Unsung NHS Heroes (potentially polical depending on how you read it)

[bimmerman]

Today I've had surgery to remove a load of metalwork from my leg that's been holding it together since my car accident a few years ago(see what do you drive thread for pictures...). I have to say the NHS nurses, doctors, anesthetists and everyone I've come across have been absolutely fantastic 

This is absolutely a service we can't afford to lose. Please do everything in your power to support them..use your votes when the time comes

[Archied]

8 hours ago, bimmerman said:

Today I've had surgery to remove a load of metalwork from my leg that's been holding it together since my car accident a few years ago(see what do you drive thread for pictures...). I have to say the NHS nurses, doctors, anesthetists and everyone I've come across have been absolutely fantastic 

This is absolutely a service we can't afford to lose. Please do everything in your power to support them..use your votes when the time comes

what do you mean by use your votes when the time comes?

[Wolfie]

I would have thought the NHS is one of the most "sung" professions there is, to be honest.

"potentially political" ?

[ketteringram]

I've been lucky, and have got to my mid 60s, without ever being in hospital, or going to A&E. 

Can't remember the last time I saw a GP, but must be over 20 years ago. 

I'm grateful for that , and wouldn't want to change places with people who seem to have a season ticket at the hospital. 

Everyone goes on about how important it is to protect it, and fund it properly etc , but I never hear many people saying they are prepared to pay for it . I'm happy to do so, even though I've hardly used it, I'm sure my time will come when I need it. I'd happily pay more tax, if I knew that's where it was going. 

[Carl Sagan]

@bimmermanI'm pleased your surgery has gone well. Objectively we have one of the worst health services in the Western world and it needs to be changed.

We invented the railways and everyone followed, and no one nowadays says our railways are the best in the world. We invented the health service concept, and myriad people worship it with a weird religious devotion. Probably only America's is worst, except even that isn't worse in terms of healthcare outcomes, just in the extraordinary expense.

There are two problems. One is this weird religious reverence in which the NHS is held when there are scandals and terrible suffering and unnecessary deaths all the time. 

The other is that the NHS is practically the biggest Human organization in the world. 1.7 million people in the UK work for it. Yes the Chinese and American armies are possibly slightly bigger, but they work through the concept of orders and a chain of command. In terms of managing a structure made of 1.7 million Humans, we simply do not know how to do it well. Which is why it so often fails. Why everyone there is terrified of changing things so nothing ever gets changed.

It's so outdated, it's even the world's biggest user of fax machines. A few years ago the papers claimed the NHS had been hacked (by North Korea I think) but that was a total misrepresentation. The reality was no one dared update the computer system as they didn't know how it would impact on all the hundreds of thousands of users so they stayed on Windows XP, unsupported in security terms for years. The NHS being captured by untargeted ransomwhere was simply the inevitable result of its incompetence.

Here's a 2022 study: https://smartthinking.org.uk/international-health-care-outcomes-index-2022/ 

• Ranked 17th out of 19 for life expectancy.
• Ranked bottom for strokes and heart attacks.
• 16th out of 18 for cancer treatment.
• 15th out of 16 for treatable diseases

There's the Shropshire scandal of hundred of unnecessary deaths of mothers and babies: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/21/baby-deaths-scandal-could-be-one-of-largest-in-history-of-nhs

Between 400-1200 people died unnecessarily due to the mid-Staffs scandal: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-hospital-idINBRE9150SP20130206

The Morecambe Bay Scandal "found a culture of collusion, denial and incompetence, and an insistence by midwives to pursue natural childbirth at any costs". 

The East Kent scandal: https://www.pslhub.org/blogs/entry/4502-no-one-joined-the-dots-grandad-who-exposed-an-nhs-scandal/

Just recently it happened again down the Brian Clough Way in Nottingham. There are dozens more, yet there's a cognitive dissonance which allows people to keep thinking the NHS is wonderful. Of course it has pockets of excellence, like for Bimmerman's surgery. But I know many people who are terrified of going into hospital because they might never come out. Then, most people can't even have a face-to-face GP appointment anymore.

Here's Wiki's ranking of healthcare outcomes by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare

Please can we stop worshipping the NHS and move to a better system of universal healthcare like in France or Scandinavia or Japan or New Zealand, etc?

[Crewton]

39 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Please can we stop worshipping the NHS and move to a better system of universal healthcare like in France or Scandinavia or Japan or New Zealand, etc?

No. 

[Eddie]

3 minutes ago, Crewton said:

No. 

They've kept me alive for the last decade, so perhaps there are pros and cons.

[Crewton]

7 hours ago, Eddie said:

They've kept me alive for the last decade, so perhaps there are pros and cons.

To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that the health systems of the countries suggested are either inferior or less equitable than the NHS, but if people looked at why those systems appear to be more efficient they'd soon realise that its not purely down to organisation or funding, though I think all of them put more money per capita into them than we do. 

And anyone favouring the system in the USA should realise that there is no integrated health system in the US, no sharing of best practice, no cooperation between providers, and no safety net for those who can't pay for insurance beyond very basic treatments. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Crewton

[Comrade 86]

8 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

@bimmermanI'm pleased your surgery has gone well. Objectively we have one of the worst health services in the Western world and it needs to be changed.

We invented the railways and everyone followed, and no one nowadays says our railways are the best in the world. We invented the health service concept, and myriad people worship it with a weird religious devotion. Probably only America's is worst, except even that isn't worse in terms of healthcare outcomes, just in the extraordinary expense.

There are two problems. One is this weird religious reverence in which the NHS is held when there are scandals and terrible suffering and unnecessary deaths all the time. 

The other is that the NHS is practically the biggest Human organization in the world. 1.7 million people in the UK work for it. Yes the Chinese and American armies are possibly slightly bigger, but they work through the concept of orders and a chain of command. In terms of managing a structure made of 1.7 million Humans, we simply do not know how to do it well. Which is why it so often fails. Why everyone there is terrified of changing things so nothing ever gets changed.

It's so outdated, it's even the world's biggest user of fax machines. A few years ago the papers claimed the NHS had been hacked (by North Korea I think) but that was a total misrepresentation. The reality was no one dared update the computer system as they didn't know how it would impact on all the hundreds of thousands of users so they stayed on Windows XP, unsupported in security terms for years. The NHS being captured by untargeted ransomwhere was simply the inevitable result of its incompetence.

Here's a 2022 study: https://smartthinking.org.uk/international-health-care-outcomes-index-2022/ 

• Ranked 17th out of 19 for life expectancy.
• Ranked bottom for strokes and heart attacks.
• 16th out of 18 for cancer treatment.
• 15th out of 16 for treatable diseases

There's the Shropshire scandal of hundred of unnecessary deaths of mothers and babies: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/21/baby-deaths-scandal-could-be-one-of-largest-in-history-of-nhs

Between 400-1200 people died unnecessarily due to the mid-Staffs scandal: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-hospital-idINBRE9150SP20130206

The Morecambe Bay Scandal "found a culture of collusion, denial and incompetence, and an insistence by midwives to pursue natural childbirth at any costs". 

The East Kent scandal: https://www.pslhub.org/blogs/entry/4502-no-one-joined-the-dots-grandad-who-exposed-an-nhs-scandal/

Just recently it happened again down the Brian Clough Way in Nottingham. There are dozens more, yet there's a cognitive dissonance which allows people to keep thinking the NHS is wonderful. Of course it has pockets of excellence, like for Bimmerman's surgery. But I know many people who are terrified of going into hospital because they might never come out. Then, most people can't even have a face-to-face GP appointment anymore.

Here's Wiki's ranking of healthcare outcomes by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare

Please can we stop worshipping the NHS and move to a better system of universal healthcare like in France or Scandinavia or Japan or New Zealand, etc?

Worshipping?

LMFAO.

For someone who claims to be writer, it's very odd that you can't seem to discern the difference between people being grateful for free healthcare and / or appreciative of some of those who work in the sector and folk making deities out of health workers and /or the NHS. 

Are your books as patronising and poorly thought out as your posts? 

[Archied]

5 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Worshipping?

LMFAO.

For someone who claims to be writer, it's very odd that you can't seem to discern the difference between people being grateful for free healthcare and / or appreciative of some of those who work in the sector and folk making deities out of health workers and /or the NHS. 

Are your books as patronising and poorly thought out as your posts? 

Tell him what you really think?

[Comrade 86]

5 minutes ago, Archied said:

Tell him what you really think?

Sick of strawman arguments and unwarranted hyperbole. Not one person is 'worshipping' the NHS. Everybody knows it has its issues. Some folk are scared that the long game is to defund and move to privatised healthcare, which many could not afford. That's not unreasonable and they'd not be resistant to a system that improves upon the current model. To suggest most are resistant to change as a result of some misguided belief that the NHS is pinnacle of healthcare is BS of the highest order. 

[Stive Pesley]

If people "worship the NHS" then they certainly aren't worshipping it as an organisation, they are worshipping it as a concept 

The idea that as a country - we hold the provision of a "free-at-the-point-of use" healthcare system as a dear British value. That we saw a need to have a health service that did not discriminate against the needy based on their wealth - and we did that. 

The problems that Carl raises are all very real, but none of them are the fault of us "worshipping the NHS". 

Like the example of the railways - we were the envy of the world with what we achieved, but our greedy politicians have destroyed all those values in search of a profit motive.

We're not resistant to changing the NHS if it means the principles of universal healthcare for all regardless of wealth remain in place. 

Unfortunately that particular British Value is an anathema to the Conservative Party

[Mucker1884]

Well, all I know is that just this very week, for the first time in my life, I got invited to poo on a stick, and send it back to them ("The NHS", obvs) in the post, so they can check that I'm as fit and fiddle-like as I think I am!

It's all totally and 100% FOC!... even the return postage of the aforementioned pooey stick!  

Just how fantastic is that!  ?

 

 

...Can't wait for Saturday.  After two disappointing games, now is as good a time as any to change my pre-match routine!
Who knows... if we win on Saturday... etc... etc... 

 

[Crewton]

49 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

Well, all I know is that just this very week, for the first time in my life, I got invited to poo on a stick, and send it back to them ("The NHS", obvs) in the post, so they can check that I'm as fit and fiddle-like as I think I am!

It's all totally and 100% FOC!... even the return postage of the aforementioned pooey stick!  

Just how fantastic is that!  ?

 

 

...Can't wait for Saturday.  After two disappointing games, now is as good a time as any to change my pre-match routine!
Who knows... if we win on Saturday... etc... etc... 

 

I remember the days when you used to get 6 months in chokey for sending sh*t through the post - now they positively encourage it! ?

[Carl Sagan]

2 hours ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Worshipping?

LMFAO.

For someone who claims to be writer, it's very odd that you can't seem to discern the difference between people being grateful for free healthcare and / or appreciative of some of those who work in the sector and folk making deities out of health workers and /or the NHS. 

Are your books as patronising and poorly thought out as your posts? 

There was even a Thanksgiving Sevice held in St Paul's Cathedral for the NHS in 2021. So, yes, "worshipping". Here's a piece about it in the Church Times: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/9-july/news/uk/st-paul-s-marks-anniversary-of-nhs-newly-honoured-by-the-queen

As it happens my books are indeed well-reasoned, sadly unlike your posts.

[Eddie]

14 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

There was even a Thanksgiving Sevice held in St Paul's Cathedral for the NHS in 2021. So, yes, "worshipping". Here's a piece about it in the Church Times: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/9-july/news/uk/st-paul-s-marks-anniversary-of-nhs-newly-honoured-by-the-queen

As it happens my books are indeed well-reasoned, sadly unlike your posts.

Do you need crayons to be able to interact fully with your books?

[Leeds Ram]

I tend to agree with Carl Sagan that many people act as if the NHS and those who staff it are saints. Like any other organisation, you get good practice and bad practice. It is not perfect and it is not just a matter of a lack of funding either. Capital spend is low, but day-to-day spend is high. The system lacks integration with social care leading to bed blocking for weeks or even months on end which helps clog up the system. Essentially, the system is broken and not up to the job, covid merely accelerated the problems that were always going to crop up. It needs a systematic reform to fix it which inevitably the BMA will hate. 

On patient care, it's a mixed bag. Some of the patient care with my dad was absolutely disgusting; nurses simply not doing their job in keeping him clean or aiding him in what they were trained and paid to do. When he had a strong fever (after a stroke and extensive surgery to his head), and we alerted them we were treated as an inconvenience and they didn't follow it up. A week later, he passed away at the age of 53 of sepsis, in what was, in my opinion, a totally preventable death. So safe to say I wasn't one of the people 'clapping for the NHS' 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Leeds Ram

[Norman]

2 hours ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Sick of strawman arguments and unwarranted hyperbole. Not one person is 'worshipping' the NHS. 

But you can do it to Carl?

"As for Musky Elon preserving the light of consciousness... Gimme a break. Some folk are so keen to worship at his altar"

[Archied]

2 hours ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Sick of strawman arguments and unwarranted hyperbole. Not one person is 'worshipping' the NHS. Everybody knows it has its issues. Some folk are scared that the long game is to defund and move to privatised healthcare, which many could not afford. That's not unreasonable and they'd not be resistant to a system that improves upon the current model. To suggest most are resistant to change as a result of some misguided belief that the NHS is pinnacle of healthcare is BS of the highest order. 

I know , was just messing , full of the joys of saint nicola going

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

24 minutes ago, Leeds Ram said:

I tend to agree with Carl Sagan that many people act as if the NHS and those who staff it are saints. Like any other organisation, you get good practice and bad practice. It is not perfect and it is not just a matter of a lack of funding either. Capital spend is low, but day-to-day spend is high. The system lacks integration with social care leading to bed blocking for weeks or even months on end which helps clog up the system. Essentially, the system is broken and not up to the job, covid merely accelerated the problems that were always going to crop up. It needs a systematic reform to fix it which inevitably the BMA will hate. 

On patient care, it's a mixed bag. Some of the patient care with my dad was absolutely disgusting; nurses simply not doing their job in keeping him clean or aiding him in what they were trained and paid to do. When he had a strong fever (after a stroke and extensive surgery to his head), and we alerted them we were treated as an inconvenience and they didn't follow it up. A week later, he passed away at the age of 53 of sepsis, in what was, in my opinion, a totally preventable death. So safe to say I wasn't one of the people 'clapping for the NHS' 

Had the same with mine 30 years ago at 58.  Other things have happened since .  My dad discharged himself 3 days after surgery for a double leg fracture.  Every time I went in he hadn't had a drink for hours, a private healthcare company was taking over every 12 hours from NHS staff.  Think it was Virgin healthcare and the right hand had no clue what the left was doing.  Also had my grandma at 85 hooked up to heart monitor sat in Medical assessment for 3 days as they had no cardiac unit bed available. Screams and shouts for days all around.  Hospitals terrify me.  They are broken and have deteriorated further over the last 5 years.  Having recuperation units attached to hospitals to facilitate space is essential and I think that may be coming .  As an aside the average consultant now has around 175 patients on there own rota and an average of 20 new patients per week.  As such, a lot of their initial ward work and aftercare is left to SPR's and nurse help groups.  This must seriously impact on care .  Like fixing a car and leaving it to an apprentice to review the suspension a month later .  Stuff will get missed but the traffic coming through is too high a workload to deal with the problem, then something else goes.