk just won't admit it.
I used to have private cover most of my working life and never used it, then they whacked up the price to about £3500 a year so I jacked it. Mind you, they don't cover lots of things. We put the money aside now (with all the rest 8) )   

Tetley

Quote from: webejamin on January 15, 2017, 11:46:29 AM
Yep Tets, that's the NHS.
So sorry to hear about your friend, must have been awful for him. I dread having to be hospitalised. Unfortunately, the NHS is about making money and nothing to do with peoples health, health is just a catalyst for wealth.

I fink the main thing i took from the experience,is the wait the lad had to have befor seeing the consultant eye chap and then the mechanical ness  of the system ,it was all a bit pink floyds for me,but i do the  think the NHS  do there best in difficult times.

just out of intrest,i know somebody here in the mid 50,s haveing tummy probs,pays 17 quid a week private,whent to AE  X rays within 2 hours,Doctor 30 mins later,colonoscopi within 10 days and surgen appointment 14 days later,but all clear so a good result.
Analogue mechanically  trained 1970,s Fitter  dear living  in a gone digital/tecno mad O Dearie me world......thankfully left behind with it all ,enjoying the bliss of NO phones ,  apps and  shortage of the intellectual, wile still managing to hone underachievement on the day to day in the sun  lol


webejamin

#44
Yep Tets, that's the NHS.
So sorry to hear about your friend, must have been awful for him. I dread having to be hospitalised. Unfortunately, the NHS is about making money and nothing to do with peoples health, health is just a catalyst for wealth.


Tetley

Just out of intrest a very close friend of mine,got a tumour behind his eye,kept having eye tests,glasses changed,vision problems,this whent on for approx 18 months till eventually he saw the eye specalist,that sent him for a scan,then he finds out through the scan that it was a level 3 tumour of the brain,pressing on his eye,

he had some treatment,became very il over the next four months with good days and bad

,but the intresting part was the NHS Consultant wouldent see him,unless he could get his self to the hospital as he said if he could not get to hospital under his own steam... he was to week and the treatment would kill him anyway....

i thought it was very harsh,a week later the cancer nurses turned up at his home,with the majic goody pain relife Morphen box,to be opend when the pain was so bad,

a few weeks later he went very down hill,/ bed ridden ,

his care was the auctioned and it turned out the cara folks would want 1000 a week,and he could only keep 24 k of his assetts the rest had to be sold off,befor he could recive state help,

however it never got to this stage as he died within weeks of been bed riden and the majic box of druggies was rerurned un opend.

what suprised me was the mechanical ness of it all,the chap was 72 in good health,looked after his self,but dead within 6 months.
Analogue mechanically  trained 1970,s Fitter  dear living  in a gone digital/tecno mad O Dearie me world......thankfully left behind with it all ,enjoying the bliss of NO phones ,  apps and  shortage of the intellectual, wile still managing to hone underachievement on the day to day in the sun  lol

Elgin

Quote from: Roger on January 13, 2017, 21:55:53 PM
People can come up with all sorts of comments, but the reason why the UK now has a second rate health system is simple.
It spends less on the Health System than most advanced countries,
It has a worse elderly care system than most advanced countries
With a rising elderly population
The general health of the population is poor, with fast food and too much alcohol
Lack of care for the elderly results in more ill old people

A perfect storm!
Unless the Government gets a grip it will get worse.


Roger UK NHS Spending 2014/15 was about £2,069 per head (per the Guardian).  Whilst in Andalucia the Health budget for 2015 was €8.4bn for a population of 8.4m = €1,000 per head (Per Junta de Andalucia website).  So how do you say that the UK spends LESS on healthcare than most advanced countries.  Are you saying Spain isn't advanced!

There are all sorts of arguments and debates we could have but one thing that really struck me as complete nonsense when we last lived in the UK (2009) was access to initial care:-

If you had a sick child and called the doctors during normal hours it would go something like "Can my child see a doctor?" "No, not today!"  "How about tomorrow or the day after" "No, you have to ring tomorrow!" (when you will get exactly the same answer).  However, if you called the doctor outside normal hours (could even just be lunchtime) you get a message saying ring the out of hours service.  You then call the out of hours service and they say "Yes, come down right away".  Similarly most A&E services are open 24 hours. 


webejamin

Trouble with charging anything at all, is that as always, the less well off will suffer.


Tetley

Fing is,when we were kids in the apprentice school we were taught that we were our own saftey officers,ie you have to look after yerself

,if the UK nation wants to feast on greggs & ciggs & alchol,its going to need paying for

so that folks that arnt inflicting themselfs with uk over consumption can get seen to faster.

there also going to have to stop throwing national insurunce numbers at every buggxer that walks through the uk arrivals as well ....unless they have private medical  same as spain does.
Analogue mechanically  trained 1970,s Fitter  dear living  in a gone digital/tecno mad O Dearie me world......thankfully left behind with it all ,enjoying the bliss of NO phones ,  apps and  shortage of the intellectual, wile still managing to hone underachievement on the day to day in the sun  lol

zilnor

Tets, I agree with you !  :clap:

I believe that just a small charge of £5 a visit to your GP or your local A and E would solve a lot of the problems . It would certainly cut down waiting times.


Tetley

Just charge 20 quid a visit,that will sort it,plenty of the punters will have new i phones,plasma tellys and under 10 year old cars, or volume smoke the ciggz or yum yum the kebaba & pizzas so they wont miss 20 quid if they need a Doc,and if they dont,...they can pop ti chemists.
Analogue mechanically  trained 1970,s Fitter  dear living  in a gone digital/tecno mad O Dearie me world......thankfully left behind with it all ,enjoying the bliss of NO phones ,  apps and  shortage of the intellectual, wile still managing to hone underachievement on the day to day in the sun  lol

zilnor

Same applies to GP surgeries. Some patients should not be there. Posters are displayed saying " Antiobotics will not cure a heavy cold or a flu virus" . Some patients miss their appointments. Our surgery displays a monthly list of the number of missed appointments. Those people  need to act in a more responsible and thoughtful way.
It is not always about more medical staff needed.

Rod

Someone on the news was in AE because they had to wait 2 weeks for a doctors appointment so went there instead, can understand that. Obviously there are not enough GP's.

Roger

People can come up with all sorts of comments, but the reason why the UK now has a second rate health system is simple.
It spends less on the Health System than most advanced countries,
It has a worse elderly care system than most advanced countries
With a rising elderly population
The general health of the population is poor, with fast food and too much alcohol
Lack of care for the elderly results in more ill old people

A perfect storm!
Unless the Government gets a grip it will get worse.

Queen Clare Shirley

Quote from: kerash on January 13, 2017, 19:18:29 PM
I have twin grandsons of 13 recently diagnosed with coeliacs. The only foods on prescription are quite basic and parents are given a list of type of products available. Also the free prescriptions end at 18 years.
Have you seen the prices in the supermarkets for gluten free foods. Actually cheaper in Spain.
Having worked in the NHS most of my life I used to go to lectures where I was stunned by the size of the annual prescription bill.
It would help if people were more willing to buy some of the common medicines over the counter instead of expecting everything on prescription.
But totally agree about waste. Been like it for years. But it's still the holy cow.


I have to disagree with you on that, Im a coeliac and I find food here very very expensive, Mercadona does have a few things but Carrerfour and Alcampo have a wider range but they are very expensive for what they are selling
I pay 2.65 for a small loaf of bread, flour costs me 5 euros here for a kg but in the UK its £1.65 and they have three in the range, in Mercadona its just plain flour. two chocolate brownies cost 5 euros here and if I want to buy cupcakes there are 6 for 5 euros. however I can get flour from the uk and other items far cheaper than here Pasta here is 3.20 euros for 500gr and in the uk £1.20 for 500gr, crackers are non existent and the bread tastes a like washing up sponge.

However I feel that as its more accessible that there shouldn't be prescriptions for it as they don't do it here and you just to learn to adapt. Living healthy and not having processed foods makes my life easier and Im not fussed about bread and pasta. I just miss pork pies.

More help should be given to people on how to eat properly and cook from scratch. I
ILLIA RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arrived Torrevieja 5th November 1988

casablanca

Quote from: zilnor on January 13, 2017, 11:01:10 AM
While we are in the EU we have to continue to make foreign aid payments. Those billions would help the NHS, provide homes for the homeless etc etc.

I must have missed this one? I didn't think we sent overseas aid to African nations, India, Pakistan etc. etc. as part of any EU directives?
I don't know much about this subject so apologies in advance if I am wrong.

kerash

I have twin grandsons of 13 recently diagnosed with coeliacs. The only foods on prescription are quite basic and parents are given a list of type of products available. Also the free prescriptions end at 18 years.
Have you seen the prices in the supermarkets for gluten free foods. Actually cheaper in Spain.
Having worked in the NHS most of my life I used to go to lectures where I was stunned by the size of the annual prescription bill.
It would help if people were more willing to buy some of the common medicines over the counter instead of expecting everything on prescription.
But totally agree about waste. Been like it for years. But it's still the holy cow.




LittleRichard

Did you know that the NHS pay 25.7million pounds a year on giving people with Coeliac disease free food on prescription. Even though you can buy it in all supermarkets.....

Its madness


VIVA ESPAÑA

gus-lopez

I was reading somewhere that 25% of the NHS budget goes to fund compensation payments ?

BassBunny

Quote from: Nosun on January 13, 2017, 13:06:11 PM
:clap: Zilnor

It is also my understanding that 80% of our own people who want to be nurses with the RCN are turned down in favour of overseas people. I wonder how many of those are trained at our expense the leave?

The simple fact is that the infrastructure of our care systems are under immense strain from the sheer weight of people. And some want more to come in!


Didn't tony B-Liar enshrine Foreign Aid payments into law during his term in office? If so, it would take a change in the law to stop paying it.

zilnor

While we are in the EU we have to continue to make foreign aid payments. Those billions would help the NHS, provide homes for the homeless etc etc.

PhillipJLloyd

If your services are suffering from lack of funds, there should be no foreign aid, charity begins at home.
(If you ran a business and it was short of money, you wouldn't give it away. )

NorrieM

Wonder how much a cut in foreign aid would help the NHS.  Foreign aid to a nuclear power and an Ethiopian girl band?  Any answers?

Tetley

And of coarse the other problem will be staffing as i belive now Student Nurses have to fund there owne uni ..... so how will that work, ie big outlay to re pay,to earn 25k a year the numbers wont stack up and the other issue Without going brexit... is at least 3 kids in my lads circual of friends are NHS  nursing in the UK, that happens IF all these EU  folks no longer feel welcome and leave or the bone heads running the UK Asylum stick to there 35k a year rule ie you have to earn 35k min bit for the residency lark.....


to me all this is the elephant in the UK  room IE ,NHS,Housing,Transport seems to be" out ther on the to do list",wile the barmy bxggers and banging on abought Europe 24/7 and how bad it all is,when the medical in parts of europe is making the UK  look like an African state thats just bought a jet fighter with the peoples UN donated medical money...
Analogue mechanically  trained 1970,s Fitter  dear living  in a gone digital/tecno mad O Dearie me world......thankfully left behind with it all ,enjoying the bliss of NO phones ,  apps and  shortage of the intellectual, wile still managing to hone underachievement on the day to day in the sun  lol

von

Quote from: nibbler on January 12, 2017, 14:12:15 PM
Food for thought there Rod, and it would once again become the NATIONAL health system.
Why not let doctors and nurses run it? At least they know what's needed.
Nibbler.

I think you'll find that doctors and nurses are involved via the CCGs (there are 209 of them) created in 2012 to replace PCTs. and doctors and nurses have been involved since the introduction of PCGs in 1999.
https://www.nhscc.org/ccgs/   

The main problem in my opinion is that the service has been/is underfunded and the regular reorganisations of health authorities has also not helped.  Prior to PCGs there were Area Health Authorities, Regional Health Authorities, District Health Authorities, FPCs, FHSAs, SHAs and the list goes on.....You only have to think how much it costs in terms of the costs office moves, staff redundancies, etc etc. every time a new government gets in & has intentions of spending less, but setting the bar higher.  It's a not so very merry go round, that I got dizzy working on and decided to get off.

Unfortunately, I also suspect that it is going to get a whole lot worse, before it gets better.  https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/brexit-and-nhs


Karen4

Part of the problem is that there are too many people who think that A&E stands for Anything and Everything....
Cl3880

webejamin

#22
I have to agree Imj, in any of our local hospitals you can easily expect a 6 hour or more wait even if you're taken in by ambulance. That wait is before you see a doctor, then God help you if you need to be admitted. If you make a complaint, they deny everything, or blame the computer, usually both, but the records will show a completely different time scale.
Both parties have a dismal NHS record, but it's got dramatically worse the last few years.

Now it's chuckin it down with snow :a102: so we'll have to wait even longer, I'm getting under the stairs :shocked:

Roger

We do not have to pay to see an NHS doctor in Spain, nor do we have to wait days to see one.
Always been able to see a GP the next day at a time of my choosing.
And the many times we have used Urgencias, people get edgy if they have to wait an hour.

So what is wrong with the UK NHS?
The doctors say it is NOT that people are turning up at AandE who do not need to be there.
The problem is lack of beds and lack of funds.
Of course we all know that there is bad and inefficient use of funds, but that will not solve the funding problem because it is too large.
The FACT is that the UK NHS is underfunded.
10% less than France
30% less than Germany
70% less that Switzerland
And it will get worse with planned funding cuts in 2018.

So where would the extra money come from?
Tax rises? Why, when the Government already takes a big slice of people's income.
The problem is priorities in use of money.
Why is the Government sending a permanent force of 800 plus tornado jets to Estonia? They could spend the money on the NHS.
Why is Estonia not increasing its military spending if they feel under threat?
I wonder what the NHS waiting list is in Estonia.

This does not affect me, but if you live in the UK and have a vote there, perhaps you should think about Government priorities, and not just accept the rubbish the people in power dole out.





lmj52

Quote from: tintin on January 12, 2017, 16:27:58 PM
If you have to wait 4 hours or more in A & E to see a doctor how urgent is the medical emergency, surely some of the cases could see their GP or local centre which open fairly long hours, 7 days a week. As regards bed blocking with patients waiting for a care home or other help, could we not put them up in a hotel with medical staff on hand. I also agree a fee for when you see your doctor or attend hospital, like we have in Spain, I recently had to pay 45€ to see one or go futher to the hospital with my E111 card
only a thought
Mike


Unfortunately you can wait 4 hours in A&E with life threatening emergencies. It depends what other emergencies are happening at the same time.
Also the E111 card was replaced in 2006, assuming you had the new EHIC card?
Vida. Disfruta el viaje.

tintin

If you have to wait 4 hours or more in A & E to see a doctor how urgent is the medical emergency, surely some of the cases could see their GP or local centre which open fairly long hours, 7 days a week. As regards bed blocking with patients waiting for a care home or other help, could we not put them up in a hotel with medical staff on hand. I also agree a fee for when you see your doctor or attend hospital, like we have in Spain, I recently had to pay 45€ to see one or go futher to the hospital with my E111 card
only a thought
Mike

webejamin

It's all a matter of "do we want it to work" and the answer is "no we don't" simply because there's loadsamoney to be had in the private sector. The more private, the more money, the people pay and we will collect. We're not in the health business for our health, or anyone elses.
NHS bosses motto's.

Jimel

KJH3.   Totally agree! :13:

casablanca

#16
Quote from: webejamin on January 12, 2017, 09:22:54 AM
Quote from: Rod on January 12, 2017, 09:20:26 AM
Would it be better to nationalise it, get back to the old days when it was under one banner, not all these individual health trusts?
:bravo_2: Great post Rod.

Genuine question for Rod & Webe -how would that make for a Management structure which is  more robust, efficient and accountable which, in my view, is 90% of the problem?

It has always been a political football whereby Labour has always believed it to be under funded and the Tories always hold the view that as fast as they are pouring cash in it is haemorrhaging out through unaccountable lethargic traditional public sector style management attitudes and work practices (not my view I hasten to add).

zilnor

KJH,  Wry pop,
:clap: :clap

If a £5 charge was introduced for every visit to the GP and A and E, that would soon end long waiting times at both the surgery and AE departments.
Too many people abuse the system.
Too many people use the system and not enough of them are paying into it.


nibbler

Food for thought there Rod, and it would once again become the NATIONAL health system.
Why not let doctors and nurses run it? At least they know what's needed.
Nibbler.