I’ve had utterly amazing treatment from the nhs when back in 91 the car I was driving was forced off the road by another driver in a hit n’ run which left me paralysed and as about as close to death as possible due to internal damage and trapped in a car for 8 hours till I was found (bloody rural Galloway roads), a god of a surgeon (along with a visiting team of neurosurgeons from california] rebuilt my spine, reversed the paralysis as they managed to remove bone fragments from my cord (I lost two vertebrae though and gained enough TI metalwork to build a decent frame) and repaired nerve damage along with doing what they could with the internal organ damage in a 11hr procedure, and yet I’ve also received utterly abysmal treatment/misdiagnoses over a period of the previous 10 years in which I’m currently in talks regarding legal action.

A friend who is currently dying from secondary liver cancer had original diagnoses of osophegeal cancer (2016 August) and had operation to remove tumour and stretch stomach to rejoin to throat and remove his lymph nodes, operation was a success but they punctured his lung during operation and he suffered ever increasing chest pains for weeks till they noticed/paid attention to his complaints and gave him a scan, immediately inserted multiple drains to eventually sort him out, all was going well for him till mid summer 2017 when he began to experience crippling pain, the cancer had come back but attacked his liver so after a period of a 6 weeks he started his 1st chemotherapy of a supposed 3 sessions, only managed 2 sessions as the 3rd session was cancelled twice, then finally his white blood cell count dropped so chemo wasn’t suitable, took him in for an overnight stay last week to get a scan to see if the chemo had shrunk the tumours and to get his bloods checked for his suitability for 3rd chemo session, as he’s on a fentanyl driver, morphine driver and breakthrough injections (intense pain) he was promised a bed was waiting for him to step right into – not the case as we arrived at hospital approx 3.30 in afternoon yet he was not admitted to a ward and bed till 22.30 that night, the poor bastard had to sit in a waiting room as there was not enough staff to deal with admitting him.

When the NHS works, it works amazingly and is to be applauded without question time and time again – unfortunatly the lack of staff to deal with my mates situation above caused him insufferable pain and discomfort to the point that he’s never going back in to hospital (his words), the scan picked up blood clots on his lungs anyway so chemo is now too dangerous which is a shame as the two treatments so far have reduced the tumours. It’s his 51st birthday in April, he hopes to see it.

Ps – typed on my phone so the above prob doesn’t read that great

Another here wouldn’t be posting if it wasn’t for NHS

Hope he’s well soon Bruneep.

Ah Somafunk that’s just crap poor guy.

I’ve just read “This is Going to Hurt” by Adam Kay.

Brilliant book. Got it for the missus as we’d seen him play a few times as one half of the Amateur Transplants and knew his humour was spot on, especially for people involved at the coalface of the NHS.

BBC2 I think last night had a programme about NHS surgery

caught the last 10 mins as they removed a 20kg tumour from a woman who looked liek she weighed 50kg max.

I am regularly in theatres to collect resected cancer organs so I already have a lot of respect for surgical teams, but the sheer size of the tumour was bonkers

Yes they said the tumour accounted for a third of her body weight. Love all the banter – and the sweepstake.

Mum’s just been given the all clear after chemo for non-hodgkins lymphoma.
All throughout the treatment the staff have been utterly amazing.
So efficient, friendly, and on the ball. I was amazed at how efficient the whole thing was.
I shudder to think how much the treatment must have cost.

I’d also like to add that the treatment my dad received in his final months was outstanding.
The number of people involved not only from the hospital and the GP, but also the social care sector and local hospice was incredible.

Funny thing is my mum always used to complain that ‘they don’t care about us old ones’. She’s certainly changed her tune on that over the last year!

I think where the NHS struggles, and where there are frustrations, are where things fall between, or are shared by departments. My wife has a few hard to tackle issues and seems to be constantly bounced between departments as the condition seem to be too difficult to fit into one of the NHS boxes.

All said and done tho, I’m grateful to the NHS and can’t imagine life without it.
A big tanks to all the NHS staff on here.*

*not forgetting our Police, firefighters and other emergency services.

They gave me my leg back, nuff said really. they also completely ****ed up my coeliac treatment initially but you know what? They’re still in credit and probably always will be. Thanks folks

And TJ, hope everything works out alright. We’re all pretty twitchy around the flu now with my mum’s copd and heart failure, what’s just an inconvenience to one person is a big deal to others. Mon the vaccine!

3 boys under ten so extensive use of local a&e, always been excellent.

My daughter had a bowel problem just before Christmas, they admitted her straight from the walk-in center on a Thursday, had to wait til Monday for the scan, op was on Tuesday, she was home by the weekend. Couldn’t have gone better.

Sadly I’ve had some fairly rubbish experiences.

Ambulance taking an hour to arrive after my dad fell down the stairs.

Sat with my gran suffer a slow death in hospital ward because they left it too late to move her to a paliative care ward/hospice

And woken up screaming in pain post appendix out because no one was taking notice of the complete tolerance to morphine at everystep from triage onwards.

Sister got to 14 with a massive hole in her heart, heart murmur and a history of “episodes” involving fainting etc.

The NHS is fantastic the majority of the people are fantastic I know I’ve been unlucky. With the exception of the morphine thing that still makes me angry.

As you seem to understand, people make mistakes and organisations make mistakes. Just be glad you are not paying out of your own pocket for people making mistakes.

NHS Employee – sat in a ward for 4 hours waiting for bloods. Asked for a glass of water, twice, never arrived, asked for the window to be closed because I was sitting in a draft. Nope. Asked not to be plugged in to a machine right now because my office was 5 minutes walk away and I had a book on my desk – nope. 4 hours, in a chair, in a cold draught, no telly, radio or books. Left on the grounds that if I’m not going to get medical treatment, I can go home, put the fire on, read a book or watch telly and comfortably not receive that treatment. Especially after I’ve already told them it wasn’t a heart attack but an aesophigal spasm, which I’m prone to. Most of the time brilliant, but not always.

Well dad looking a lot better today all staff involved been good as ever, just the wait on arrival. Seems he may have had a small ish OD on his opioids for his palliative care….yes mother I’m looking at you 🙄 and an infection in chest caused his problems yesterday.

2 units of blood to get tonight and reassessment of drugs maybe out thursday back into care of mother 8O, looks like another lecture on the issuing of his meds will have to be given.

Glad to hear it’s not too serious bruneep.

Several people in my extended family have had absolutely diabolical treatment from the NHS. I don’t hold it against them, because it’s an amazing service overall but sometimes some joined up thinking wouldn’t go amiss.

For example, my dad’s psoriasis treatment cancelled three times in a row over a period of months, last time because the consultant was on holiday. He asked the receptionist “surely he has to put it up on a calendar that he’s away on holiday that week?” “oh yes, of course. But we don’t have access to that one”

… ?!?! how in the shitting **** is that allowed to happen

Secondly my wife blocked a bed in a fully booked maternity ward for two days because nobody had time to do her tests and discharge her. I asked about every 30 mins for 12 hours or so.

I later found out they in fact discharged her without doing the tests (i’d been sent home at that point) and she had critically low iron (!!) due to a major bleed in the c-section. Luckily the health visitor noticed she was very very pale in the follow up visit a week later.

FFS why can’t we just fund the **** properly, it’s so close to being brilliant

NHS Employee – sat in a ward for 4 hours waiting for bloods. Asked for a glass of water, twice, never arrived, asked for the window to be closed because I was sitting in a draft. Nope. Asked not to be plugged in to a machine right now because my office was 5 minutes walk

I was in last year, I went and got my own water as it wasn’t even 5 minutes away.

I’m sure all your good experiences are pretty common but so are bad one’s.
My mum is found by her carer’s having had a fall. The call me and we decide to call a Dr. It’s Saturday so it’s the out of hours service. 2hrs to arrive and he wants her in. It’s not an emergency but I can’t get mum from upstairs to the car on my own so he arranges an ambulance. 5 hrs later and it hasn’t arrived, on the ambulance despatcher’s advise I upgrade to an emergency and one arrives in 10 mins. 1 1/2hrs outside A/E waiting in the ambulance then 2 days in assesment on a trolley before a bed is found.
Week last Saturday pop into mums about 11am she’s very poorly with terrible black diarrhoea. Fair does a Dr is there in about an hour. He wants her in. Asks if we can get her in ourselves as 6-7hr wait for non emergency ambulance. I borrow a wheelchair from a neighbour, and wife and myself construct a home made nappy for mum and get her to hsp. 8hrs in assesment with mum sitting in her own filth for much of that time. All this still in the borrowed wheechair. I left at 3am when they found mum a trolley and confirmed they were keeping her in.
I’ve no idea what the answer is but I won’t be getting old and at the mercy of the NHS, not here in Wales anyway.

I was in last year, I went and got my own water as it wasn’t even 5 minutes away.

If you are going to have a system which systematically removes all responsibility from patients; which the NHS does all the way from not involving the patient in the referral, appointment time, diagnosis options and possibilities to discharge decisions then you can’t complain about patients not taking the initiative.

If he’d gone for a drink at just the same time as the doctor/consultant had turned up then the doctor would have cursed about the patient not being there and pushed him to the back of the queue. I’ve seen that done.

If, on the other hand, someone had said “you won’t be seen for an hour, go get a drink if you want to” then everyone would be happy.

It’s a real shame that we can’t make constructive criticism of the NHS without getting caught up in “everyone’s working really hard, stop being ungrateful”. No one disputes that you’re all working really hard but there may be better ways of working that would make life easier for patients and staff.

Taxi sounds like you mother was caught up the recent severe pressures, that is not normal. I hope she is recovering.

Ajaj if people can’t take enough initiative to ask where the water cooler is or to let a member of staff know they’re just getting a drink then no wonder the NHS is stretched, you’re not in a waited restaurant.

It’s a real shame that we can’t make constructive criticism of the NHS without getting caught up in “everyone’s working really hard, stop being ungrateful”

You can but come on can get a book but not a glass of water.

ajaj

Constructive criticism is fine. We NHS workers live in a constant circle of reflection ( or should do) Better ways of working are developed all the time. No one is above criticism

The most frustrating thing as an NHS worker is to not have the resources to do your job properly.

Most of the issues raised on this thread ( and I really did not want this to become a political thread) are due to the deliberate and unnecessary underfunding by the Tories. It was a bit of me venting and a bit of me wanting to put some praise / positive story out there

Some of these experiences people have had are appalling but put the blame where it lies. With Hunt and May for deliberate underfunding

sorry for the politics.

I did loads of pro-active stuff when my daughter was in. No-one minded.]

It’s nice to blame the government, and there is a correlation between patients dying in trolleys in corridors and Conservative governments going back a long way (or maybe just union publicity).

Spending has increased though, albeit not as much as demand has increased.

To an outsider there seems a reasonable amount of scope for efficiency savings. Apologies this bit will seem like a rant, but if there is a good reason I don’t understand it.

If when my Dad went to his GP saying “I’ve got a DVT, just like my last two” she’d said “here’s a prescription for warfarin you know the drill” rather than “it’s indigestion” then the NHS wouldn’t have had to pay for emergency pulomnary embolism surgery. And the casualty registrar wouldn’t have had to take time out from treating patients to testify to the GMC misconduct hearing. If my GP had trusted the consultant when he said “test for protein S deficiency” then we could have saved three unnecessary appointments.

If when the mountain biker fell off the first Ambulance had strapped him to a spine board and used the fire crew to move him to a hospital then he could have received treatment quickly for the cost of one ambulance for one hour. Instead they waited five hours for six crews and left the casualty lying on the cold ground.

If when I broke my arm my GP had said “you know what, the orthopedic consultant at Bourg St Maurice hospital probably knows more about broken bones than me I’ll go with his recommendation” then we could have saved another unnecessary appointment and I could have got treatment a week sooner.

…And still, when you ask the nurse on the ward at 11am, “when is the consultant doing his rounds, I’d like to go get a drink”, she says “I’m not sure, usually here before 2pm I wouldn’t risk leaving in case you miss him”.

Maybe there’s good reason for all this. Maybe the litigation culture is killing efficiency, I don’t know. But it’d be really good if someone explained it rather than saying that the NHS is perfect just overworked.

It isn’t perfect and your examples have demonstrated that sadly it does fail sometimes for various reasons.

But it’d be really good if someone explained it rather than saying that the NHS is perfect just overworked.

Of course it’s not perfect but it is most definitely overworked. More precisely the people manning it are overworked.

Ill mention it again but I collect tumours from (urgent) cancer ops.
All eligible surgeries have been cancelled again this week, due to lack of ITU beds

loss of nursing staff increasing http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42653542

Is very worrying, mid-staffs scandal was essentially a staffing problem