"This isn't a freak day - this is winter in the NHS"
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/views-from-the-nhs-frontline/2017/jan/09/this-isnt-a-freak-day-this-is-winter-in-the-nhs
It is a truly atrocious situation e.g. on the radio it was likened to being in the 3rd world! Bearing in mind that the situation would be so much worse if we had a harsher winter!
The lack of humanity and dignity of dying on an emergency trolley....
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/worcestershire-hospital-patients-die-trolleys-a-and-e-nhs-crisis-a7513546.html
Yesterday, in one hospital, there were 4 ambulances with trolleys waiting to enter the hospital in a backlog situation! Totally unacceptable. It was inevitable that this would happen since more people are turning to A & E in the absence of being able to get an appointment with their GP. Now we are told to only go to A & E if you are dying!!?? WTF!!
Still, for what it's worth, this is also in the news...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/10/john-mcdonnell-calls-for-nhs-funding-audit-as-winter-crisis-deepens
What will it take until something gets done? Many of us are aware that the NHS is being deliberately run down to make way for privatisation, but are we to witness countless more tragedies before that transition occurs?
Sometimes I find these things all too much, just too much and don't want to read, have we really got a cat in hells chance of changing anything in this cocked up world.
Having said that. we talk about the state of the NHS and too many patients, I have had frequent stays in hospital and get so frustrated at the total lack of staff organisation, they could have dealt with a dozen more things if they just got more organised.
There does not seem to be any particular person overseeing anything, nurses back and forth like headless chickens and Doctors pretty much the same not knowing what the right hand is doing, its scary. Also with acceptance of more and more people from other countries its obvious we are not going to cope, its not exactly rocket science.
The main problem is that the NHS is being deliberately starved of sufficient funds for it to adequately function!
Nurses and GPs are overworked and do a thankless, difficult job. I have also been in hospital recently and what the nurses achieve is commendable. They do they best they can in a really taxing, challenging situation i.e. being short staffed and with the number of beds cut back.
As for the elderly and the cutting back in social care services....I get very upset by this! Increasingly we are shown how inadequate the care is that the elderly receive in their homes when there is a soaring rise in residential care due to local authorities not being able to fund them sufficiently.
So bleak...yes, I am worried about getting old now since I don't see this situation improving.
Yes, I agree that the NHS is being deliberately run down so that it can be privatised. My answer to the funding crisis would be to increase top rates of income tax, back to the rates they were when the NHS was founded.
Of course, they could save between one and two billion pounds if they stopped doling out statins like sweets!
Yes, I agree that the NHS is being deliberately run down so that it can be privatised. My answer to the funding crisis would be to increase top rates of income tax, back to the rates they were when the NHS was founded.
Of course, they could save between one and two billion pounds if they stopped doling out statins like sweets!
So true and as you say simple measures could rid us of this problem.
Of course, increasing top rates of income tax seems a simple measure to me - not to a government that is geared to making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-01-11/jeremy-corbyn-confronts-theresa-may-over-nhs-crisis-during-pmqs/
Clearly Theresa May is in denial (playing it down) which is extremely disconcerting given the current gravity of this situation.
She should be made to witness the appalling conditions directly by visiting some of the A & E sections of hospitals.
Do you think she'd care? My impression is she, like most of her government, is dedicated to destroying the NHS so that we can have an American-style private system.
Do you think she'd care? My impression is she, like most of her government, is dedicated to destroying the NHS so that we can have an American-style private system.
Yes of course she has an agenda but if she was made to actually made to visit and be confronted with the sheer scale of suffering at A & E hospitals...well it must prick her conscience at least! As it stands she seems not to be even registering the extent of the problem.
Maybe you're right. Mind, (as I often thought with Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, David Cameron et al), it's bad enough being in hospital, without having to put up with the PM as well!
It just gets worse, e.g. an unprecedented amount of cancer operations cancelled.
There are so many contributing factors to this crisis like lack of social care meaning the beds are made unavailable due to the inability to discharge older patients. This is not a new situation, i.e. about 6 years ago I experienced this when they tried to discharge my elderly mother, who had a stroke, without social care being adequately in place for me to be her carer! I had to really create a fuss i.e. get VERY dramatic before they backed down!
Anyway, here is the current state of this deplorable crisis....let's hope the snow doesn't impact too badly on the UK...
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/nhs-crisis-20-hospitals-declare-black-alert-as-patient-safety-no-longer-assured/ar-AAlMavV?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout
It just gets worse, e.g. an unprecedented amount of cancer operations cancelled.
There are so many contributing factors to this crisis like lack of social care meaning the beds are made unavailable due to the inability to discharge older patients. This is not a new situation, i.e. about 6 years ago I experienced this when they tried to discharge my elderly mother, who had a stroke, without social care being adequately in place for me to be her carer! I had to really create a fuss i.e. get VERY dramatic before they backed down!
Anyway, here is the current state of this deplorable crisis....let's hope the snow doesn't impact too badly on the UK...
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/nhs-crisis-20-hospitals-declare-black-alert-as-patient-safety-no-longer-assured/ar-AAlMavV?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout
Re. the situation I mentioned here about trying to discharge my mother prematurely without adequate social care in place, I think the current state of affairs MAY have changed since, it would seem, that the elderly are no longer discharged from hospital whilst the social care is inadequate. Of course this is not to say that, when they are eventually discharged, it's a hunky dory situation!
So....further to my posts above....what percentage of hospital beds are blocked by the elderly not being able to be discharged due to lack of social care?
I heard the answer today on the news - 42%! 
There are many reasons for it - https://fullfact.org/health/bed-blocking-what-it-and-it-paralysing-nhs/
Not the individual's fault (although calling it 'bed blocking' as most of the media - including my link, here, does - makes it sound deliberate!)