Pondering the state of the NHS - much as I love it

My view hasn't changed since this post 3 years ago



Don't write off the NHS under a Tory government.

 

It's beyond the point of this now. Those additional middle managers don't exist any more. They've been cut from schools, hospitals, councils, you name it, provided it's publically funded.

They did at one point, but it's even gone beyond people at middle management level having sustainable workloads to now still being paid 60% of what they'd get in the private sector for doing multiple people's jobs. There's literally nothing left to cut.

That's in solid Labour voting areas, of course. Swing votes or hardcore Tory, the cuts have been less visceral, but in Barnsley or Rotherham, they know there's no point committing any funding.

 

A very interesting (op) post. Made even more so by a very direct experience in January when I suffered a catastrophic injury requiring ambulance, three hour emergency surgery, stay in hospital and after care. The NHS itself is kind of a sacred cow, beyond criticism and that is unhealthy, not least for its future. We conflate our general regard (and in the most part rightly so) for people in it at the sharp end with the organisation itself. I speak from my experience:
Ambulance staff: awesome, grossly underpaid
Nurses: awesome, especially the Asian lasses, truly born to do it and absolute heroes. I'm welling up thinking about em.
X-ray, anesthesiologists, surgeons, awesome.
Physios, awesome.
Occupational health people, lazy, disinterested (must have dropped on a bad couple)
Social workers, lazy, disinterested, reinforced my view from dealing with my grandparents, sack em and pay the nurses more with the money saved.
Managers. Here's where my blood boils.
My operation was severe but not rare. Reasonable to predict I'd be discharged in 7 days or so. Somebody should be planning for that from day one. BUT on day seven when the surgeon says discharge....then they put a plan together. First day they miss the pharmacy deadline. Second day they miss the ambulance deadline. I'm now two days into being a bed blocker. For similar reasons the guy opposite is three days into bed blocking. Yorkshire ambulance service then say they need to do a risk assessment of my house to take me into it but they only do it on Mondays (3 days away). Takes a senior nurse sharing her personal Facebook account with me for my daughter to upload photos (her NHS email won't let the photos through) of my house for her to pull a few favours to avoid me blocking a bed for a further three nights. Correcting all this takes a strategic handle. The trust's CEO on £300k pa is stealing a living. We really do need to start getting some accountability. My experience left me thinking: the NHS needs to be saved, but there is a disconnect between the people at the top and the coal face. We need to drill down on those at the top and the layers of managers and a couple of taggers on who don't deliver. It's imperative to save it but we won't achieve that by having a misty eyed view of the thing as a whole. It is multifaceted. Leave the clinicians alone but ask the hard questions of the rest.

 

Interesting points and some of your viewpoint shaped by personal experience of individuals. But I agree entirely in it being the system failings at the root of it and cause of what will be thousands of unnecessarily delayed discharges. It's also the application of the broad brush that exacerbates this - why not just take your word, or your daughters word, that your house doesn't need a risk assessment and then just deal with exceptions when it transpires that there is an issue.

I've experience too of the staff using personal accounts. The registrar wanted to send photos to a specialist team to inform treatment and plan, but the NHS system wouldn't allow it, so she got a verbal consent from me to send photos of my body via her personal phone which I happily gave. Appreciate that exposes me to those pictures being shared in the pub after shift (look at the size of this one type humour) but the fact they have to do it is daft.

 

For staff to even have to do this, and I think it was a risk to the young woman involved, indicates systemic failings way above her pay grade, probably mirroring your experience. In my mind you shouldn't just get paid £300k for turning up, I'm paying that and want to hold the CEO to account they're actually delivering.

 

I’ll give you one thing you are consistent, again your arrogance continues to burn brightly, you clearly missed the part where I put it was not what you put but how that I had an issue with.

I also addressed that with the other poster about the point I was trying to make, but you again conveniently managed to miss it.

But hey you keep going with your holier than thou, I know best.
I concede to your superior knowledge on all things and accept I’m not worthy.

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