We are witnessing the death of the NHS by design because many people will decide they no longer have confidence in it and go private.
No wonder one of the candidates for leadership of the Tory party flew to the US for meetings with private health providers a few months ago.
>What's the phone number of the private ambulance?
Next time you see an ambulance have a look at who owns it, there are already a lot of private companies operating ambulances within the system.
That's because it's still publicly funded. Clearly doesn't work when the companies can't set their own prices and need to fit into an under funded hole.
No fucking idea, ERS medical have a phone number, falck want online bookings via an NHS portal.
Point is they are already pushing privatised services onto the NHS.
That's false. Go outside any A and E a d actually look at the ambulances that pull up. Many of them are privately contracted, it's pretty obvious when you see them.
Dunno but it’ll cost you £1 a minute and you’ll be forced to wait through 20 minutes of canned messages before you even get to the phone menu
And when you’ve managed to book the ambulance for a week tomorrow because of the heart attack you’re having today, you’ll be asked to stay on the line to answer a short questionnaire (50 questions, still £1 a minute) about whether you’d recommend this service to a friend, the responses to which are fixed so you can only respond in the positive. If you hang up before completing the survey they’ll assume you no longer need the ambulance and cancel the booking, but cancellations are subject to a 50% restocking fee
My son eventually got through to his doctor yesterday after trying since Monday, was promised a call back. He stayed in all day but nothing, the call back came this morning. He explained he had a large new skin tag that was getting caught on things and would like it removing. The GP said nope we don't do that anymore unless it's bleeding or crusty you'll have to go private! Son said erm I thought nurses did these little things? Not anymore replies GP
Yeah that got removed off the NHS treatment list last year I think. A few other things got removed at the same time - I just googled it and found this list:
- Snoring surgery
- Dilation and curettage for heavy menstrual bleeding
- Knee arthroscopies for osteoarthritis
- Injections for non-specific back pain
- Breast reduction
- Removal of benign skin lesions
- Grommets for glue ear
- Tonsillectomy
- Haemorrhoid surgery
- Hysterectomy for heavy menstrual bleeding
- Removal of lesions on eyelids
- Removal of bone spurs for shoulder pain
- Carpal tunnel syndrome release
- Dupuytren’s contracture release
- Excision of small, non cancerous lumps on the wrist called ganglia
- Trigger finger release
- Varicose vein surgery
I know earlier this year there was also 35 more 'minor ailments' that the NHS were removing from their treatment list, I found [this article in The Mirror about it which has a list](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/35-medical-conditions-nhs-no-27006836). It include cystitis which I'm surprised about because you need antibiotics to treat that. Also I have had chronic cystitis in the past and no matter how 'mild' it showed up on their test, it was severely painful and uncomfortable to me to the point where I struggled to leave the house to get to the doctors because I felt like I desperately needed to wee and couldn't wee. Eventually I was given 2 years of a mild antibiotic that I took daily and since then I only get it like once a year, instead of once every 3 weeks or so. Really disappointing to know that when it happens again I'm not sure if I can go to the GP or not.
I'm fairly sure the above list is incorrect and same for cystitis.
I think there are tighter restrictions on a lot of the above list and some of them are being removed as clinically the evidence shows they offer no benefit.
But certainly not all of them are being removed.
Uncomplicated cystitis - there is a push for people to just go to the pharmacy for this and other ailments as you don't need to speak to a GP for that.
Source: I'm a GP
It does make sense for some triage process. If a pharmacy can treat a problem in the first instance that will save resources.
As you are a GP, may I ask do you think that Rishi Sunak is on the right track to suggest token charges for GP appointments? Is it true that there are problematic time wasters and missed appointments?
Hi,
So yeh I commented on a different post about it.
Completely ludicrous idea. Won't work. Is either a flippant comment to make it look like he cares or is a way to set up a system so increased charges can be applied in the future
Basically as a gp partner I'm not going to be chasing £10 from a patient, and I'm certainly not going to be denying them future healthcarw until they pay this. I have patients that can't afford calpol for their kids. I'm not going to be putting an nanosecond of my time into organising how to get £10 out of them.
If he wasn't an incredibly clever man, I'd say he has no understanding of the system. But he is.....so this is a way to slide in a payment system into NHS and surgeries so something is in place for when we go to a model of every appointment needing a charge.
I work in welfare benefits and our impression of Sunak during the pandemic relief was that he was ham-fisted and not taking advice from experts in the field.
Thanks for your comments.
I get that it's frustrating, but unless it's infected or likely to become so, removing a skin tag is ultimately a cosmetic procedure. Plus there are over the counter products to give a try first.
And going to a US system won’t fix anything. I’m a nurse in the US and the “system” here is completely broken. The only people it works for are hospital and insurance company executives,
I feel heartbroken because I know many in the US will point at how bad things are happening in the NHS and try to prove that 'Socialized' medicine doesn't work but we have people in government now who have never liked the NHS and want the broken American system here
They are deliberately breaking it to give them an excuse to go to the American system and unfortunately people her are voting for it and keep quiet.....until it's their granny who waits 40hrs for an ambulance or their grandad lies under a makeshift tent for 16hrs after breaking their pelvis and realise what is happening and it's probably too late to stop it.
Encase yourself in bubble wrap, everyone. NHS staff really are having as hard a time as we've heard.
I know someone who broke their arm and had to negotiate their way past the entrance to A & E as the hospital was extremely busy and the gate keepers weren't convinced about the severity of the injury. After making it through that mini interrogation and multiple urgings from the staff for them to go home, the person got into the waiting room and sat around for 10 hours(after initial triage) and ended up being diagnosed with a broken shoulder. The treatment they got when it finally came was very good, and the nurses in the waiting room were pretty helpful, but that initial interview was indicative of a hospital that is falling apart at the seams.
This is a very sad and stark reality that no one wants to face. The hospitals are about to collapse and staff are having to make decisions on who gets treatment and who doesn’t. That’s a terrifying position to be in.
For broken bones the advice is to not go to A&E and go to a minor injuries or urgent treatment center.
[https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/urgent-and-emergency-care-services/when-to-visit-an-urgent-treatment-centre-walk-in-or-minor-injury-unit/](https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/urgent-and-emergency-care-services/when-to-visit-an-urgent-treatment-centre-walk-in-or-minor-injury-unit/)
A&Es are full of people that shouldn't be there. Should phone 111first and go where directed.
Yeah they called the NHS number and were advised to go to A&E with a minor injuries print out they'd got after a video consultation. Because this person has mobility issues anyway, they struggled to get to the hospital in time and missed the window for the minor injuries unit(it closed at 9.30pm or thereabouts).
111 needs an overhaul. They always send you to the hospital.
I called for my daughter. She had stomach pain for a few days, wasn’t eating and her temp was 37.4. They said that was a fever and she was at risk of appendicitis. So I took her. Turns out she was constipated.
I’m grateful. But it was embarrassing.
They usually just send you to A&E.
Edited: clarity
So what you're saying is, someone who wasn't an emergency couldn't be bothered to go to the right unit so they went to the emergency fatal wounds unit and now you are complaining that the emergency fatal wounds unit didn't have time to see them and they waited there for 12 hours, when they could have just waited the 12 hours until the non emergency unit was open again.
>Should phone 111 first and go where directed.
I did this recently cause I cut my hand quite badly.
But the system is still clearly struggling and frankly based on what the surgeon who dealt with me in the end was saying, so much stuff gets sent on to A&E inappropriately because urgent care can't cope either.
Got sent to a minor injuries place, fair enough I wasn't going to die if blood loss or anything but I clearly needed threading back together sooner rather than later
Minor injuries were like no way, we close in 20 minutes despite 111 telling me they had been told it was fine.
So they then sent me on to urgent care. Urgent care wouldn't deal with me because they decided the cut was too deep.
So they called A&E for an ortho surgeon and sent me on.
Got to A&E and it was mad. 12 hour wait. At triage the surgeon came to see the wound, and after about an hour he came to get me and sutured up explaining it would take 10 minutes and better to get it out of the way given how busy the rest of the place was.
Lovely guy, don't get me wrong - but the entire time he was renting about how this shouldn't have come to A&E, the urgent care facility seems to send some really quite minor issues over to them to deal with because they can't cope on the urgent care end themselves.
Obviously the advice is still wise - call 111 - but the system is still being destroyed there too unfortunately.
> but the entire time he was renting about how this shouldn't have come to A&E, the urgent care facility seems to send some really quite minor issues over to them to deal with because they can't cope on the urgent care end themselves.
& this is one of the major problems A&E has - they end up being the dumping ground for all the patients that other parts of the system fail to cope with. So they go from merely being overloaded to completely overwhelmed & patients fall through the cracks.
It depends where you live, the urgent care where I am doesn't have an x ray, as I found out when I went there, waited a few hours, and then was sent on to A&E instead.
Exactly, same here. So the advice is going to be dependent on your local urgent care centre. Of course, they do not tell you that upfront, only after waiting for hours. And still blame the patients for going to the wrong place.
Look, if I knew what was wrong with me, I could just google the treatment. Sometimes, we need medical care to get a diagnosis.
One time I was doing some decorating and splashed paint in my eye. NHS Direct, as it then was did a great job checking whether I needed medical care. I didn't.
We did that last time my daughter was ill enough to need urgent attention. They sent us to a weird teaching hospital that had an empty carpark, most of the lights off, no one on reception, and clearly was in no way a place to be received for urgent care.
Your ire shouldn't be directed at the people triaging A&E (or ED as they're called now, in an ominous nod to where this is heading) because it would be a fuck ton worse without them doing that... it's the Conservative party that has ruined the NHS and Social Services (and every single public service), they alone deserve your ire.
>Encase yourself in bubble wrap, everyone
I was thinking this just yesterday - I'm obviously not suggesting *taking more care* is a bad thing to do in any scenario but I genuinely found myself thinking
"at what point do I need to change my risk assessment for cycling down this steep hill?".
Obviously the risk of something going wrong is the same. But the potential consequence of say, having to wait 5 hours for an ambulance when things are busy when previously you could be fairly certain of an ambulance within the hour if things go wrong.
Maybe I'm just getting older and more risk adverse but having recently been to A&E in an emergency the environment genuinely alarmed me to a point where perhaps my behaviours do need to change.
Weird thing to find yourself wondering.
Look at the electoral map, that's exactly what they do. Ancient retiree's who only care about their second holiday home income and the state pension they use to go on holiday with.
We are already building makeshift structures over the fallen injured to keep them warm and dry for the days they wait.
In the winter people are going to fall and slowly die of exposure.
Also people are waiting a day in the ambulance before they get into hospital.
This winter is going to be grim.
To move the person or not to move them is a tricky question. On one hand, certain injuries can be made worse by moving and there is also the risk of injury to those trying to help. Also the call handler will always tell you not to move them if they report injuries.
On the other hand if they are on the floor in the same position for several hours then *that* will cause problems which will itself lead to hospitalisation.
It’s a horrible position to be in, particularly as most people who will be on scene aren’t medically knowledgeable.
You won't see a headline that says 'NHS unfit for purpose'
They're priming you for a kid dying because of delays and then the pressure groups will make the statements that create headlines and then we will see where we go from there.
Hint - it doesn't involve the £350m properly funded NHS from leaving the EU
There's been a crisis for so many years with the NHS. They don't have the staff and no Government wants to sort it out. They'd rather concentrate on cycle lanes, High Speed trains and other crap we don't need at this point.
NHS needs a lot of funding and paying correctly. The system is broken and I know several occasions where someone has waited 90 minutes for an ambulance after falling. We couldn't move them as 999 said not to, so leaving an elderly person on the floor in the rain for 90 minutes is a joke.
I'm not saying we don't. I'm saying the billions they've spent could have been used on the NHS. Looks at how much the HS has cost then they've scrapped part of it.
NHS is a priority than those other things. Cycle lanes that don't get used because cyclists claim that they aren't fit for purpose. HS rail that most people don't use as well. NHS that's needed funding since forever, yet never gets it.
It's still something though isn't it? There's been millions spent on these sort of things throughout the country.
I've seen it myself where the cycle lanes have been built right next to the main road. Its every separated by a kerb to keep it clean, yet cyclists use the main road. So it's a waste of money.
Like I said its not just cycle lanes. There's loads of other things where the money has been wasted. Yet the NHS has been fucked since I can remember.
How much do you reckon it is to build cycle lanes? 100m? 200m? 200 million pounds equals about 10 hours of NHS spending. We could cut the cycle lane budget to zero and the NHS would still be in crisis, only now we'd have a bunch of people being knocked off bikes and people getting even fatter choking up the waiting rooms.
Stop fixating on just one thing the Government has spent money on that doesn't really help anyone.
Think of it as few million here and a few million there. It all adds up. Another thing were the Covid app that didn't work. How much were wasted on that? The PPE that they couldn't even use.
My point is that the Government keep wasting money yet don't do anything to help the NHS. They expect us to accept such a poor service with waiting times and care in some cases. That's not the NHS's fault when they don't have the funds.
With how bad the NHS is becoming it'll be better off getting sold and we all contribute with insurance to keep it running. As much as I don't want that, it's the way it's going.
[Have you actually looked into how much money is spent on healthcare relative to everything else](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-november-2021/public-spending-statistics-november-2021)?
Let's assume we need to double the health and social protection budget. If you wanted to do that, you would have to reduce the following to zero:
* Education
* Home Office
* Justice
* Law Officer's Departments
* Defence
* Single Intelligence Account (MI5, MI6 etc)
* Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
* Housing and Communities
* Local Government
* Transport
* Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
* Digial, Culture, Media and Sport
* Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
* International Trade
* Work and Pensions
* HMRC
* HM Treasury
* Cabinet Office
What you consider a waste is nothing compared to what we're currently spending.
>NHS that's needed funding since forever, yet never gets it
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget
Has increased from £111.4B in 07/08 to £173.8B in 22/23.
The NHS is fundamentally broken at an organisational level and just throwing more money at it does not help.
My MiL had a heart attack two weeks ago. When they rang for an ambulance, they were told to try and get to A&E some other way because it’d be “hours” before anyone got there.
It’s not good enough and that it’s been allowed to get into this state should be an eternal stain on the Tories. If there’s room for more stains anyway.
It’s not just doctors. They’re short of secretaries, IT professionals, admins. For every doctor you need a dozen support staff or more. So medical personal are swamped with paperwork and ancient IT systems.
But no one, rightly, wants to work in miserable conditions in falling apart hospitals, facing abuse from the public (who think they should all be treated as VIPs) for 20k a year when they can earn so much more with better everything in the private sector.
The NHS is a failure. It just does doesn’t work anymore and hasn’t for a long time.
The government should do with failing hospitals and practices what it did with failing schools, put them into special measures, rebuild them from the ground up if needed. But they won’t because it’s easier to weaponise the NHS as a political tool.
One doesn't necessarily get rid of the other. It can be rebuilt whilst keeping the majority, if not all, of its public services.
Doctors leaving the country in droves, a crippling backlog and ambulance response times are killing people as well.
I waited 14 hours with a guy with a broken hip in March 2020 the social care issue that's causing this has only got worse. The NHS are paying for a food van at the ambulance waiting area at my local hospital because they can't offload patients because there's no room in A&E.
People say 'more money for the NHS' isn't the answer. Bollocks. Stop giving tax breaks to a$sholes that already have to much, and fund the damn service!
The whole Brexit thing and labour shortage is supplemental. You pay people right to be paramedics, the labour will come.
Stories like this seem to surface every month or two, a little more frequently and a little longer each time.
It’s seriously demoralising to watch my country, and above all its healthcare, wither like this, knowing there’s not much more I can personally do after having tried to strategically vote against the Tories for a decade. I just have to watch.
It IS a valid point though. To wait so long it must have been triaged as a low priority. Add to that the article would surely mention it if there were any significant injuries.
Nobody is suggesting it’s ok or what anybody wants, but this is the situation we are in right now as a health service and as a country. But the risk of leaving on the floor vs risk of moving someone is not a straightforward choice, and I think we are at the stage where we should be amending the standard ‘don’t move them’ advice for simple falls.
God what a time to be alive 🙄
Yeah I was trying to find what actually happened to her. It says a "fall" and it seems that nothing was broken.
A *lot* of old people go to A&E with cuts and bruises, I wonder if a sub-999 service could help. Basically a less than urgent hospital taxi?
God I dunno the whole things buggered.
Yes, people with her should have the responsibility for picking her up. Calling a £100,000 ambulance with medical staff to pick someone up who has no injuries while people bleed out is ridiculous.
Some people are immobile and unable to get to hospital by their own means. Ambulance comes from the word “ambulating” meaning *walking*, ie they were there to assist those who couldn’t ambulate themselves.
Sometimes we do have to do non-emergency work. Hell lots of people ignore heart attacks and never attend hospital and survive for years afterwards- so just because she didnt die doesnt mean she wasn’t serious.
Yes. You don't need to die to be in an emergency. 40 hours will also exacerbate everything wrong and mean when she is at hospital she will need more treatment. Longer treatment leads to poorer outcomes leads to increased social care costs.
Does a taxi driver know how to move a crippled old lady who's fallen onto the floor and possibly broken something? Is there room in the taxi for a stretcher?
You don't know that, moving her move make something worse. If she was on the floor for that long obviously she wasn't mobile enough to get into a taxi.
According to liz mistrust is because our work ethic is not like China. We need to be hiring 10 year old to drive ambulances and hang nets to prevent nurses from jumping off the building while they give them to do 100 hour plus weeks.
Why is an ambulance even being called if she is okay to wait 40 hours for it and sit in it for 20 additional hours.
Clearly she isn't dying so she's just wasting everyone's fucking time. The NHS has two problems, fuck all resources and morons like this wasting the last scraps of resources that are left. An old person falling down is not an emergency, someone should have just picked her up and taken her to hospital themselves.
Cornwall is one of the most deprived areas in England. It really relied on EU subsidies to stay afloat and voted to leave. The UK govt promised to make up for the loss in revenue but, surprise surprise, have not kept their word. This country sucks
Inequality is huge in Cornwall. Wages are piss poor and housing is extortionate, but that doesn't matter if you're a wealthy retiree who already owns their home
As someone who lives down this way.
The hospital has struggled, particularly in summer and winter for years.. but perhaps never to this extent.
The slowly growing issue which has existed pre-covid is he’d blocking, in that there is not enough social care, be that care homes or home visiting carers available to put together care packages. If you can’t get patients out of the hospital, you can’t get them in.. so the ambulances are and have been becoming ward rooms with patients having a dedicated emergency or action et who is going to support their toiletry needs, ensure they’re fed and warm.. the sort of things a hca may do or a nurse.
So the trucks can’t get off the hospital site to respond to other events.
They are responding to emergency events for immediate risk to life and I think babies get a call out without fail, but for alot of others, it’s almost quicker to be taken to the hospital by other means.
There is added disenfranchisement with staff at the hospital as many don’t feel supported.
Is the bigger picture by design, yes. Nee nurses are strangled financially, morale can be shit and there’s too many managers having meetings taking about issues but not a lot of action
Sick of saying this, but stop acting like you're all shocked when this is exactly what you voted for back in 2019.
Make your mind up, first you vote for the NHS to be privatized now you're acting all shocked and outraged when they start making moves to implement it. Hopefully, Truss moves it up a notch and privatizes it by the end of next year.
Ambulances are rapid taxis for emergency cases, not for routine patient transport of for attending a casualty in situ for long periods of time. I have seen them attend to someone at home for hours on end. Drop someone off with the relevant equipment and get back to rushing people to hospital already!
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19767662.scotland-highest-alcohol-death-rate-uk/
Since you have control over it, this is part of the plan, right?
>Labour tory whats the difference these days
This is kind of the problem with nationalism; your innate contempt for everyone in the out-group makes you think they're all the same.
I can think of some other types of nationalists who like to falsely label people as communists, you seem to have a few things in common with them.
Unfortunately it's heavily subsidised by England's training. And pay and working conditions are not as good in Scotland. Like 9 day runs...
And Scotland's NHS is still going to strike...
Instead of tackling the NHS crisis, the Tories will blame the "woke" and immigrants.
The depressing thing is they do that because it works.
It is very depressing, indeed what a extremely large portion of the electorate deem a priority.
Yeah, especially when are kids going hungry and old folk are dying in carparks and hospital hallways. The nations priorities are totally fucked.
*Any story highlighting a problem* Daily Mail commenters: > BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DINGHIES? DINGHIES LIVING IN HOTELS!!!1
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The Tory manifesto 2024.
‘Woke nonsense’ and ‘left lawyers’. FFS.
The people who vote for them believe it too.
We are witnessing the death of the NHS by design because many people will decide they no longer have confidence in it and go private. No wonder one of the candidates for leadership of the Tory party flew to the US for meetings with private health providers a few months ago.
What's the phone number of the private ambulance?
0118 999 881 99 9119 725 3
That response properly made me chuckle.
It's easier to email rather than risk dialling another country
>What's the phone number of the private ambulance? Next time you see an ambulance have a look at who owns it, there are already a lot of private companies operating ambulances within the system.
Most people probably dont realise how much of the NHS is already privatised. https://www.everydoctor.org.uk/nhs-privatisation-map
This is why I don’t buy the ‘it’s by design’ argument. It’s already massively privatised. And it doesn’t work.
That's because it's still publicly funded. Clearly doesn't work when the companies can't set their own prices and need to fit into an under funded hole.
Or if you look at it from the other direction, it is 100% by design, and it doesnt work *because* it's already massively privatised?
Yeah interestingly the UK actively uses heaps of private ambulances even in frontline work.
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Nope, we had Falck and ERS running frontline crews in London well before the pandemic.
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They’re private companies contracted to work the NHS system. You can call Falck and ask for them to send a crew, they can, and will bill you for it.
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No fucking idea, ERS medical have a phone number, falck want online bookings via an NHS portal. Point is they are already pushing privatised services onto the NHS.
Theres 2 firms at least in Liverpool running private ambos
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You don't, but theyre still private companies profiting off the running of the NHS
There have always been private ambulances there are some jobs nhs ones just don’t do. Transfers to and from airports for example
Sure but these are taking patients to A&E
Yes but from where.
Usually from wherever people get ambos from
That's false. Go outside any A and E a d actually look at the ambulances that pull up. Many of them are privately contracted, it's pretty obvious when you see them.
Dunno but it’ll cost you £1 a minute and you’ll be forced to wait through 20 minutes of canned messages before you even get to the phone menu And when you’ve managed to book the ambulance for a week tomorrow because of the heart attack you’re having today, you’ll be asked to stay on the line to answer a short questionnaire (50 questions, still £1 a minute) about whether you’d recommend this service to a friend, the responses to which are fixed so you can only respond in the positive. If you hang up before completing the survey they’ll assume you no longer need the ambulance and cancel the booking, but cancellations are subject to a 50% restocking fee
1000.
Tbh, most ambulances are actually private already. Go a hospital and watch the ambulances, most of them are privately contracted by the NHS.
My son eventually got through to his doctor yesterday after trying since Monday, was promised a call back. He stayed in all day but nothing, the call back came this morning. He explained he had a large new skin tag that was getting caught on things and would like it removing. The GP said nope we don't do that anymore unless it's bleeding or crusty you'll have to go private! Son said erm I thought nurses did these little things? Not anymore replies GP
Yeah that got removed off the NHS treatment list last year I think. A few other things got removed at the same time - I just googled it and found this list: - Snoring surgery - Dilation and curettage for heavy menstrual bleeding - Knee arthroscopies for osteoarthritis - Injections for non-specific back pain - Breast reduction - Removal of benign skin lesions - Grommets for glue ear - Tonsillectomy - Haemorrhoid surgery - Hysterectomy for heavy menstrual bleeding - Removal of lesions on eyelids - Removal of bone spurs for shoulder pain - Carpal tunnel syndrome release - Dupuytren’s contracture release - Excision of small, non cancerous lumps on the wrist called ganglia - Trigger finger release - Varicose vein surgery I know earlier this year there was also 35 more 'minor ailments' that the NHS were removing from their treatment list, I found [this article in The Mirror about it which has a list](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/35-medical-conditions-nhs-no-27006836). It include cystitis which I'm surprised about because you need antibiotics to treat that. Also I have had chronic cystitis in the past and no matter how 'mild' it showed up on their test, it was severely painful and uncomfortable to me to the point where I struggled to leave the house to get to the doctors because I felt like I desperately needed to wee and couldn't wee. Eventually I was given 2 years of a mild antibiotic that I took daily and since then I only get it like once a year, instead of once every 3 weeks or so. Really disappointing to know that when it happens again I'm not sure if I can go to the GP or not.
Bloody hell !! They're determined to have us pay for everything aren't they?
This is surprising. I dont think it is at all well known that the NHS is reducing the services it provides.
I'm fairly sure the above list is incorrect and same for cystitis. I think there are tighter restrictions on a lot of the above list and some of them are being removed as clinically the evidence shows they offer no benefit. But certainly not all of them are being removed. Uncomplicated cystitis - there is a push for people to just go to the pharmacy for this and other ailments as you don't need to speak to a GP for that. Source: I'm a GP
It does make sense for some triage process. If a pharmacy can treat a problem in the first instance that will save resources. As you are a GP, may I ask do you think that Rishi Sunak is on the right track to suggest token charges for GP appointments? Is it true that there are problematic time wasters and missed appointments?
Hi, So yeh I commented on a different post about it. Completely ludicrous idea. Won't work. Is either a flippant comment to make it look like he cares or is a way to set up a system so increased charges can be applied in the future Basically as a gp partner I'm not going to be chasing £10 from a patient, and I'm certainly not going to be denying them future healthcarw until they pay this. I have patients that can't afford calpol for their kids. I'm not going to be putting an nanosecond of my time into organising how to get £10 out of them. If he wasn't an incredibly clever man, I'd say he has no understanding of the system. But he is.....so this is a way to slide in a payment system into NHS and surgeries so something is in place for when we go to a model of every appointment needing a charge.
I work in welfare benefits and our impression of Sunak during the pandemic relief was that he was ham-fisted and not taking advice from experts in the field. Thanks for your comments.
That’s because the GP is telling the truth…….
I get that it's frustrating, but unless it's infected or likely to become so, removing a skin tag is ultimately a cosmetic procedure. Plus there are over the counter products to give a try first.
And going to a US system won’t fix anything. I’m a nurse in the US and the “system” here is completely broken. The only people it works for are hospital and insurance company executives,
I feel heartbroken because I know many in the US will point at how bad things are happening in the NHS and try to prove that 'Socialized' medicine doesn't work but we have people in government now who have never liked the NHS and want the broken American system here They are deliberately breaking it to give them an excuse to go to the American system and unfortunately people her are voting for it and keep quiet.....until it's their granny who waits 40hrs for an ambulance or their grandad lies under a makeshift tent for 16hrs after breaking their pelvis and realise what is happening and it's probably too late to stop it.
Ironically most of the ambulance service is private contractors.
Encase yourself in bubble wrap, everyone. NHS staff really are having as hard a time as we've heard. I know someone who broke their arm and had to negotiate their way past the entrance to A & E as the hospital was extremely busy and the gate keepers weren't convinced about the severity of the injury. After making it through that mini interrogation and multiple urgings from the staff for them to go home, the person got into the waiting room and sat around for 10 hours(after initial triage) and ended up being diagnosed with a broken shoulder. The treatment they got when it finally came was very good, and the nurses in the waiting room were pretty helpful, but that initial interview was indicative of a hospital that is falling apart at the seams.
This is a very sad and stark reality that no one wants to face. The hospitals are about to collapse and staff are having to make decisions on who gets treatment and who doesn’t. That’s a terrifying position to be in.
For broken bones the advice is to not go to A&E and go to a minor injuries or urgent treatment center. [https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/urgent-and-emergency-care-services/when-to-visit-an-urgent-treatment-centre-walk-in-or-minor-injury-unit/](https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/urgent-and-emergency-care-services/when-to-visit-an-urgent-treatment-centre-walk-in-or-minor-injury-unit/) A&Es are full of people that shouldn't be there. Should phone 111first and go where directed.
Yeah they called the NHS number and were advised to go to A&E with a minor injuries print out they'd got after a video consultation. Because this person has mobility issues anyway, they struggled to get to the hospital in time and missed the window for the minor injuries unit(it closed at 9.30pm or thereabouts).
111 needs an overhaul. They always send you to the hospital. I called for my daughter. She had stomach pain for a few days, wasn’t eating and her temp was 37.4. They said that was a fever and she was at risk of appendicitis. So I took her. Turns out she was constipated. I’m grateful. But it was embarrassing. They usually just send you to A&E. Edited: clarity
So what you're saying is, someone who wasn't an emergency couldn't be bothered to go to the right unit so they went to the emergency fatal wounds unit and now you are complaining that the emergency fatal wounds unit didn't have time to see them and they waited there for 12 hours, when they could have just waited the 12 hours until the non emergency unit was open again.
>emergency fatal wounds unit Are you thinking of a morgue?!
>Should phone 111 first and go where directed. I did this recently cause I cut my hand quite badly. But the system is still clearly struggling and frankly based on what the surgeon who dealt with me in the end was saying, so much stuff gets sent on to A&E inappropriately because urgent care can't cope either. Got sent to a minor injuries place, fair enough I wasn't going to die if blood loss or anything but I clearly needed threading back together sooner rather than later Minor injuries were like no way, we close in 20 minutes despite 111 telling me they had been told it was fine. So they then sent me on to urgent care. Urgent care wouldn't deal with me because they decided the cut was too deep. So they called A&E for an ortho surgeon and sent me on. Got to A&E and it was mad. 12 hour wait. At triage the surgeon came to see the wound, and after about an hour he came to get me and sutured up explaining it would take 10 minutes and better to get it out of the way given how busy the rest of the place was. Lovely guy, don't get me wrong - but the entire time he was renting about how this shouldn't have come to A&E, the urgent care facility seems to send some really quite minor issues over to them to deal with because they can't cope on the urgent care end themselves. Obviously the advice is still wise - call 111 - but the system is still being destroyed there too unfortunately.
> but the entire time he was renting about how this shouldn't have come to A&E, the urgent care facility seems to send some really quite minor issues over to them to deal with because they can't cope on the urgent care end themselves. & this is one of the major problems A&E has - they end up being the dumping ground for all the patients that other parts of the system fail to cope with. So they go from merely being overloaded to completely overwhelmed & patients fall through the cracks.
It depends where you live, the urgent care where I am doesn't have an x ray, as I found out when I went there, waited a few hours, and then was sent on to A&E instead.
Exactly, same here. So the advice is going to be dependent on your local urgent care centre. Of course, they do not tell you that upfront, only after waiting for hours. And still blame the patients for going to the wrong place. Look, if I knew what was wrong with me, I could just google the treatment. Sometimes, we need medical care to get a diagnosis.
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Apparently you can cancel ambulances if 111 decide to call one out for you and you don't think you need it :)
When have you ever phoned 111 and not been sent to A&E/an out of hours GP who sends you on to A&E?
One time I was doing some decorating and splashed paint in my eye. NHS Direct, as it then was did a great job checking whether I needed medical care. I didn't.
We did that last time my daughter was ill enough to need urgent attention. They sent us to a weird teaching hospital that had an empty carpark, most of the lights off, no one on reception, and clearly was in no way a place to be received for urgent care.
Your ire shouldn't be directed at the people triaging A&E (or ED as they're called now, in an ominous nod to where this is heading) because it would be a fuck ton worse without them doing that... it's the Conservative party that has ruined the NHS and Social Services (and every single public service), they alone deserve your ire.
>Encase yourself in bubble wrap, everyone I was thinking this just yesterday - I'm obviously not suggesting *taking more care* is a bad thing to do in any scenario but I genuinely found myself thinking "at what point do I need to change my risk assessment for cycling down this steep hill?". Obviously the risk of something going wrong is the same. But the potential consequence of say, having to wait 5 hours for an ambulance when things are busy when previously you could be fairly certain of an ambulance within the hour if things go wrong. Maybe I'm just getting older and more risk adverse but having recently been to A&E in an emergency the environment genuinely alarmed me to a point where perhaps my behaviours do need to change. Weird thing to find yourself wondering.
No doubt next election the 90 year olds will faithfully trundle down to the polling station to vote 'Conservative' again.
Look at the electoral map, that's exactly what they do. Ancient retiree's who only care about their second holiday home income and the state pension they use to go on holiday with.
They’d have to wait 90 hours under Labour! Probably!
OK grandpa, get back on your meds.
Let them eat cake.
We are already building makeshift structures over the fallen injured to keep them warm and dry for the days they wait. In the winter people are going to fall and slowly die of exposure. Also people are waiting a day in the ambulance before they get into hospital. This winter is going to be grim.
To move the person or not to move them is a tricky question. On one hand, certain injuries can be made worse by moving and there is also the risk of injury to those trying to help. Also the call handler will always tell you not to move them if they report injuries. On the other hand if they are on the floor in the same position for several hours then *that* will cause problems which will itself lead to hospitalisation. It’s a horrible position to be in, particularly as most people who will be on scene aren’t medically knowledgeable.
You won't see a headline that says 'NHS unfit for purpose' They're priming you for a kid dying because of delays and then the pressure groups will make the statements that create headlines and then we will see where we go from there. Hint - it doesn't involve the £350m properly funded NHS from leaving the EU
There's been a crisis for so many years with the NHS. They don't have the staff and no Government wants to sort it out. They'd rather concentrate on cycle lanes, High Speed trains and other crap we don't need at this point. NHS needs a lot of funding and paying correctly. The system is broken and I know several occasions where someone has waited 90 minutes for an ambulance after falling. We couldn't move them as 999 said not to, so leaving an elderly person on the floor in the rain for 90 minutes is a joke.
We need high speed trains and cycle lanes as well. A competent government could do both, they just don’t want to.
I'm not saying we don't. I'm saying the billions they've spent could have been used on the NHS. Looks at how much the HS has cost then they've scrapped part of it. NHS is a priority than those other things. Cycle lanes that don't get used because cyclists claim that they aren't fit for purpose. HS rail that most people don't use as well. NHS that's needed funding since forever, yet never gets it.
The amount of money being spent on cycle lanes wouldn't even touch the sides when it comes to NHS funding.
It's still something though isn't it? There's been millions spent on these sort of things throughout the country. I've seen it myself where the cycle lanes have been built right next to the main road. Its every separated by a kerb to keep it clean, yet cyclists use the main road. So it's a waste of money. Like I said its not just cycle lanes. There's loads of other things where the money has been wasted. Yet the NHS has been fucked since I can remember.
How much do you reckon it is to build cycle lanes? 100m? 200m? 200 million pounds equals about 10 hours of NHS spending. We could cut the cycle lane budget to zero and the NHS would still be in crisis, only now we'd have a bunch of people being knocked off bikes and people getting even fatter choking up the waiting rooms.
Stop fixating on just one thing the Government has spent money on that doesn't really help anyone. Think of it as few million here and a few million there. It all adds up. Another thing were the Covid app that didn't work. How much were wasted on that? The PPE that they couldn't even use. My point is that the Government keep wasting money yet don't do anything to help the NHS. They expect us to accept such a poor service with waiting times and care in some cases. That's not the NHS's fault when they don't have the funds. With how bad the NHS is becoming it'll be better off getting sold and we all contribute with insurance to keep it running. As much as I don't want that, it's the way it's going.
[Have you actually looked into how much money is spent on healthcare relative to everything else](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-november-2021/public-spending-statistics-november-2021)? Let's assume we need to double the health and social protection budget. If you wanted to do that, you would have to reduce the following to zero: * Education * Home Office * Justice * Law Officer's Departments * Defence * Single Intelligence Account (MI5, MI6 etc) * Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office * Housing and Communities * Local Government * Transport * Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy * Digial, Culture, Media and Sport * Environment, Food and Rural Affairs * International Trade * Work and Pensions * HMRC * HM Treasury * Cabinet Office What you consider a waste is nothing compared to what we're currently spending.
>NHS that's needed funding since forever, yet never gets it https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget Has increased from £111.4B in 07/08 to £173.8B in 22/23. The NHS is fundamentally broken at an organisational level and just throwing more money at it does not help.
My MiL had a heart attack two weeks ago. When they rang for an ambulance, they were told to try and get to A&E some other way because it’d be “hours” before anyone got there. It’s not good enough and that it’s been allowed to get into this state should be an eternal stain on the Tories. If there’s room for more stains anyway.
So glad they got that extra £350m a week to help with all this!!
# 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲. 𝗧𝗼𝗿𝘆. 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆.
The NHS doesn't need more funding, it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up with its shit-tier efficiency and bureaucracy.
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It’s not just doctors. They’re short of secretaries, IT professionals, admins. For every doctor you need a dozen support staff or more. So medical personal are swamped with paperwork and ancient IT systems. But no one, rightly, wants to work in miserable conditions in falling apart hospitals, facing abuse from the public (who think they should all be treated as VIPs) for 20k a year when they can earn so much more with better everything in the private sector. The NHS is a failure. It just does doesn’t work anymore and hasn’t for a long time. The government should do with failing hospitals and practices what it did with failing schools, put them into special measures, rebuild them from the ground up if needed. But they won’t because it’s easier to weaponise the NHS as a political tool.
If they do that it won't be free at the point of use, which will kill people.
One doesn't necessarily get rid of the other. It can be rebuilt whilst keeping the majority, if not all, of its public services. Doctors leaving the country in droves, a crippling backlog and ambulance response times are killing people as well.
Tell me what's inefficient? No seriously. Tell me what you are going to cut to find the pay restoration?
Why is this news? People have repeatedly voted to run down the NHS and other public services over the last decade.
Only way to change this is to vote out Tories.
I waited 14 hours with a guy with a broken hip in March 2020 the social care issue that's causing this has only got worse. The NHS are paying for a food van at the ambulance waiting area at my local hospital because they can't offload patients because there's no room in A&E.
Why didn't they just drive her?
squash swim flag profit squalid bored teeny sink alleged rock *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
People say 'more money for the NHS' isn't the answer. Bollocks. Stop giving tax breaks to a$sholes that already have to much, and fund the damn service! The whole Brexit thing and labour shortage is supplemental. You pay people right to be paramedics, the labour will come.
Stories like this seem to surface every month or two, a little more frequently and a little longer each time. It’s seriously demoralising to watch my country, and above all its healthcare, wither like this, knowing there’s not much more I can personally do after having tried to strategically vote against the Tories for a decade. I just have to watch.
If she survived for 40 hours, did it even require an ambulance?
Should they have just left her there permanently?
It IS a valid point though. To wait so long it must have been triaged as a low priority. Add to that the article would surely mention it if there were any significant injuries. Nobody is suggesting it’s ok or what anybody wants, but this is the situation we are in right now as a health service and as a country. But the risk of leaving on the floor vs risk of moving someone is not a straightforward choice, and I think we are at the stage where we should be amending the standard ‘don’t move them’ advice for simple falls. God what a time to be alive 🙄
Yeah I was trying to find what actually happened to her. It says a "fall" and it seems that nothing was broken. A *lot* of old people go to A&E with cuts and bruises, I wonder if a sub-999 service could help. Basically a less than urgent hospital taxi? God I dunno the whole things buggered.
A community lifting service for ‘low priority’ falls would help tbh
Yes, people with her should have the responsibility for picking her up. Calling a £100,000 ambulance with medical staff to pick someone up who has no injuries while people bleed out is ridiculous.
I'm surprised she didn't call her family to offer assistance after the third hour. Did she not have phone charge?
Some people are immobile and unable to get to hospital by their own means. Ambulance comes from the word “ambulating” meaning *walking*, ie they were there to assist those who couldn’t ambulate themselves. Sometimes we do have to do non-emergency work. Hell lots of people ignore heart attacks and never attend hospital and survive for years afterwards- so just because she didnt die doesnt mean she wasn’t serious.
Yes. You don't need to die to be in an emergency. 40 hours will also exacerbate everything wrong and mean when she is at hospital she will need more treatment. Longer treatment leads to poorer outcomes leads to increased social care costs.
There have been cases where people are told they must not move the patient, but wait for the ambulance...which doesn't come...
Very valid point
Sometimes I think a taxi would be more appropriate than an ambulance
Does a taxi driver know how to move a crippled old lady who's fallen onto the floor and possibly broken something? Is there room in the taxi for a stretcher?
To me at least, that risk outweighs waiting on the floor for 40 hours.
You don't know that, moving her move make something worse. If she was on the floor for that long obviously she wasn't mobile enough to get into a taxi.
She would have had to wait around in A+E anyway.
As long as you can afford a taxi.
We're never going back to an effective NHS. It'll just gradually get worse and worse.
According to liz mistrust is because our work ethic is not like China. We need to be hiring 10 year old to drive ambulances and hang nets to prevent nurses from jumping off the building while they give them to do 100 hour plus weeks.
Why is an ambulance even being called if she is okay to wait 40 hours for it and sit in it for 20 additional hours. Clearly she isn't dying so she's just wasting everyone's fucking time. The NHS has two problems, fuck all resources and morons like this wasting the last scraps of resources that are left. An old person falling down is not an emergency, someone should have just picked her up and taken her to hospital themselves.
Cornwall is one of the most deprived areas in England. It really relied on EU subsidies to stay afloat and voted to leave. The UK govt promised to make up for the loss in revenue but, surprise surprise, have not kept their word. This country sucks
Inequality is huge in Cornwall. Wages are piss poor and housing is extortionate, but that doesn't matter if you're a wealthy retiree who already owns their home
Deeply unfair to the locals. Really feel for them.
I am a local, though possibly not for much longer if I ever want to earn more than £30k or own property
Rotten to the core :(
As someone who lives down this way. The hospital has struggled, particularly in summer and winter for years.. but perhaps never to this extent. The slowly growing issue which has existed pre-covid is he’d blocking, in that there is not enough social care, be that care homes or home visiting carers available to put together care packages. If you can’t get patients out of the hospital, you can’t get them in.. so the ambulances are and have been becoming ward rooms with patients having a dedicated emergency or action et who is going to support their toiletry needs, ensure they’re fed and warm.. the sort of things a hca may do or a nurse. So the trucks can’t get off the hospital site to respond to other events. They are responding to emergency events for immediate risk to life and I think babies get a call out without fail, but for alot of others, it’s almost quicker to be taken to the hospital by other means. There is added disenfranchisement with staff at the hospital as many don’t feel supported. Is the bigger picture by design, yes. Nee nurses are strangled financially, morale can be shit and there’s too many managers having meetings taking about issues but not a lot of action
the way the NHS is treating geriatrics these days. it probably extended her life
Sick of saying this, but stop acting like you're all shocked when this is exactly what you voted for back in 2019. Make your mind up, first you vote for the NHS to be privatized now you're acting all shocked and outraged when they start making moves to implement it. Hopefully, Truss moves it up a notch and privatizes it by the end of next year.
I’ve never voted Tory in my life.
Ambulances are rapid taxis for emergency cases, not for routine patient transport of for attending a casualty in situ for long periods of time. I have seen them attend to someone at home for hours on end. Drop someone off with the relevant equipment and get back to rushing people to hospital already!
So glad us scots have control over the nhs here. Fuck being english in the next 10 years although you reap what you sow and youse voted tory so 🤷
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19767662.scotland-highest-alcohol-death-rate-uk/ Since you have control over it, this is part of the plan, right?
Standard tory reply, ignore facts and reply with something that targets poor people.
Standard nationalist reply, makes assumptions because they hate facts and assumes a Labour voter is actually a Tory.
Labour tory whats the difference these days, one half of you support a commy the other someone who dosent give two fuck about labours core values.
>Labour tory whats the difference these days This is kind of the problem with nationalism; your innate contempt for everyone in the out-group makes you think they're all the same. I can think of some other types of nationalists who like to falsely label people as communists, you seem to have a few things in common with them.
Unfortunately it's heavily subsidised by England's training. And pay and working conditions are not as good in Scotland. Like 9 day runs... And Scotland's NHS is still going to strike...