Lord Mancroft was right.

[Hennessy]

The NHS is like a big drain that sucks in more and more cash. I'm thinking about getting extra cover from BUPA, I don't trust the NHS with anything more serious than a cold or minor injury.

[hr]

"What happened to Spoon?"
"There is no Spoon"
Dog Soldiers

[flossy]

Quoting Hennessy from 16:59, 3rd Mar 2008
The NHS is like a big drain that sucks in more and more cash. I'm thinking about getting extra cover from BUPA, I don't trust the NHS with anything more serious than a cold or minor injury.

maybe that's the plan? As with dentistry, make the service so appalling or unavailable that those who can afford it go private and everyone else just has to deal with it. And in the mean time, agency auxiliary staff can get over £125 for a shift because the hospital can't recruit permanent nursing staff / auxiliaries. It just makes me mad that a child could probably say how to run a decent healthcare service while the government try to blindsight us with "patient choice" guff. I think most patients would simply choose clean wards rather than have the choice of which consultant to see at which hospital.

[hr]

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the substrate.

[Colleen]

Quoting katebush from 16:52, 3rd Mar 2008

What nurse ever helps a patient to have a wash? what nurse helps a patient to eat, unprompted? What nurse shows the touch of human kindness? VERY few as far as I can tell. But they'll all have their 'three highers' or whatever the qualifications are.

Me. With five A-Levels and half an MA. Being well-qualified doesn't make you above doing the hard graft and all the nursing students I've met at perfectly fine with that, and hell, I'm a history student.

I don't work in hospitals; I do the overtime shifts available at a local nursing home over my holidays. I quite often stay longer (for free) to chat to residents. Stuff like that. For minimum wage, 5p more than hour for the night shift. The actual nurses aren't on a great deal more than me, although in the NHS that depends on particular banding that nurse is in.

But then, I'm not doing this for the rest of my life, so... there we are. Maybe not the best example. I did worked my way up, so to speak, through summer cleaning work in homes and go through regular on the job training.

Apart from that, however, the rest of the points are valid; nursing training is a bit mental at the moment with not nearly enough practical emphasis. Let's put some of the vitriol onto the people that run the service rather than the people on the front line who are stuck in an awful job. There is no excuse for not helping someone; there's also no excuse for putting staff into a position where they have to make the choice between that or finishing off the paperwork they get financially penalised for not doing. And it's that paperwork, by the way, that results in nurses having to be so qualified to get into nursing school.

[hr]

taking shots for mother nature

[Eskimo]

Reading through this thread I feel it is high time someone jumped in to defend the NHS.

Six weeks ago I was involved in a very serious car acciedent on the M6. The paramedics got to me (in the middle of nowhere - Shap to be precise) in 10 minutes. Another 10 minutes later I was being airlifted to hospital. I was taken to A&E at Cumberland General in Carlisle where I was seen to immediately and given X-Rays within 15 minutes which confirmed the initial fears of a fractured vertebra. As a result I was admitted to the orthopedic ward. This was spotless and cleaned daily. I was not moved from this ward during the whole of my stay.

The following day I was seen by my consultant (who I saw everyday except my final day in hospital) he thought it would be best if I had some CT scans to check the damage to my spine and also rule out any possibility of organ damage due to the accident. An hour later the scans had been done.

The nurses I met were, without exception, fantastic. Thy were at any patients bedside within about a minute of the buzzer being pressed and went into each ward every 30 mins or so to make sure everyone was ok. Clearly, due to the nature of my injury my movement was very restricted and I could not wash myself and unlike the claim mad by 'katebush' nurses did help wash me. They were also more than happy to assist with feeding if it was required. Unlike the claims made in the first post there was also a very clear chain of command.

On returning to St Andrews I was given an appointment very quickly (and I didn't use the severity of my condition to get this - I didn't even mention why the appointment was needed). I have since got appointments within 48 hours of calling. Following my first appointment I was given an appointment at the memorial hospital to see a specialist, again within 2 days.

From beginning to end I feel I received the best possible care and I can't imagine I would have been seen to any quicker at any stage if I had been treated privately. Yes, there are problems with the NHS but they do alot of things right too. Why not focus on the positives and look to move forward rather than constantly criticising everything to do with the NHS?

[Garnet]

I have found the health care centre in st andrews to be really good, i get an appointment usually the next day and they have been helpful especially when dealing with serious concerns.

I usually find doctors and nurses to be quite professional although it's what they have to work with i guess which causes the most problems. However I did go into A&E at 6pm and ended up waiting in pain until about 2-3am to get seen, which was really annoying especially as people who were sitting quite happily were seen before me and the A&E didn't seen that business. My pain had got so bad by the time i got seen i had to get a shot of morphine. Then I got transfered to another hospital as they didn't have the facilities to deal with my problem so i had to wait their for a few hours to get seen.

[hr]

so alive, so full of fire and music!

[Haunted]

I don't think anyone has said explicity that the whole NHS is dire and apathetic. Merely that it does fail some people some of the time and can, and should, be improved.

I have recieved treatment that was nothing short of excellent and at other times I have harboured nothing but contempt for how I've been treated. Ninewells especially is among the finest in the country.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[ARTooD2]

Anytime I have used the NHS I have never been anything but pleased...at my parents I have nearly ALWAYS been seen the next day or at most the day after that without emergency appointments which I needed once and was seen within a few hours...My mother had pneumonia and the doctor came to the house once a week to check up on her blah blah blah...Basically the health centre where my parents live is really good. In St Andrews, however, the situation is totally different. The soonest I have ever been given an appointment at pipeland road is a week and at other times I have been told 2 weeks. When I got there, they rushed me in and out and couldn't seem to care less about what was wrong with me. This was the Tait practice so I don't know about the other two but aye. Having said all that, the people at the memorial hospital have only ever been nice to me and anyone else I know who has been there.

[hr]

King Sinner

[Haunted]

I should add that the memorial hospital here is staffed by the most uncaring nurses I have ever had the displeasure of being treated by and wholly recommend that you all avoid it if possible.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[LonelyPilgrim]

Several points:

-To the original poster, regarding Lord Mancroft's speech: I think I've finally found something the NHS does better than the private care in the US. Nevermind the poor nursing or the ghastly (un)cleanliness issues... if you can get your prescriptions dispensed in only 40 minutes, you should dance in the streets! 1-2 hour's wait is fairly common here.

-To the person who was glad to be getting 10 minutes time slots with their doctor: WHAT?? How is that a good thing? If I went to a doctor here and he spent less than 30 minutes with me, I'd be upset. If he spent less than 20, I'd find a new doctor. (Oh, wait! That's right... we can choose our doctors here!)

-I had a few adventures with the NHS in my time at St Andrews and I can honestly say... while it is true that a lot of Americans can't afford medical care, the 'free' care available from the NHS seems to be quite often worse than no care. Not always, it's true, but the three times I've had to deal with the NHS, I was appalled. After 2nd year, I decided that as far as could be helped, I'd not use the NHS at all. To safeguard against the nasty sinus infections I'm prone to getting, I asked my GP back here in the State to write me a massive prescription for antibiotics. He wasn't willing to do that at first, until I told him I was going back to Scotland... at which point he said "Oh, the NHS. Yeah, sure, how many do you need? A year's supply do you?"

[hr]

Self-control is the chief element of self-respect; self-respect is the chief element of courage. - Thucydides

[Manic23]

Quoting Eskimo from 18:00, 3rd Mar 2008
Reading through this thread I feel it is high time someone jumped in to defend the NHS.

Six weeks ago I was involved in a very serious car acciedent on the M6. The paramedics got to me (in the middle of nowhere - Shap to be precise) in 10 minutes. Another 10 minutes later I was being airlifted to hospital. I was taken to A&E at Cumberland General in Carlisle where I was seen to immediately and given X-Rays within 15 minutes which confirmed the initial fears of a fractured vertebra. As a result I was admitted to the orthopedic ward. This was spotless and cleaned daily. I was not moved from this ward during the whole of my stay.

The following day I was seen by my consultant (who I saw everyday except my final day in hospital) he thought it would be best if I had some CT scans to check the damage to my spine and also rule out any possibility of organ damage due to the accident. An hour later the scans had been done.

The nurses I met were, without exception, fantastic. Thy were at any patients bedside within about a minute of the buzzer being pressed and went into each ward every 30 mins or so to make sure everyone was ok. Clearly, due to the nature of my injury my movement was very restricted and I could not wash myself and unlike the claim mad by 'katebush' nurses did help wash me. They were also more than happy to assist with feeding if it was required. Unlike the claims made in the first post there was also a very clear chain of command.

On returning to St Andrews I was given an appointment very quickly (and I didn't use the severity of my condition to get this - I didn't even mention why the appointment was needed). I have since got appointments within 48 hours of calling. Following my first appointment I was given an appointment at the memorial hospital to see a specialist, again within 2 days.

From beginning to end I feel I received the best possible care and I can't imagine I would have been seen to any quicker at any stage if I had been treated privately. Yes, there are problems with the NHS but they do alot of things right too. Why not focus on the positives and look to move forward rather than constantly criticising everything to do with the NHS?

Yet, I fear, another post saying 'don't knock the NHS, it was really good to me/my relative/my friend etc..."

Obviously it's good that you had a positive experience, but do you really think it's an atypical one?

My grandmother had been very ill until recently (thankfully she's now well on the road to recovery), and the amount of times she was relocated to other hospitals throughout Northern Ireland was simply shocking. On the worst occasion, mere days after she'd had a biopsy, she was carted onto a transport ambulance and moved 75 miles to a recuperation hospital, a very uncomfortable experience indeed. On another occasion, she was told to stand when she quite clearly couldn't (despite telling the nursing 'staff' several times), and subsequently had a fall. This completely knocked her confidence and further exacerbated the recovery process. What made it worse for her was that she'd been a nurse for nearly 50 years, and she simply couldn't equate to the detatched manner in which she was dealt with.

Also, my great aunt's husband recently had a triple heart bypass, and in the hospital (one which is notorious in N.I. for it's shoddy standards) he caught C Diff. He was then moved to another hospital, WITHOUT the hospital in question disclosing the fact that he had a superbug.

Another great uncle had a stroke not too long ago. He remained on a hospital trolley for 32 hours.

These are all personal experiences I know, but they hardly inspire me with confidence in our health system, especially when I see so many others with similar stories. I acknowledge that nurses have it tough Colleen; they're overstretched, underpaid, and my anger mainly resides with senior administration. What I do object to however is this new brand of nursing. As katebush has quite rightly pointed out, it ought to be a vocation with which one dedicates themselves wholeheartedly to, and not employment to be undertaken with academic detachment. I don't care how many highers/A levels/degrees a nurse may have, the fundamental role should be that based on care and compassion, not something 'learned' in a classroom or lecture theatre.

[Dave the Explosive Newt]

Nursing is not in any way, shape or form, a doss. I don't think that having your first and your Oxbridge degree gives you the right to look down your nose at 'lesser' professions, Kylie. Try passing a nasogastric tube down the frightened old lady who's had a stroke, monitoring the fluid balance of the post-op oesophagectomy patient with 4 different drains or just cleaning up the 83 year old who has shit himself yet again.

I'd be the first to tell you that a lot of the NHS doesn't work, but I think singling out nurses as drunks and sluts is the least helpful bit of mud-slinging I've ever seen - the real problems lie much deeper.

- Hospitals and equipment aren't at 21st century standards. How do you keep wards clean when plaster is comming off the walls? How do you effectively barrier nurse an infectious patient when wards are 6 to a bay and all the side rooms are full?

- Management goals are often incompatible with clinical outcomes - for instance patients can often only be followed up a limited number of times in a clinic, cost pressures limit prescribing and the golden 4-hour wait rule in accident and emergency leads to some frankly shocking liberties being taken with patient management just to shove them through the system.

- Training systems for both doctors and nurses are badly structured. Medical schools are training more doctors than this country actually has capacity for. Nurses recieve specialised vocational training with very little emphasis on 'traditional' nursing tasks e.g. feeding and nutrition.

- etc. etc.

Anyway, this is not a simple problem. Which is the main reason why it hasn't been fixed yet. And peers can wring their hands and demand that something be done (I can't actually find many constructive suggestions in his speech) until they're blue in the face but this isn't something that'll be solved overnight.

[hr]

Mmmmmmm, cake.
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37102114

[David Bean]

Quoting Dave the Explosive Newt from 23:44, 3rd Mar 2008
Nursing is not in any way, shape or form, a doss. I don't think that having your first and your Oxbridge degree gives you the right to look down your nose at 'lesser' professions, Kylie.

Bullshit. 'Kate' has never in her life looked down her nose at anything, but in her post, had you read more than one line of it, she gave numerous examples (none of which I believe were drawn from any of her sterling academic work) of how her patience has been worn down by what she's been forced to endure sometimes on a daily basis through the sheer incompetence of nursing staff - to say nothing of the butchers they're mockingly allowing to qualify as doctors these day - to the point where the most amazing thing is that she isn't even more angry. You might disagree with her assessment of the NHS, 'Dave', or even doubt the veracity of what she's seen, but this kind of sneering mischaracterisation and dismissal is not to be borne.

I'd be the first to tell you that a lot of the NHS doesn't work, but I think singling out nurses as drunks and sluts is the least helpful bit of mud-slinging I've ever seen - the real problems lie much deeper.

So are you trying to say that His Lordship was lying, or that it doesn't matter because the behaviour he reported was quite acceptable? Of course there are deeper problems, not least that these people were ever allowed to qualify in the first place. But this conspiracy of silence, this ranks closing, this utter refusal to acknowledge that there are people in your profession who are not fit to come within a mile of a patient will ultimately be the undoing of the cushy, blameless setup you and your friends in the medical personnel lobbies have set up for yourselves. You can only push the people of this country so far.

Anyway, this is not a simple problem. Which is the main reason why it hasn't been fixed yet. And peers can wring their hands and demand that something be done (I can't actually find many constructive suggestions in his speech) until they're blue in the face but this isn't something that'll be solved overnight.

Tortuous mixing of metaphors aside, I've never been able to understand where this idea comes from that a person cannot criticise something unless they can suggest a way to solve it. His Lordship was speaking as a customer of the NHS - as we all are, whether we like it or not - who had been badly let down. If you bought a television from Curry's and when you got home found it to be faulty, would you on calling the customer careline expect to be criticised for not telling them how to fix it? He had a platform from which to speak up about it, for his own sake and that of the hundreds of thousands of people who are being let down by this so-called 'National Health Service' ever day, and he used it, and if it makes someone take notice, thank God he did.

The real guilty party in all of this is our Prime Minister, because the sooner Gordon Brown works up the nerve to call a general election, the sooner we can get rid of his useless mob and actually do something about it.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[Cain]

Quoting David Bean from 00:29, 4th Mar 2008
The real guilty party in all of this is our Prime Minister, because the sooner Gordon Brown works up the nerve to call a general election, the sooner we can get rid of his useless mob and actually do something about it.

I don't get it.

It's Gordon Brown's fault that the NHS's patient care and management goals are in conflict? It's Gordon Brown's fault that promiscuous and vocal ladies are given jobs?

Would it not be a better idea to look into reform of the NHS, rather than hold an election in the believe that "This'll sort it all out"? Besides, how would a Brown government with an electoral mandate be a big difference to a Brown government without an electoral mandate?

[hr]

I hold an element of surprise

[Senethro]

Cain: You get the health service the government 10 years ago paid for.

Quoting David Bean from 00:29, 4th Mar 2008 So are you trying to say that His Lordship was lying, or that it doesn't matter because the behaviour he reported was quite acceptable?

Are you saying that nurses are not adults entitled to do as they wish in their free time within the limits of the law?

[KateBush]

My own mother worked as a nursing assistant for15 years. I don't look down my nose at the NHS, or those who work in it.

But I do think it's time to take a stand against the neglect I've seen. What would YOu do, Dave, if you asked for a bottle or a commode but were told to 'wait'? What would you do if you couldn't hold cutlery, so when the meals came, you simply couldn't eat because no one would help you do it? What would you do if you were told to drink more, but were incapable of holding a cup? And people placed the drink at the opposite end of the room anyway?

These are things my family and I have seen, and experienced with our own eyes. And do you know what? there is no excuse for this sort of treatment. Not EVER. And if you think that there is, you really shouldn't be in the medical profession, or any job that involves helping people.

If I did have to wkr with nasogastric tubes, and helping people who had had accidents, I would try and give them the dignity they deserve and treat them as I would want my own grandparents or parents to be treated.

[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[KateBush]

Nursing is a doss if you can get to the final placement after three years and believe that holding someone upright when they have fainted someone helps them; equally, if you don't know to lie the person flat. Something is very wrong somewhere. It's not attracting the most intelligent of people, if that's the sort of person working in the profession, is it?



[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[Senethro]

Of course, its unthinkable to pay nurses more to increase their numbers so they're able to babyfeed people and to attract good people to the job.

[David Bean]

Cain, what part of 'get rid of his useless mob' are you having trouble with?

Senethro: obviously that's not what I'm saying, and nor was it what His Lordship said. But talking over a patient about your personal life would be unacceptable whatever the subject, but is particularly so under the circumstances he reports.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[:(]

Quoting cain from 06:35, 4th Mar 2008

Quoting David Bean from 00:29, 4th Mar 2008
The real guilty party in all of this is our Prime Minister, because the sooner Gordon Brown works up the nerve to call a general election, the sooner we can get rid of his useless mob and actually do something about it.

There is no point holding an election in this country anymore. No party has the bollocks to deal with the real problems. Sure the tories may cut a few taxes and the economy might get a bit better but the amount of sponging loafers who cost this country a bomb year on year in housing, nhs, education, police and prison time not to mention benefits and insurance claims will continue to grow. Believe me anyone who wants to live honestly and decently has a very difficult job in many areas of many cities in the UK.

[moomymoo]

Isn't a lot of this ignoring the fact that, whilst the current state of the NHS leaves a hell of a lot to be desired, we are lucky to have it.
I've lived in countried where it's non existent and had a very unpleasant experience in China where my friend became rather seriously ill, but the health insurace wouldn't pay out and we were going to have to pay the bill, well into the tens of thousands of pounds, ourselves before trying to claim the money back of the insurance when we got back into the country.
In the end a random, and very nice, Chinese lady paid the bills for us which was incredibly lucky because my friend would have died without the treatment that we could most certainly not have been able to afford to pay.

Pipeland road, however, seems to be pretty awful and has told me that I had the flu when it was somewhat dangerous pneumonia and has given me the advice of 'go home and take some paracetamol' for everything else, regardless of severity.
Saying that, I once had an argument about treatment with a doctor back home that resulted in me being asked how the doctor in question should be treating me (something serious that I'd suffered from many times before and needed a very specific type of care for.)