General Chat

This is getting beyond a joke. Daughter's new partner wa due to have a hip replacement this week, operation cancelled in January and rescheduled. It has just been cancelled again. The poor man has terrible trouble walking. what an awful state our NHS is in. (Whitehaven).

Have a friend working in a hospital in UK who said they had closed wards where she works as so many with colds/flu developed into breathing problems etc. They had to cancel ops due to lack of beds.

The viruses doing the rounds at the moment are hitting hard. Had a couple of friends out here ending up in hospital with pneumonia developed from a cough and cold.

Doesn't help your daughter's partner but it would seem the problem is nation wide. Could be said to be international wide as lots including me have had this nasty cough with a cold. Many of those hospitalised come into the elderly/have other medical problems groups.

That's bloody awful but I think of you sit back and dont make waves then they will always get overlooked

If there are big complaints then they may give some priority just to shut up the complainers . Means those who sit back and accept get put back time and time again

Shouldn't happen but it does , those who have a voice get seen to just to shut em up

Same here. Mum (93) can now barely walk, awaiting hip replacement since September. They have done no elective surgery since before Xmas (just started again in the last week) so we are now looking at April earliest.

There isn't really any point in complaining - it's the same situation all over the UK. They haven't got the beds and the problems won't be fixed overnight.

My mother had both her hips replaced around 1995 a couple of years apart. first was on NHS which failed, 2nd and replacement private. It cost about £ 6 K at the time £ 10K now. Ez payment is avail. Pushing 100 she remains fully mobile :-)

I got my prostate problems sorted out in short order privately could have taken forever on NHS.

Given the upcoming cuts people are going to have to make tough decisions.
NHS safe with Tories is one of those alternative facts that too many give credence to.

If the economy is doing so well why the NHS cuts, local govt cuts and the whole
RN Trident attack fleet laid up in port?

Mum would be happy to go private, but they won't take her as she's not 'fit' enough - in the event of problems they don't have sufficient emergency facilities at the private clinic.

Has anyone been watching the Fly On The Wall Documentary about the NHS.

This subject was covered a couple of weeks ago.
In many cases, the cancelled OPs issue relates to the availability of post surgical ICU beds.

If surgeons feel that the patient may require ICU after surgery, the bed in ICU must be allocated to them before they can proceed with the OP.

On the documentary, there were 3 patients awaiting surgery but only 1 ICU bed.

One patient probably wouldn't require ICU care and the OP went ahead.

2 others would require the ICU bed.

The two surgeons, from different fields of medicine had to discuss which patient was deemed more in need and which would be cancelled

Even although there was one bed in ICU, the dept wasn't fully staffed and they had concerns were about patient safety/ care but, they agreed to take the patient

Surgeons face this frustration every day

It must be awful to get all worked up up to the night before only to have the op cancelled and not only once. I suspect it is a mixture of all the reasons quoted. viruses closing wards and shortage of beds and surgeons/consultants.

The same happens here in Canada ........

......... one lady went to question our Provincial Parliament to question the Premier and Minister of Health yesterday because her husband's hip operation had been cancelled for the third time. The Opposition love such stories

Waiting times can be long for such operations ................. cancer or emergency operations are usually dealt with in timely fashion.

One reason here is a lack of operating time because of a lack of nursing staff OR because the health authority has limited times when operating theatres are open so they can save money.

Although you'd never guess it from the excellent "Hospital" flyonthewall snr consultants have bed allocation in Icu so that they can work through their private lists. These guys would be lost to the NHS without their private work. While the NHS flatly refuses them the rate for the job this uneasy compromise will go on.

Getting back to private hip replacement + Icu you need to swing it with some better contacts.

IMHO the govt should stop pretending that as medical tech advances and the population ages the NHS can be done on the cheap. it needs a 20% increase. at the same time the many well known life style issues should be attacked with vigour whether or not supermarkets et al like it.

I was due a hip operation in mid November but it was cancelled the evening before (after I had drunk the preload :-( ) and I had to wait another three weeks. The reason given was a problem with equipment in the theatre.

Fortunately the rescheduled operation went ahead successfully and I was off crutches well before Christmas. It is amazing what a difference the new hip has made.

AnninGlos, I hope your daughter's partner gets sorted this time and that it improves his life similarly.

Unfortunate, yes, but another reason for cancellations is because a more urgent case comes along at the last minute.

I was in just that position last year when my eyesight deteriorated badly a couple of weeks after a routine cataract op.

I saw the surgeon who had done the cataract op on the Thursday who diagnosed a detached retina and was referred to the retinal specialist at Addenbrooke's Hospital, 40 miles distant Friday morning, who immediately put me on his list for surgery Monday.

Any delay would probably have resulted in irreversible blindness.

I heard two other patients had their eye ops cancelled as a result, for which I am ever grateful but they probably saw it as yet another mess up by the NHS.

Ann sorry to see this .its happening all over doesn't help people in pain though. Its disgusting the state of the NHS .There are far to many admin staff & not enough Doctors Nurse & carers .it really does need overhauling & quick .Every department you go to have so many office staff .Barbra .

To date, I have taken my daughter to 2 appointments at an out patient clinic within a brand new hospital.

Both appts have been scheduled for out of hours.( after 5pm)

There are no admin staff on duty at this clinic after 5pm

It's self service throughout the hospital out patient dept and you simply scan your letter/ or enter your name and DOB at one of the machines in the main foyer.
The machine then gives instructions on how to locate the clinic

By the time that we made our way to the designated clinic, the medic was already there to greet us.

Out of hours works without admin staff !

IGP ................

I had a similar experience of displacing someone else with a scheduled surgery for my more serious case ......... and it happened twice in 2 weeks.

That was when I was having my first bout with breast cancer back in 1995 .......

....... the first time was to do a biopsy combined with a partial mastectomy, and the second was because a full mastectomy was needed.

I didn't appreciate at the time how serious my case was because the surgeon was so matter-of-fact with me .............. but she did say each time that she would cancel one surgery "on Monday" to do mine, and each time that was said on aThursday.


The reverse happened in 2011 with my second bout .............. my surgery was pushed to 2 months away because she had so many young women (ie, 35 and under) who had urgent needs, and my cancer though aggressive was less than 2 mm in diameter, so I had time on my side before any cells escaped into the lymph system.


So it can work both ways!

Here in North Wales ,which is full of retired people.It is the hips/knees operations that has a big waiting list.
The cancer unit,I have heard a lot of praise for and the service very good.

Beginning of Dec I went for a yearly check up on my right eye as I have a mole on the eyeball near the optic disc which needs checking once a year.The eye specialist looked at the other eye and said you have the start of cataract,do you want me to take it off? I always thought they had to be ripe,but it's a different procedure now.

I went last fri for pre assessment and learned that they shatter them now and I should have it done in the next week or two.only problem was my BP was very high ,which should nice I had pleurisy in Jan has affected me so they may wait till it goes down.off again to docs tomorrow to have it checked again.

I couldn't believe how quickly it was set up

I have been rather busy just lately and under pressure with various activities so that could have caused BP to be high,plus all the antibiotics and steroids,but I'm hoping it will be soon...BP 196/116. Yesterday down to 150/100 so maybe tomorrow down again.!!

Hope your daughters partner gets his problem sorted soon.I think you really have to ask them and any cancellation if he could take at short notice.Afraid you have to be impatient these days and complain .

More than 60,000 were not treated within the 18-week limit. The number of patients waiting over that period for surgery has more than doubled in four years.

NHS England figures show in October 2015, 253,954 people were still waiting for treatment 18 weeks after referral. But by October last year the number had climbed to 360,255.

Overall, there are now more than 3.8 million people waiting for non-urgent treatment on the NHS in England with 1,427 waiting more than 52 weeks.

The figures also suggest that there has been a huge rise in the waiting list for cataract surgery.

(Daily Express 02.01.17).

Waiting lists are nothing new. My mother waited for 3 years for a much needed hysterectomy. My sister and I lost our mother for 2 days every month with the pain. Mum's hormones had got out of kilter and were slowly eating the lining of her womb. I started my new school and she was in hospital recovering from the operation - the year 1960.

Tighter criteria for joint surgery is being introduced in an attempt to save money.
Patients will be barred from hip and knee replacement surgery unless they are in intense and persistent pain, under new NHS restrictions described as the “most punitive” yet.

Many of the GP-led groups responsible for deciding what treatments can be provided to patients in local areas have introduced tighter criteria for joint surgery in an attempt to save money.

However, surgeons said that the restrictions drawn up by Rotherham clinical commissioning group in South Yorkshire were unacceptable and urged it to withdraw the plans.

This year health chiefs in the West Midlands said that they would allow the surgery only if a patient had “moderate/severe” pain, using trouble sleeping as an example. {From today's Times.}

Really hard to put a criteria on pain when people who suffer pain have different abilities to cope with it.