General Chat

At eleven this morning, my neighbour, who, incidently, is having her new stair lift fitted on Monday, rang me to tell me she was waiting for an ambulance.

Going upstairs at three this morning, her knee cracked and it was still hurting at nine so her son called an ambulance.

I think the ambulance turned up at about one and she is still not home. It is nine now.

Oh dear!

I hope that it is not the case of ma knee is the root of all evil!

:-D :-D :-D

I had to go to A&E for a brain scan. Not to see if I had one, to see if I had a bleed on the brain after my fall in Tesco's (yes, on a banana) :-|
An appointment was a 6 week wait. A&E was the only way for an emergency scan.
I turned up at 10am, and came out at 9 pm. :-(

Sadly this is becoming the norm nowadays, as shown on the various tv documentaries lately. Ambulances are so busy they can't cope and when they get to A and E there are backlogs of patients. I dread to think of the future in the nhs.

I hope your neighbour is home and ok, or safely tucked up in bed in hospital, not still waiting for attention, Sharron.

Lizxx

Ambulances prioritise life-at-risk calls. Sadly waits of 4/5 hours are not uncommon for everything else.

The fastest non-urgent response mother-in-law had was 15 minutes. That was only because the ambulances blues&twos weren’t working and they were close by. Rather than take the vehicle off the road, they were being assigned to minor incidents. Serious for her, but not in the great scheme of things. The longest wait she’s had was 4 hours.

Hope your neighbour is soon patched up & back home.

I think under funding of the NHS plays a part too.

I wonder how many of the 'foreign' staff (nurses, doctors etc) have left to get out of the UK because of fears of Brexit? Although I think the long waits do go back before 2016. Nobody seems to know how to fix that.
You may be right Maggie.

I've been involved in a debate on another site re which is better, the NHS or Canadian health care.

The specific complaint was regarding Alberta, and the woman was using it as the only reason to return to the UK after 10+ years here, because the NHS was sooooooooo much better.

No waiting for ambulances in the UK.

No waiting in Emergency in the UK.

No bad surgeons (such as she had had) in the UK.

Then I come on here and a couple of other sites based in the UK, and hear your horror stories.

Plus of course I have my own horror as I blame the NHS for my brother's premature death, he died far too young because clinics didn't talk to each, doctors didn't confer. It took over 5 years to finally conclude that he needed "something" done re his heart. He literally dropped dead 2 weeks before scheduled surgery to determine which of 3 operations would be necessary.


I'm hoping that lady from Alberta doesn't find any such horror stories for herself.

Things have definitely changed for the worse in the last 10+ years. For one thing, a large number of GPs are taking earlier retirement & there’s problems filling their jobs.

Although admittedly it varies from place to place, the next available ‘something’s wrong but don’t think it’s serious’ appointment at our local surgery is usually 4 to 5 weeks.

Apart from the £9 per item cost of prescriptions for those of working age, the advantage of the NHS is that it’s free at the point of delivery.....even if you are at deaths door by the time you receive treatment!

Not just the UK and Canada.

Here in Oz, particularly in the West, we suffer from what is called 'ramping.

When a person arrives at a Hospital and the A&E stall are fully occupied, the patient is admitted but has to be cared for by the ambulance paramedics until the A&E are available.

They may be taken to another hospital, but on those occasions when all hospitals are in that situation, there can be up to twenty or so ambulances waiting outside whose staff are inside.

This greatly reduces the number of vehicles available to deal with any other emergencies.

https://healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_E/Ambulance-ramping-explained

Exactly the same here Alan.

I hope the lady with the damaged knee is being well looked after and didn't have to wait too long for attention at the hospital. I wish her well.

Sylvia, I admit my knowledge is limited but I would think most healthcare systems have good points and bad points and it may be pot luck which you happen to experience. My own recent experience of the NHS has been excellent.

Without going into details, a close relative currently has complex medical problems necessitating a number of operations. His treatment for different things is being organised by three different hospitals but they have regular conference calls between them, each knows what the others are doing and they co-ordinate his treatment.

I also just 2 weeks ago had to call an ambulance for my OH. I was warned by the call handler that it might be over an hour but told to ring back if OH's condition worsened in the meantime. In fact, the ambulance arrived within 45 minutes, the paramedics were superb, we had no wait in Emergency Assessment and over the course of the next few hours all sorts of tests, scans, X-rays etc were done.

We couldn't fault the treatment and I don't believe we would have got better care anywhere, but equally I have heard awful stories of what other people have been through. All I would say is if the lady from Alberta is coming back solely because of the NHS she may be in for a big disappointment.

I was blue lighted once due to a freak accident and thankfully only had to wait a few minutes. I fell onto a brick wall which then cut my leg open down to the muscle but thankfully not through the muscle. I have a lovely v shaped scar which is around 4”-5” from one side to the other. Anything non life threatening though and you are usually faster going in yourself if you can. Mr Owl went in around 11am for a non life threatening problem and we got home 10 hours later.

Allan .......

we often have the same thing here, only we don't call it ramping. The paramedics are not allowed to leave a patient without having handed them over, so ambulances may be held up if it is a busy night in Emergency.

Of course we all have had or heard of problems with our respective health services, but this woman got to me because it was her only reason for returning. Plus it was one surgeon in one hospital in one city in one province, yet she was saying it was "everywhere".

She will be leaving children and grandchildren here, so what's the betting she doesn't stay long in the UK? I sort of gathered her husband wasn't too happy about returning, but was going along with her wishes.

DET ..............

a lot of your doctors, especially GPs, are leaving the UK and many of them are coming here.

We're also short of doctors, and people find it difficult to get registered with a GP so resort to walk-in clinics. Demand for GPs just cannot keep up with the training of new ones! That also applies to specialists, anaesthetists are also in short supply in some areas.


I've often said on here that we go to the Family Practice Clinic at the local university ............. this is where graduated medical students do their 2 year Residency programme in Family Practice.

When we started. it was usual to have a resident for the whole 2 year period, but then came a government mandated decision to double the number of students graduating from medical school and from residencies. There was little thoguht given to a) number of seats and rooms available at the universities, and b) number of places available for specialist Residencies.

The only way the university Family Practice Clinics seem able to double the number of openings was by having the Residents complete one year at the university under close supervision, then go out for their second year to family practices and walk-in clinics around the area. They're still supervised but not as closely, but that also would began to happen during their 2nd year at the Clinic as they were prepared for "real life".

I've noticed that they are getting their Registration Numbers with the provincial system by the end of the first year, where it used to take into their second year before their names were submitted. That number is what allows them to actually practise.

We're still happy with the Clinic, but could opt for seeing one of the supervisory doctors if we felt like it.

I suffered a heart attack in 2013, para medics arrived promptly, they summoned an ambulance, I was rushed to the Royal Free where they were waiting for me. In the theatre, stenting done, 20 minutes from arriving to the recovery ward. Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones.

Bob ............... I would prefer to think you were one of the many who had no problems with the system.

Yes, Sylvia, perhaps you are right. I can't fault any of the treatment I have had, it is getting seen in the first place that is the problem.