I cannot believe our NHS!!

This is a subject very dear to my heart which is why I am replying (my first post!).

There are a number of excellent Dr's and nurses in the NHS, as evidenced by my mother and many of my friends who work there. However, it is impossible for them to treat people in the way they would like to due to lack of funds, etc. I am not criticising NHS staff (on the whole) - they do great work under terrible stress and conditions but what I am scathing on is the system itself. Half of my experiences with the NHS have been excellent. Half life threatening. This little girl the thread is about could have lost her life and that is simply not good enough.

I had to pay over £1000 per month for medicine my consultant said I required but that the NHS would not pay for. Not on their approved list for my health authority as no cash to pay for it. Health insurance is not open to everyone, even those that can afford it. They don't want your pre-existing conditions thank you very much, and those of you that think your well covered - read the small print. Many conditions are optional so if you get sick they may well turn round and refuse to pay for your treatment. Not forgetting expensive drugs are often considered 'out patient treatment' under many health policies - so yes, you'll have to fork out for those expensive prescriptions yourself. Try getting your bank to give you a loan for essential medication when your too sick to work - not that easy I assure you. I consider myself lucky though. A series of mistakes (not just 1 or 2) left my friends baby oxygen starved at birth. He will never walk. He will never talk.He will never even smile or recognise his mum. A life sentence for the whole family due to cost cutting and incompetence. And no, the compensation wasn't that great - not worth the lifetime of tears.

3 weeks for a GP appointment in London - is that good service? I think not. Having to take my own cleaning materials to clean blood and other body fluids from the toilet when visiting a friend in hospital - is that good enough? No.

On the bright side. My new GP practise in a small town is fantastic. You can often get an appointment the next day and they are genuinely nice and welcomeing. Other good experiences - got emergancy surgery very quickly following an accident. Hospital clean and dr's and nurses very efficient and good. Similarly when my mother had cancer her GP was WONDERFUL - he would come to the house at any time of the day or night. I can't thank him enough. That is what the NHS should be about. It was 15 years ago now, and sadly I doubt the same service would be avaliable today. I know far worse stories but as they are not personal to me there is no point posting them. I think if you have an accident the NHS can be excellent. But if you have a chronic illness: cancer, heart disease, mental health problems etc etc then there's a good chance you could lose your life if your health authority doesn't have the money to treat you.
 
hollycat, unfortunately they have the money its just being spent in the wrong places. One of my local hospitals made 2 nurses redundant so that it could employ 1 librarian. I for one if i were sick would much prefer the 2 nurses. I never even knew the hospital had a library.

I agree with whoever said that things like boob jobs should not be paid for by the NHS. Having small boobs isnt life threatening nor are wrinkles! spend the money on something that is life threatening like cancer

breast reductions however i can understand being paid for by the NHS If the breasts in question are big enough they start affecting your spine and back and you get grooves in your shoulders. You get chronic back ache that only lieing down will alieviate.

I also believe that alot of the drug schemes are just a total waste of time with people just doing enough to get the rewards then going back onto drugs.
 
I go abroad for treatment when I can, and I pay in full. The cost to pay in full in other european countries is minute compared to private healthcare here. Do you know, it can cost £80 to see a private doctor? Overseas, in countries with excellent healthcare, it would cost £12. To see a specialist there, you just ring up and book, no need to go through a GP. It cost £8 to see a skin specialist and have a prescription made up. No way would it be that cheap here!

The NHS is impractical and does need fixing. It is fantastic to have free healthcare, but for those who could afford it, perhaps if the NHS subsidised the cost and the individual paid something on top, standards would improve. I pay if my horse is ill, it is not unreasonable to pay if I am, but no way at the prices they charge. Vets are cheaper, by miles!!!!
 
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Some of these stories are terrible and unacceptable, I'm glad that the girl who fell from her horse has had an appropriate diagnoses and I hope she's on the mend. However not all the staff are incompetant or rude. I'm working a 79 hour week this week as a junior doctor (as part of 12 days on the trot, and not including the unpaid overtime expected) - hardly ideal for making quick, appropriate desisions about patient care under pressure. We're constantly under pressure to reduce the number of investigations ordered and get paitents out of hospital asap. I've met very very few nurses who didn't care about their patients, infact I've been really pleasantly suprised after all the horror stories!

No wonder NHS staff are demorilised when they are so often critisised and so rarely praised.

[/ QUOTE ] I sympathise, its a tough deal for junior doctors and none of us are superhuman and mistakes will be made, but I suspect that have been working in the NHS (given where you are in your career) a lot longer than you. My moral and that of my colleagues is not low due to criticism of patients, but due to lack of resources (not enough staff and having to work in dirty environments) and being repeatedly devalued by below inflation pay rises!

The reality is that the NHS needs an overhall. There clearly isn't enough to go around so we should be prioritising health care and not funding tatoo removal, IVF etc. Oh and whilst I'm in my own little rant, why shouldn't dementia be cared for by the NHS? it is after all a disease of the brain, bringing with it lots of serious physical symptoms and distress and resulting in death.
 
I'm interested that you go abroad. Where? And how do you find them? Internet? (PM if you'd rather). My yo's OH has done a cruciate ligament so one leg keeps giving way. He can't really help with the horses at the mo and winter's coming. He did this about 8 weeks ago. It'll be another 4 weeks or so before he sees a specialist and has a scan and then another umpteen before he gets an operation. This seems quite unreasonable for a self-employed person. We looked up private care in this country - too expensive (especially as one of their horses has just had a major op costing thousands). Just wondered about treatment abroad, but don't know much about it.
 
With a lot of diagnosis, you need time for symptoms develope - without symptoms you are really in very little danger. I think it is much better than the huge costs of healthcare we have in the US, where you get a cat scan if you have a bloody nose.
 
i agree with wheezy.the nhs is ab absolunt monster,and seriously underfunded(or badly managed lol)
but the staff will do their utmost with the time and resources they have.

hope she makes a full recovery, it must have been awful for her
 
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Why should private healthcare be tax free???

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I wasn't asking for free - I was asking for greedy government to naf off, because I already paid my NI and this takes simple ops from the NHS waiting list - why should the government charge me tax for this??? Should I forgo the healthcare and insist the NHS pay for everything?

I don't feel so bad this year as I used my healthcare, but I object to being slapped with more tax

The NHS is a poorly managed greedy monster, no matter how much money you chucked at it, the result would be that it is never enough!

The managers and idiots who want to rebrand, split hospitals up then consolidate them, frankly ought to be shot.

The Cancer unit in Cheltenham doesn't have enough seats for people waiting for chemo. I was thrilled to hear they were spending 250k on a facelift. Less so when I found they were expanding and renovating the admin office. So patients and relatives still do not have enough chairs and you can still go for your appointment at 2.30pm, be seen at 5.30pm and finally get your drugs at 7.30pm... this is a centre of excellence too!
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Dad spent 42 days in hospital this year, I've done 11 (2 of those were private though!). Doctors and nurses on the whole are good, but there's not enough of them, auxillaries are underfunded and the whole system doesn't operate with any hint of effciency.

If you have no one to shout for you in our system - you are in big trouble!
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