The NHS Appreciation Thread

[Fred_Quimby]

I watched Ambulance last evening. The frustration of the paramedics and the control room was obvious. Patients stuck on trolleys waiting to be registered in A & E for well over an hour whilst people were waiting for ambulances due to lack of staff.

My daughter was a nurse in St Mary's until recently. They were so short of staff she wasn't getting the right breaks nor the correct downtime. In the end she called it a day when she collapsed on the ward.

The government will tell you that they are spending more money than ever on the NHS and yet we have a system not fit for purpose.

 

[Rascal]

Can you please tell me when it will be addressed ?
I'm on the point of total despair with what happens in my department with the same people literally taking the utter piss with sickness absence,year after year
Has HR and management given up with trigger levels these last few years ? They must have,its the only explanation why the same people who play the sickness game are not sacked.
Im 54 going on 55 and I cannot except what happens in my department much longer,do i quit or reluctantly carry on in a negative workplace or do i join the slackers and piss takers ? serious question.

I cant speak on levels of sickness as I only know them anecdotally. What I mean by addressed, is that the areas I have been involved, the need to address staffing levels is being taken very seriously. Their is a huge shortfall of nursing staff and the government stopping bursaries has not helped, its been catastrophic. Brexit will take its toll on nurses coming from other countries. Its no surprise that certain people have stakes in companies that supply bank nursing, that is costly and inefficient. Obviously anecdotally I hear about the stress levels contributing to people taking time off, they simply have reached the end of their tether and I don't blame them either because its hard when you are underpaid, undervalued and overworked to keep going. I would guess the reason they are not sacked is there is simply nobody to replace them, that's my guess anyway.

It really breaks my heart to hear from good people like you, you are the backbone of the service and without you it would be nothing. I can only assure you that in every meeting, project etc I am involved in I always speak up for the nursing staff

 

[Rascal]

The government will tell you that they are spending more money than ever on the NHS and yet we have a system not fit for purpose.

They are spending more money that ever in real terms, but take into account inflation and they have cut spending. Its a con trick they get away with all the time. Manchester now controls a lot of its health budget and hopefully in time better ways of working will make the NHS better.

 

[blue44]

I cant speak on levels of sickness as I only know them anecdotally. What I mean by addressed, is that the areas I have been involved, the need to address staffing levels is being taken very seriously. Their is a huge shortfall of nursing staff and the government stopping bursaries has not helped, its been catastrophic. Brexit will take its toll on nurses coming from other countries. Its no surprise that certain people have stakes in companies that supply bank nursing, that is costly and inefficient. Obviously anecdotally I hear about the stress levels contributing to people taking time off, they simply have reached the end of their tether and I don't blame them either because its hard when you are underpaid, undervalued and overworked to keep going. I would guess the reason they are not sacked is there is simply nobody to replace them, that's my guess anyway.

It really breaks my heart to hear from good people like you, you are the backbone of the service and without you it would be nothing. I can only assure you that in every meeting, project etc I am involved in I always speak up for the nursing staff

Earlier in this thread you " liked " one of my posts where I'd mentioned that I had made 250 to 300 sandwiches that morning,i think it was wednesday this week,I'm in catering not nursing mate,but still part of the nhs,and just like nursing morale,we are on our arse too.

 

[malg]

All of those things are worse now. Perhaps your trust should be held up as the model to follow then if they have no waits in A&E, no wait for appointments, no bed blockers, no families expecting free sitting services for uncle Albert. Couple of trusts in my area are outstanding one of them is the only trust in the country to be given it consequetively I think the trusts in my area perhaps know what they are doing. But they can't do very much about the people who abuse the service and subsequently cause many of the issues for the deserving patients.

There's not a single Trust in GM that doesn't have waits in their ED. However, they probably do still see, treat and discharge 75% of their patients inside 4 hours, (unfortunately some shite government decided to make the standard 95% which was/is preposterous). This will include diagnostics and a letter to the GP within 24 hours. Not bad given the current pressures.

 

[Rascal]

Earlier in this thread you " liked " one of my posts where I'd mentioned that I had made 250 to 300 sandwiches that morning,i think it was wednesday this week,I'm in catering not nursing mate,but still part of the nhs,and just like nursing morale,we are on our arse too.

My apologies, I did reply to a lot of posts.

I totally get that too, I became friendly with the catering staff at SRFT during one of my numerous stays in hospital, they used to sneak me out treats when they could.

They felt the same, the kitchen was good, the food was excellent too, but they were under constant pressure to cut costs down to a ridiculous level when you consider how many meals they actually served up each day. I cant recall the actual figure per patient portion but I was astonished at how little it was, it was literally pennies, not pounds.

To be honest in all the areas I have covered catering has never been mentioned and it should be, if the opportunity arises I will definitely raise the subject. Good nutrition helps patients get well quicker, its not rocket science to me.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

I'd just like to express my appreciation to the NHS for sticking my wife on nights for three days, meaning I can sit on my arse all weekend.

 

[SVP]

I didn't form an opinion on the available evidence, there were pros and cons to it. The biggest con in my view was whether it would be culturally acceptable, the biggest pro was it could possibly lead to better health outcomes.

What evidence do you have on the billions wasted on over medication? I would love to read that so I am better informed for the follow up meeting.

I would recommend reading Doctoring Data by Dr Malcolm Kendrick -it was eye opening for me -particularly the JUPITER trial for statins. Re poly-pharmacy anecdotally I couldn't believe what my mum was given following her stoke in her late 70's. When I took her to see the doctor and questioned what she was given her tablets were reduced from 10 to 2 and 1/2. Giving incentives to Drs to medicate causes a conflict of interest in my opinion.

 

[BlueMedic]

There's not a single Trust in GM that doesn't have waits in their ED. However, they probably do still see, treat and discharge 75% of their patients inside 4 hours, (unfortunately some shite government decided to make the standard 95% which was/is preposterous). This will include diagnostics and a letter to the GP within 24 hours. Not bad given the current pressures.

All hospitals trusts I have worked at or my friends have worked at bend the figures when it comes to meeting these sorts of targets. There will be bed managers finding ways to prevent patients from breaching on paper, when in reality they breached and will be there for hours to come.

I've little doubt the true figures would be immensely worse than what is actually fed back to those who look at these sorts of things were they actually reported properly. At least from my experience.

The issue with this is that the extent of the problems gets hidden, and the people from the trust whose job it is to monitor and meet these targets pat themselves on the back, the people setting the targets pat themselves on the back, and the people on the floor deal with the true nature of the problem and get no help because the falsified numbers don't look too bad.

 

[Rascal]

I would recommend reading Doctoring Data by Dr Malcolm Kendrick -it was eye opening for me -particularly the JUPITER trial for statins. Re poly-pharmacy anecdotally I couldn't believe what my mum was given following her stoke in her late 70's. When I took her to see the doctor and questioned what she was given her tablets were reduced from 10 to 2 and 1/2. Giving incentives to Drs to medicate causes a conflict of interest in my opinion.

Thanks for that, its appreciated. I will look it up.