More Nhs Waste - My Experience Today.

[Gizmonster]

So today I took my mother to the hospital. She knew what department it was, but she didn't know exactly what the appointment was for, as she's been suffering with various ailments recently.
When she came out of the treatment room, she looked a bit surprised .... here's roughly how the conversation went:
Doctor - Okay, this appointment is for me to remove your catheter.
Mum - Errrmmm ..... it was removed 2 weeks ago.
Doctor - Hmmm .... well there's nothing on your notes about it. Where and when was it removed?
Mum - a nurse came to my home 2 weeks ago and removed it.
Doctor - *sigh*

The doctor then just scanned her abdomen to make sure everything was okay and she was sent on her merry way.

A classic example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Another wasted appointment .... I wonder how many more there are and how much money is wasted .....

[gness]

I won't bore you with all my experiences of NHS waste, Giz but it really got to me over the eleven years of MrG's ill health.

I have experienced it once here in Ireland. I had some tests. When I saw the consultant for results he couldn't treat me til I'd had the tests. But I've had the tests. Not what my notes say said the consultant. You must have the tests before I can see you.
I went to a hospital in the next county. Isn't it bloody frustrating?!

[roopower]

My son works in a hospital and it's appalling how much waste there is in all departments. Being tied to expensive suppliers when they could get the same thing on Amazon for half the price, changing the colour of tunics, name printed on the old ones so they all went out, petty 'theft' looked at as a perk etc,etc

[Aircooledfool]

Have posted on here before about my extremely negative experiences with NHS, so I won’t bore everyone by repeating them. The nhs north of the border is a disorganised shambles that does not deliver. I won’t be doing any clapping or banging pots!

[New Judge]

The surprising thing about the NHS is that it manages to successfully treat anybody at all. The problem is that it is unjustifiably revered to such a degree that any reform is impossible. Any political party that proposes even modest but sensible reforms is howled down, accused of "privatising" the service and the changes get nowhere.

All people can do is to seek private treatment elsewhere, either via insurance or simply paying for what they need. Many cannot afford to and nobody should have to anyway. But such is the state of the service that in many cases that is the only way you will be treated.

Until the NHS ceases to be viewed in the same manner as a religion, with objections to the way it is run being seen as heresy, it will continue to decline.

[Aircooledfool]

New judge , yes agree with all that, however private insurance can be expensive and thus not accessible to all
The notion of “free at the point of delivery” is simply no longer achievable . I would be prepared to pay ( a modest amount ) in order to get meaningful services , as I suspect would many others. Why our band wagon jumping governments cannot grasp the nettle of re organisation is beyond me , but they always have a rheumy eye on votes, do they not

[New Judge]

//I would be prepared to pay ( a modest amount ) in order to get meaningful services ,...//

But if you are a tax/NI payer you are already paying quite an immodest amount. A lot of this, as touched upon here, is simply wasted. There is no point in simply providing the service with ever greater sums of money (which your modest contributions would add to). It will simply be frittered away.

Money is not the problem with the NHS. It would consume the country's entire GDP if it was provided with it and the outcomes it provides would scarcely change. In fact they would be very likely to deteriorate. At the end on 2022 there were over 34,000 more people working in the NHS in England than at the end of 2021. This included 4,000 more doctors and 9,300 more nurses. Yet by every measure, the outcomes for patients - waiting times, access to GPs etc. - was worse.

[fender62]

i blame a lot of the problems on overpopulation and a plethora of new treatments and drugs, a not to mention nhs tourism ie foreigners flying in for free reatment, the nhs is a behemoth now, it was never setup to become what it has, as judge says it would swallow up the uk's total gdp and still complain, the cure erm..no idea.

[William51]

The NHS is failing and so is it time to have a national debate with what to do about it?. I think one solution could be for regions to have total self autonomy which would bring in competition and innovations to improve the service.