warrenm2

I read this and felt more depressed about this country than ever. There IS no end in sight to the relentless failure of one of the worlds largest employers. It wont be long now until everybody is aware just how bad things are, but by then it will be too late. We are becoming a third world country.

The following is written by a GP today on his day to day adventures in the NHS. I reproduce it in full from http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2006/...s-week-11.html

Monday 13th March

A particularly bad, trying day at work. Arrived in at 7.50 a.m. feeling glum and chatted to two of my partners. We have all read the same articles in the newspaper over the weekend. The blessed Patricia is now saying that the problems in the NHS are due to the doctors.

Alright, she is only a politician. It is nonsense. But it is in the papers. People will believe it. It is deeply dispiriting, and our morale is already rock bottom.

And then on to the morning surgery from hell.

++++++++++

First patient is David. Elderly man. Charming. He was a tank commander during the war. He is in atrial fibrillation, he is not maintaining his blood pressure, he keeps flipping in and out of heart failure and is being admitted for pacing in two days. When Dr Crippen was a houseman, all patients such as this were “clerked in” by the houseman. That does not happen anymore. Nowadays, they are assessed by cardiac nurse specialist. She is much cleverer that Dr Crippen because she can do this assessment by telephone. David has had a letter saying that he should be at home by the phone this afternoon, waiting for her call. He is puzzled. “How can she assess my cardiac status over the phone?” Beats me. I have to use a stethoscope, but then I am only a doctor.

++++++++++

Third patient in is Mary, one of the local speech therapists. She is approaching retirement. I sent her husband into hospital three weeks ago in rip-roaring heart failure. He was on CCU for three days but now is on the far flung corner of Dixon, one of the medical wards. He is partially sighted due to an old stroke, and is hard of hearing. The nursing care is appalling. He has developed pressures sores on his sacrum and heels and, oddly, a suppurating area above both ears which Mary thinks is due to the oxygen mask he uses being too tight. He is losing weight because he cannot really manage to feed himself. Mary was in each day over the weekend. Uneaten food from Saturday was still on his bedside table on Sunday. Mary went to the nursing station at the end of the ward. The nurses were all eating take-away Pizza. Deep Pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Mary remembers that particularly. Mary thinks her husband is dying. She is not sure which consultant he is under, and has not been able to find a doctor to talk to. The nurses over the weekend do not speak English. She tried to tell them that her husband is partially sighted but they do not understand. They show here the nursing assessment. Under “visual problems” it says "none". Mary is in tears and asks what she should do. I suggest she phones the Chief Executive and makes a formal complaint.

I do not suppose that Pizza Hut pizzas carry harmful bacteria, but should they be on an acute medical ward?

++++++++++

Mavis is a hugely efficient retired social worker. Her husband has Alzheimer’s disease, quite advanced now. There is a three year waiting list for in-patient care of Alzheimer patients and he has only just gone on it. Social services offer her two weeks respite care a year. She is not managing. She is on her knees. She has a bit of angina (stable) and needs full investigation but will not go for it at present.

Trouble is, she is looking after her husband really well. So when social services “assess” her, she is classified as low need. She knows the system. She worked in it herself. “The best thing I could do is have a heart attack, then we would be high need” she says.

She is right.

++++++++++

At the end of the surgery, a deputation of district nurses arrive to discuss an elderly paraplegic patient. He was admitted to hospital three weeks ago with chest pain. The pain turned out not to be cardiac. The nursing care whilst he was in hospital was appalling. He was on Dixon ward. The hoist was not working so they could not get him out of bed as they should. He was transferred to a side room. This is more private that the general ward, but so private that even the nurses do not go in there. He was once left on the commode for four hours as they forgot about him.

He went in with some sacral redness, but came out with a Grade IV pressure sore around his sacrum. The nurses are so disgusted, they have photographed it.


The hospital sent him home. They sent him home on a Friday evening. Home in a worse state that he went in. They sent him home to his eighty year old wife with one of the worst pressure sores I have seen in years. He has now developed intractable diarrhoea, and it coats the pressure sore. He needs round the clock intensive nursing therapy, including being turned regularly. We cannot do this at home. They cannot do it in hospital it seems either. The nurses are too busy eating pizza or pretending to be doctors.

I have no alternative but to send him back in. He bursts into tears. I am getting very stressed about all this. I cannot do my job. I advise the family to see a lawyer and I take a copy of the photo.

I would like to get this man straight into a hospital bed without the usual eighteen hours in casualty. I would like him to have some decent nursing. I want to let the hospital know how badly he has been treated. I want to warn them that they are going to be sued. This might just spur them on to provide some better treatment.

And so I start an hour of phone-calls which go like this.

Start at the top, so I phone the chief executive of the hospital. He is away today. His secretary cannot help and says she will put me through to the PALS department. What is that, I ask? It is the Patient Advisory and Liaison Service. It used to be called the “complaints” department but has been re-badged to something more “friendly.” I spend twenty minutes telling the girl there what has happened. She takes it all down laboriously. Then she says, “Does the patient want to make a complaint?” I say, no, they will not be troubling you with that. They are just going to sue you. She sounds relieved because a formal complaint means lots more paperwork for her. Letters from lawyers go elsewhere. She says she will “pass on” the information. I ask who she will pass it to. She talks about the “normal channels.” I then ask if they will take the patient back in, but can he to straight to a ward rather than spending hours on a trolley in casualty. She says she is not authorised to offer that. I ask to speak to a doctor who is so authorised. She is not sure who that might be. I ask if there are any doctors in the building. She does not laugh but says that of course there are, it is a hospital. She gives me the name of a consultant who runs the medical assessment unit. I phone him, but he does not reply. I try bleeping him but he does not answer. So I give up on that and phone his secretary. He is away at a conference. Why don’t I speak to the registrar? Can you put me through? No you will have to bleep him. Can you put me through to bleep control? Well, I probably can, but I am new and it might be easier if you just phoned in again. I know from previous experience that this is right so I phone in again and negotiate the multi-choice questionnaire, finally get bleep control and a few minutes later, hallelujah, I get hold of the medical registrar. She is really pleasant. Phew! The first coherent person I have spoken too all morning. There are no beds. He will have to come to casualty and do his time on a trolley. But he is a paraplegic with diarrhoea and an infected sacrum, you do not want him in casualty and he does not want to be there. There is nowhere else. He does not want to go back to Dixon ward; can you send him somewhere else? That depends entirely when and where the next bed comes free. Can you guarantee that he will get some decent nursing care? She laughs and says she cannot. The hospital is currently short of 173 nurses and so each ward only has one trained nurse, and the rest are auxiliaries. And the trained nurses are often agency nurses and do not really know the system. I say “system?” and she laughs. I then suggest she gets some of the hoards of nurse specialists to do some nursing and she laughs even more. At least she has insight.

What a ****ty awful day.

pslewis

I do NOT pay these HIGHLY PAID DOCTORS to write this stuff .... I require them to WORK!!

And anyone not happy in the UK, like you clearly are not warren, should foooook off to some better place (Try Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China .... take your pick and clear off!!!!)

Don't want whingers and whiners and blubberers like you - we want people who actually get off their *****, stop moaning and change their lifes ... not wait for the government to sort them out!!

Pete

warrenm2

Pete if you seriously think thats acceptable, I just hope for your sake you never get ill.... Could you for once make a sensible comment?

And yes, I am looking into emigration.

AudiLover

In america you have to pay to for even the most minor of treatment. In the UK is free. If you dont like free treatment go pay for it. Then you wont face any of these problems and the burden on the NHS will fall.

Yeah I like free treatment too.

warrenm2

shame about the people who cant afford to pay their way out eh? Nevermind! And in America if you are suggesting that if you dont pay you dont get treatment, you couldnt be more wrong

pslewis

Yeah, yeah, yeah ............. looking

The usual answer of those who can't be arsed to get up and do something FOR THEMSELVES!!

Like I said, we don't need cry babies like you in the UK .... we want people who can stand on their own two feet!!

blubber, blubber the government won't help me do this, that and the other Grow up and stop crying on here!

Pete

scoobynutta555

Err, it's free is it?

PIXIEDUST

I assume you are a G P if you feel that strongly go back to your roots and make a difference at the hospital if not read the Wanlas report .A pressure sore even this bad does not take intensive nursing it just needs any nurse qualified or not , not to be lazy.I also just noticed you still had time to post on here about gangland Britain at 10ish this morning thats more than what i can do.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

The expression you are looking for is "shroud-waving", and it has been a tradition in the NHS around this time of year since there has been an NHS. Nothing in that story is original.


M

scud8

iTrader: (1)

It is not free - it costs every one of us close to £2000 per year (do the maths!). In most European countries this would buy a bloody good health insurance policy.

mart360

Really pete you are a troll,

I hope that one day you end up like the poor gent in the pictures, and you understand what targets and choices really are...

It surprises me, you bang on like like a broken record train how wonderfull billy and the nhs, are, yet wards are being closed due to lack of fund,s, millions spent on topping up gordons pension robbing, and purchasing of pebbles, hospitals employs arts, yes Fkin arts directors , and patients cannot have drugs to give them a decent quality of life,

at times you really are lower than low.

mart

Greatnorth

If you read the post in its entirety he has taken it from a blog, so its not the doctor who's posted it, hence he's posted something else today because he is not the doctor!!

there's some real dumb cu nts on here

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

My personal experience of the NHS:

My Aunt had a funny turn (blood pressure related - history of a mild stroke). She was left in a casualty corridor for best part of a day unattended. Her bed had no side guards.

She fell out of bed and broke her hip.

She had an operation to reset and pin her hip. But doctors/nurses "assumed" she could not walk, when she could - with a aid (zimmer frame/walking stick). Thus she never recieved physiotherapy (which was needed immediately for a quick recovery).

Instead she was discharged...without recieving any treatment for the intial reason why she was admitted.

She died as a result of her immobilty (can't remember the the technical term that the coroner said) 5 months later.

We did claim for compensation - not for the money. Just to point out the fact of death resulting from the negligence and for the hospital to admit their fault.


It doesn't end there:

My Grandad, who was generally very fit and healthy (could walk unaided, had his marbles, could drive and care for himself etc) for his age. He went off his food, was frequently sick, lethargic and complained of problems when going to the toilet. Doctor wrote this off as an infection, and stuck him on medication.

Condition worsened, to the point he was passing out and collapsing. He was admitted to a (private) care home as he could no longer walk unaided. Doctor wrote it off as his old age (88). Conditioned worsened where he frequently passed in and out of consciousness. It was only until one of the carers were unable to wake him up was when the doctor finally decided he needed hospital treatment.

He died a week later of Kidney failure - which was the intial problem. This problem was over a matter of just over 2 months from the first bout of sickness.


Finished? Nah! My dad spent over 6 hours in a X-ray waiting room waiting for the result of a badly shattered ankle which needed an immediate operation. By the time the x-ray was complete, the ankle was too badly swollen to be operated on. Orthopedic ward was full and he had to endure over a month of sitting in a "low dependancy ward" (nutter's ward), for the sake of an x-ray.

And when he suffered a mild heart attack and had resulting arrhythmia. He went to the loacl doctors. She was shocked that he managed to walk into the surgery like that and transferred him straight to medical admissions at A&E. But the local hospital was shut to emergency admission due to being overloaded. So I had to drive him to the next hospital - where it took best part of half a day before anyone realised the seriousness of his condition. He could have had full blown heart attack at any point.

And people ask why I have a private health plan. OK for A&E it doesn't help as all emergencies are handled by the NHS. But the less time I spend in one of these death bins, the better.

Chip

And there we were all thinking that New Labour were going to sort out the National Health Service. What a disgrace it has become under Labour.

Chip

Chip

Oh and I was down my local hospital last Weed night at 11pm where the security staff were trying to stop the press from taking pictures of ppl who'd been in corridors for over 24 hours due to no nurses, no beds etc. Ambulances were parked outside with patients in them that had been there for hours.
The NHS has become a joke under Blair that's why I choose to go private whenever I can, unfortunately for most they cannot afford to do this.

Chip

ScoobyDoo555

very graphic story & picture

One of the reasons why my wife and most of her colleagues got out of the NHS.

Sorry, but this IS the future unless something drastic is done.

The services are "free" but becoming woefully inadequate, as the system now can't cope with the pressure.

I will still use my NHS (as is my right), I'n also looking at a private policy (wifey now works in the private sector)

Shame.

Dan

MattW

And there is more...

My dad aged 56 had a heart attack, rushed into hospital, casualty over night, then onto a holding ward whilst they waited for a cardiac bed.

Later that afternoon they got a cardiac bed, he was there for 4 days then onto a normal ward.

Three days later he had another attack and and there was no suitable resus equipment he passed away.

When I attended the hospital to collect his things, I was told it was not uncommen to have an attack 7 days after the first. I asked why he had not been kept in Cardiac until the 8th day, hospital policy was the reply.

MattW

AFAIK, from what my friends in the States tell me, if you are poor you get free treatment paid by the state. If you are well off you buy an insurance policy and they pay. If you are "working poor" you get sued and lose your house.

pslewis

More money is being pumped into the NHS than at anytime in its history ... certainly the Tories would allow it to go down the toilet.

You want to pay MORE tax for a better NHS?? Hmmmmm, thought not!

I agree that money has been pumped in and swallowed up by the greedy, consultants, administrators and yes, nurses get a good wedge too!!

It is happening/has happened in schools ... money has poured into teachers wages without a corresponding hike in standards - teachers are VERY well paid!

Whenever I have had cause to use the NHS it has treated me well, the staff have been great and the equipment is second to none ... they are a great bunch of people at the sharp end - you should be ashamed of yourselves slagging them off!!

Pete

warrenm2

dont let the facts stand in your way Pissy! The reason the NHS wage bill has gone up for doctors and consultants is because the Gvmt has made such a **** up of the new contracts.

And the point is - Im not slagging them off, a doctor who cares about his patients, rather than stupid targets is. He deals with them every day. How bad does it have to get before you admit theres a problem? How many people have to die, or have their lifes shortened through entirely preventable incidents? Answer me that.

oik

Saddle up with bucky, join the chuff chuff train and be gone, tiresome oaf!

pslewis

FACT - the NHS is in better shape NOW than it has EVER been - simple!!

Now, you may want to cry and blubber about it - as is your way - but you cannot deny that it is in superb shape compared to how it WOULD have been under any other party!!

Now, apply to emmigrate .... theres a good chap .... but you won't will you?? Because it's too dmaned good here in the UK!!

Pete

dpb

What the **** .... - youve contradicted your fist post with your last sentence here- suprise surprise .
As with every labour government money is poured in and then mismanaged by newly invented bureacrats who run the show.

richieh

has to be said pete-thats utter ****e.
the nhs is in terrible shape largely as a result of management staff misusing the majority of the money being thrown at it for non medical purposes.
if you need proof of this phone any hospital chief exec and ask them how much has been spent on artwork for thier hospital over the last 5 years.

come back with the figures then try to defend it
richie

ScoobyDoo555

better get down to specsavers Pete. Your rose-tinted specs are playing up.
By your post, just because you had a good experience (and I glad you did), the whole NHS is a fabulous device that is doing it's job perfectly. The fact is that it isn't.

The investment IS being swallowed up by management. You have NO grasp on reality if you think that nurses (and teachers) are well paid. Instead of spouting off a load of twaddle, get some facts on pay scales, and i think you'll be suprised.

Dan

ScoobyDoo555

And Wifey's just pointed out now (speaking as one of those very highly paid Nurses!! ) that one of the main reasons why the NHS is in a **** state is down to a proportional amount of General Public taking advantage of the service (as with most of the lower-moral people such as benefit cheats etc)

Dan

suprabeast

It needs to be shut down... then all the wasted tax money can be used to setup decent private health plans for everybody.

That'll keep the labour blood stains away from it

jasey

**** me Pete has seen the light.

Unfortunatley he still seems to think it's all the fault of the long suffering tax payer .

Labour (Old and New) try to fix poroblems by throwing money at it - this never works !

OllyK

It's a blog, no reason they can't write it in their own time.

ChrisB

Let's not have a fact stand in the way of Pete's ranting Olly.