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[STEMO]

One more thing about the national health service......it’s not a national health service. It’s regional, as is the police service and the education service. Central government set the rules, but they are implemented very differently across the country.
If it was truly national, you would have central purchasing and the like.

[Lizzie Zoom]

That's utter bollix. Do some research as to what happened to the NHS under the last Labour Govt.

Population increasing by almost half a million a year,People living longer with the associated health problems that brings, its very badly managed indeed,Far too many non medical people on big salaries on the gravy train, people using the NHS for all sorts of things it isn't intended for, but they have minds trained by socialists - i.e. the state can and should solve any problem we think we have.

I read a story today about a surgeon who took early retirement because "the last straw was that a 25 year old, with a second class  sociology degree, from a second class university, rearranged my patient schedule from the clinically important list I had drawn up, to a list which better met the hospital targets he had come up with".

This is the legacy of Tony and his cronies which has wrecked much of this country, including the NHS, or the IHS as it bcame under them.
The mess is too big to sort out imo. The whole thing needs to start again from scratch, with all vested interests, apart from patients, banned from having any input.
I cannot accept the NHS is short staffed (around 1.5 million I believe) or short of funds (around £130 billionI believe !!).
Its easy to just say, put more money in to fix it, but the problems are much more deeply imbedded than that.
The last Labour Govt. more than doubled the NHS budget and made everything much worse.

Agree with all that 100%

I would also add that we, the general public, expect the NHS to do the latest things in surgery, like stitching nerves back together, rewiring brains, etc, let alone the now common place heart and many various organ transplants.  All good stuff for the individual patients, but extremely costly and way beyond what the NHS was expected to do in 1948.

[STEMO]

I’d go as far as to say...the crisis in social care is the one we should worry about. It affects millions of people as well as impacting on the NHS. If we sorted social care out, I think the NHS would cope easily.

[Mister Rog]

When I had my little coming together with a saw a few years ago, I had to attend A&E in order to get the skin joined back together over the exposed bone as it was cleaer that Duck tape would not achieve the same means (and it was considered).

When you sit and observe what is going on around you for four hours its clear why A&E is in a mess, sights I observed (but were not limited to) included:

A University student who had cut her finger, after three hours she was asked to raise her hand as a nurse applied a sticking plaster and sent her on her way.

Two drunks, brought in by ambulance, one left of his won accord after two hours and the second kept throwing up in the bin (she was in a real state).

Numerous drug addicts

One guy in his twenties with stomach cramps, after a few hours he disappeared, then came back and declared he had crimped a length and felt much better.

Another guy was of foreign decent and waited around for 4 hours so he could get free Paracetamol.

There were plenty of others to which probably accounted for around half of the people there.....all time wasters and all have to be seen, assessed, then treated.

My last visit to A&E was a year or so ago when I cut almost half way through my hand. I was seen and dealt with very quickly and efficiently, well there was quite a lot of blood! However, most of the others waiting were candidates for TBs cull      When someone goes to A&E for some pathetic reason, why does the whole family have to go with them ?

[Mister Rog]

One more thing about the national health service......it’s not a national health service. It’s regional, as is the police service and the education service. Central government set the rules, but they are implemented very differently across the country.
If it was truly national, you would have central purchasing and the like.

An attempt was made to do this, which of course makes sense. However most of it was outsourced. The result was NHS Supply Chain, run by DHL which of course is a subsidiary of the German Post office. The result was a big organization that attempted to pressure suppliers into lower prices, however the lower prices simply provided profit for NHSSC and pretty much no actual saving for the NHS as the end consumer, sometimes even higher prices. Another Blair/Brown masterstroke.

If the NHS employed good local purchasing managers with genuine business skills, they could save millions.

[Kevin Wood]

I very much like our local GP's system, you call up in a morning, they assess you over the phone, either give you an appointment of tell you to buzz off to the pharmacy. Funnily enough, when I had a rash, fever and had just got off a plane from china, I didn't have to wait "we can see you in 30mins, but if you start to feel worse come immediately".

Under the system most GP's operate, I'd have been another one in A&E (as it turned out I had cellulitis and needed treatment reasonably urgently) who could have avoided being there.

Yep, my GP is similarly excellent. I have nothing but praise for them.

It's a lottery depending on whether you have a surgery who are proactive in giving the best care possible given their constraints or "because we've all ways done it this way".

[Marks DTM Calib]

My last visit to A&E was a year or so ago when I cut almost half way through my hand. I was seen and dealt with very quickly and efficiently, well there was quite a lot of blood! However, most of the others waiting were candidates for TBs cull      When someone goes to A&E for some pathetic reason, why does the whole family have to go with them ?

I apologised to the nurse who had to stitch me up, she commented that it was nice to be attending to somebody who actually needed treatment.

She also told me they had four Ambulances sat outside which could go nowhere as they had three drunks and a druggy in them, none needed urgent attention and had been sent as the local cops no longer drop you in a cell until you sober up/come down.

[STEMO]

My last visit to A&E was a year or so ago when I cut almost half way through my hand. I was seen and dealt with very quickly and efficiently, well there was quite a lot of blood! However, most of the others waiting were candidates for TBs cull      When someone goes to A&E for some pathetic reason, why does the whole family have to go with them ?

I apologised to the nurse who had to stitch me up, she commented that it was nice to be attending to somebody who actually needed treatment.

She also told me they had four Ambulances sat outside which could go nowhere as they had three drunks and a druggy in them, none needed urgent attention and had been sent as the local cops no longer drop you in a cell until you sober up/come down.

Nottingham, eh? What a shithole. 

[redelitev6]

Start charging drunks a flat fee of £500 and enforce the collection of the money , that would see a BIG drop in idiots turning up expecting "free" healthcare

[STEMO]

Start charging drunks a flat fee of £500 and enforce the collection of the money , that would see a BIG drop in idiots turning up expecting "free" healthcare

Ah.....Tony B Liar incarnated. “March them to cash machines and make them withdraw the £80 fine”. Trouble is..it was against the law and most drunks had already spent up on booze.

[redelitev6]

Start charging drunks a flat fee of £500 and enforce the collection of the money , that would see a BIG drop in idiots turning up expecting "free" healthcare

Ah.....Tony B Liar incarnated. “March them to cash machines and make them withdraw the £80 fine”. Trouble is..it was against the law and most drunks had already spent up on booze.

Don't bother with the cash machine , straight to prison until the money is paid 

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

U.S. style drunk tanks might be worth a try.
As for the social care issue. Its a huge one. We might need a seperate thread for that. Over to you STEMO.I have to go shopping again. 

[Kevin Wood]

She also told me they had four Ambulances sat outside which could go nowhere as they had three drunks and a druggy in them, none needed urgent attention and had been sent as the local cops no longer drop you in a cell until you sober up/come down.

This sort of thing makes me fume. It strikes me that a fully quipped and manned ambulance costs a bit more per hour then a cold Police cell, and has the potential to be saving lives instead, yet the Police have elected to effectively pass it onto the NHS. About time we had some joined-up thinking going on in public services.

[Mister Rog]

She also told me they had four Ambulances sat outside which could go nowhere as they had three drunks and a druggy in them, none needed urgent attention and had been sent as the local cops no longer drop you in a cell until you sober up/come down.

This sort of thing makes me fume. It strikes me that a fully quipped and manned ambulance costs a bit more per hour then a cold Police cell, and has the potential to be saving lives instead, yet the Police have elected to effectively pass it onto the NHS. About time we had some joined-up thinking going on in public services.

I think TB has a mentioned a possible joined up solution . . . . . . many times 

 

[Marks DTM Calib]

She also told me they had four Ambulances sat outside which could go nowhere as they had three drunks and a druggy in them, none needed urgent attention and had been sent as the local cops no longer drop you in a cell until you sober up/come down.

This sort of thing makes me fume. It strikes me that a fully quipped and manned ambulance costs a bit more per hour then a cold Police cell, and has the potential to be saving lives instead, yet the Police have elected to effectively pass it onto the NHS. About time we had some joined-up thinking going on in public services.

It would also help of the ambulance trolleys had to meet some sort of standard, you know so they can have the odd spare to bung in the back of the blood wagon and send it out again if the patient cant be moved for a period of time......but oh no....