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DJ you were well within your rights to lose your rag. How many times have they left people in that situation before and the father has quietly fumed and let it go?
On my last visit to the royal Free in Hampstead I watched someone repaint a wall in a corridor- painting over dirt/what looked like food. Nice quick way to clean up hey?
Did shouting at them fix the issue?
I know the few times I've been in A&E it's always the ones who are effing and blinding who get all the attention. I've been sat there quietly for hours whilst a succession of aggressive and vocal people get wheeled past me where *all* the doctors crowd round them and get them sorted sharpish.
GrahamS - Member
The joys of under-funding. They probably didn't put them into a ward because they didn't have the space.
But the NHS isn't underfunded. The problem is that they spend their funding badly. Only a small proportion of their funds goes directly on patient care, and don't forget - the NHS exists for the benefit of doctors, not patients.
UK maternity wards operate like air traffic control trying to ship people in and out, the system works until they are full because that starts a cascade as the diverted people fill the next one etc
if you need to use their facilities on a bad day you need to start to assess your situation and if you need to shout do so in a "non threatening" manner as they will be fire fighting
the rest of the care in maternity based on my ltd experience is very variable, a lot of the midwives seem to have lost their empathy and their ablility to properly hand over at the shift changeover. The midwives who did bother to smile and read the notes made a tremendous difference
What a load of old bollocks has been spouted on here!!
While i empathise with your situation, what do you expect the doctors to do. They can't build a new changing and feeding facility for you, I imagine they were extremely busy and overworked in the overcrowded conditions of the NHS. They they get shouted at. a rational human being would complain to the trust/Mp etc - ie the purse string holders who could do something about it. Unless the staff had been rude to you you have no right to abuse them and probably made an idiot out of yourself.
And as for queue jumping in a+e. I can guarantee that in the departments i worked in if you shouted and screamed about your sprained ankle when their were life and death situations elsewhere in the department you would have an extended wait or be removed from the department by security/police.
And as for the NHS being run by doctors- it's not it's run by managers who are jumping through hoops to meet government imposed targets- like you being kicked out of a+e after 4 hours to no bed- that's meeting a government target on a+e stays and waits. patients increasingly are being lost in these targets.
As for private care - great if you can afford it but they don't do acute medicine in the Uk and nearly all high risk procedures are done in NHS hospitals with adequate intensive care and clinical backup.
I believe the running of the nhs should be taken back by patient groups and health care professionals. constant government meddling and changes are destroying the NHS. I started my career 10m years ago with great hope that a labour government would improve things. sadly they have made it worse by spending more and more and bureaucracy and less on the fromntline- beds, staff etc
However we should count ourselves lucky we have a health service that doesnt turn you away if you don't have cover or a bulging wallet.
Jenga what piffle. Only a small proportion goes on health care - piffle- the NHS is very badly underfunded. We spend a smaller proportion of GDP on healthcare than most other nations. When labour came to power it was under 8% of gdp, it is now over 9%. Most European countries spend over 12%, usa nearly 20%. A 25% increase in budget to bring us to European norms is what is needed
Our NHS does more for less than any other healthcare system, is cheaper to administer and is more efficient. It simply needs more money
Can you think of any public service that has got better in private ownership??
BT?? no
British gas?? hell no
Electricity??
BP?
Water?
Heaven help us all if the nhs goes fully private!
You know, if the NHS were privatised, the loss of free healthcare would be a travesty to millions who can't afford to go private.
And don't for one minute think Private Healthcare is better - it's the same.........same nursing staff, same Dr's, same medicines etc etc etc - you just pay for it!
I've worked in both, and am now a line manager within NHS. Now I'm not about to say the NHS is without fault - god no; we are desperately short of staff, we are so overstretched and pushed beyond what is reasonably expected and significantly underfunded; my department is about £1.2m short on it's staffing budget!!
No-one should experience the neglect experienced by djglover, and for what it's worth I think any reasonable person (especially a new dad), would get frustrated and angry - but i think I speak for the majority of NHS workers....we want to serve to the best of our ability - but we need bigger investments inorder to acheive that.
While i empathise with your situation, what do you expect the doctors to do. They can't build a new changing and feeding facility for you, I imagine they were extremely busy and overworked in the overcrowded conditions of the NHS. They they get shouted at. a rational human being would complain to the trust/Mp etc - ie the purse string holders who could do something about it. Unless the staff had been rude to you you have no right to abuse them and probably made an idiot out of yourself.
You're telling me that these people have no infuence over what goes on on the ground are you. I simply don't believe it. The registrar on the day was clearly more intrested in having a smoking break than progressing anything, when I arrived at the hospital there were several empty rooms that could have been offered and no obeservations had been taken.
I didn't abuse anyone pal, in future if everytime your sensitive soul hears a raised voice - heres a clue, they might be angry with reason, not abusing someone.
Just for once I feel like calling Drac a **** for his comment above, which is unfortunate as I have every respect for what he does, and he usually talks sense. In my experience, paramedics fix people at the scene and drop them off at the hospital, so wouldn't necessarily know what goes on after that. I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
Otherwise, I say 'Welcome to Britain, ladies and gentlemen, it's shite'. The so called Health Service will probably kill you. And if it doesn't do it with poor treatment it will probably do so by infecting you with something horrible or refusing to allow you to pay for top-up treatments. Alan Johnson you are a murderer.
Granted, paramedics are (in my thankfully extremely limited experience) bl00dy excellent, but pretty much EVERYTHING else I have seen and heard (from friends and family, not just in the news) about the NHS is just utterly shiite (like the rest of this stupid country).
Apart from the dedication of most of the nurses (not the shiity female doctor in North Hants) whom I have met, that is. They work their bits off in very difficult and underfunded and underpaid circumstances).
From the limited amount I have heard about other Northern European hosptals they are much better places with lower acquired infection rates and better service.
I didn't abuse anyone pal, in future if everytime your sensitive soul hears a raised voice - heres a clue, they might be angry with reason, not abusing someone.
and there is the rub; 'I was wronged, I had a right to shout at them and I don't consider it abuse' well done.
Julian - that is simply a result of spending more - 25-40% more. Simple isn't it. Spend more get a better service
How do you know if these rooms were staffed? If there were no nursing staff to cover these empty rooms then they cannot be used- a funding issue. No amount of doctor influence can change that! and i know as in any profession there are good and bad eggs.
and FYI when i'm trying to help someone shouting is abuse full stop. If someone shouts sorry i simply switch off til they calm down.
and there is the rub; 'I was wronged, I had a right to shout at them and I don't consider it abuse' well done.
And you are making a judgement on me as an abuser without having been there, nice work dude.
Shouting <> abuse, FWIW I didn't use any abusive words, just fairly objective but loud ones
DrNickRiviera, it strikes me that you find these conditions almost acceptabe, which I find worrying
Shouting is abuse - simple as. Sorry mate - no matter what the temptation shouting at service staff is always wrong. In Lothian you might well have been escorted to the door for doing so. Zero tolerence
TandemJeremy - Member
Jenga what piffle. Only a small proportion goes on health care - piffle- the NHS is very badly underfunded
Ah, the last respite of the pinko lefties. Spend more taxpayers money on state schemes and all will be well. Is there a union for NHS patients to join?
Anyway - congratulations on the twins. Forget about the sh*t and cocentrate n your great new family! We go for our 20 wk scan on Wednesday - expecting twins as well. There seems to be a few on here with 'double joy'.
Jenga - the truth hurts? Its clear and objective - we spend far less on healthcare than other comparable countries and we do stuff cheaper. Its a fact.
If you want a better NHS then it needs significantly more money and better quality better trained managers. Our clinical staff are amongst the best trained in the world. Our NHS managers are rubbish, our budgets are far too low.
You get what you pay for and we pay for a secondrate service.
TJ - I thought we spent more and more on the Health Service in this country anyway - it doesn't seem to have helped. What do other countries do differently? - ah, yes, they are smarter and more efficient than the idiots running this dump.
Shouting at people is quite understandable if they are being ****s. I might well have punched the woman doctor who was so rude to me and so non-understanding of my wife's situation if my wife was going to be discharged that day, but I didn't as she could well have made life even worse for us.
Cow. I wish I could remember who she was so that I could go back and sort her out.
Shouting is abuse - simple as. Sorry mate - no matter what the temptation shouting at service staff is always wrong. In Lothian you might well have been escorted to the door for doing so. Zero tolerence
Most shouting is not abuse TJ, as I have said I know its not big or clever to shout at people in the NHS and I expect a lot of people do shout [b]abuse[/b] at Drs and Nurses, I just wanted to clear that up. Abuse insinuates the use of threats or insults. Quite different to rasing your voice to make a point, which seems acceptable in many walks of life other than in a hospital BTW. However I can quite understand why you all switch off when people shout if there is nothing you can do to resolve a situation
The whole problem is modern management techniques - the same sort of thing that gave us this financial hole.
So called professional managers who have never worked the floor - clueless box tickers with a shiny diploma. A proper professional would resist cuts that endangered people and resign if necessary.
Return to the days when the quality of the service was paramount and nursing and medical staff were allowed and expected to take pride in their work.
Julian - or spending has gone from 7.3% of GDP to 8.8% over ten yrs. The European average is around 12%, USA nearer 20%. Why are other countries better - they spend more ( and less efficiently)
djglover - sorry mate - shouting is abuse in any form. No matter the content. Abuse does not insinuate the use of threats and anyway raising your voice is threatening in itself. Don't get me wrong - I am not condemning what you did and I can understand the frustration but getting angry and shouting is abuse
Rather than abusing the frontline workers in this situation you would be better asking for the duty manager and complaining to them.
I'm sorry to any raising their voice at me whilst I'm there to help them is pretty much told to calm down or there will be no treatment. I don't think raising your voice to anyone trying to do their job is acceptable health carers or otherwise.
If you have had problems there should a patient liaison group you can talk too some hospitals even have a rep availble 24/7.
You need to calm down and complain through the appropriate channels mate. i do care alot about the inadequacies of the service but there is nothing I can do to change this on a personal level. The BMA are as good as useless and the trusts and government spin target results to say things are getting better and feed this to the media. The way I get through my days at works is by doing my job to the best of my abilities within the constraints of the system- If i didnt do this i'd go mad. i know of loads of cases where patient care has suffered due to lack of facilities and undermanning. There is no way your wife and twins should have been treated in the corridor- that is completely unnaccepatable. If the paeds reg buggered off for a fag break rather than treat you that is unnaceptable too. calm down put it in writing to the complaints office expresing your concerns. unfortunately there is not enough hospital capacity to meet the needs of our population. This is why you were stuck in the corridor . However by losing your rag and shouting at staff you have given the hospital a defence already.
the most important thing is though I hope your kids are better.
Well said Dr Nick.
[i] epicyclo - Member
The whole problem is modern management techniques - the same sort of thing that gave us this financial hole.
So called professional managers who have never worked the floor - clueless box tickers with a shiny diploma. A proper professional would resist cuts that endangered people and resign if necessary.
Return to the days when the quality of the service was paramount and nursing and medical staff were allowed and expected to take pride in their work. [/i]
Classic daily mail ism.
The quality of NHS management is generally low - why - because the managers involved are poorly trained skilled and paid. We actually spend far less on administration of the NHS than our European neighbours. One of the reasons most of them are crap (the managers) is that they are promoted shop floor staff with poor management skills.
There are no cuts - budgets are expanding - just less than costs and expectations are.
The loss of pride and morale is amongst front line staff is down to two main issues. Professional pride and the pressure staff are under - how dispiriting is it to work as hard as you can and do a barely adequate job because of reasons outwith your control? and the second is public and political views. Constant drip drip of negative stories and political pointscoring leading folk to expect the worst and to slag off the healthcare frontline staff.
the NHS exists for the benefit of doctors, not patients
I've dealt with a lot of doctors recently. Believe me they work **yikes!** hard.
TJ- welcome back.
[i]Quite different to rasing your voice to make a point, which seems acceptable in many walks of life[/i]
'seems' being the key word here. It certainly may [i]seem[/i] it to some people, but it most certainly [b]isn't[/b] acceptable, whatever the setting. Just serves to highlight a lack of communication skills.
Thanks for your 'feedback' 🙄
[b]Jenga: [/b]But the NHS isn't underfunded. The problem is that they spend their funding badly. Only a small proportion of their funds goes directly on patient care, and don't forget - the NHS exists for the benefit of doctors, not patients.
Sorry but that is utter bollocks.
They are massively under-funded and poorly managed. My wife is a registrar. On the last hospital she worked at they were short staffed by at least one registrar and two juniors for the entire time she was there. They simply couldn't afford extra cover. Of course they couldn't legally ask the doctors to work any more hours either, but the doctors knew that if they didn't then patient care would be affected.
Do you really think if it was [i]"run for the benefit of doctors"[/i] that they would be pulling 80+ hours a week and still be expected to complete studies, write research papers and make case presentations in their spare time??
[i]You need to calm down and complain through the appropriate channels mate.[/i]
This is of course correct. The trouble is (and this is not just a health service issue) the "appropriate channel" is one that has been specially set up with the express purpose of Not Giving A Rat's Ass from specially designed premises on the outskirts of Slough and is willing to play "Ode to Joy" to telephone callers or to lose correspondence until all targets for efficiently denying that anyone has anything to complain about have been met.
🙂
i presume as they were waiting for 8 hours that they werent actually that ill?
could be the hospital might have been unusually busy?
i`m sure they would have sorted you out if they had opportunity. the nurses i know dont like leaving people unattended but sometimes its unavoidable.
rant at the government. (ie dont shoot the messenger) hospital staff do their best in difficut situations.
i sincerely hope the next time you need A&E care through falling off your bike they make you suffer for being a dick.
i sincerely hope they make you suffer
And I hope you die in a freak yachting accident.
i would never have done that during my time in a+e- now that would be unprofessional!!
and I hope you die in a freak yachting accident.
You need a reality check mate
Yes it is wrong your wife and babies had to be treated in a corridor for eight hours. I would like to know how are they now and are they ok. have they come to any harm through this terrible ordeal?
however most of your threads on here are angry or sarcastic and this one is simply innapropriate and immature. this gives me the impression you innapropriately flew off the handle and laid into medical staff who were trying to help your family. for the sake of your kids grow up and get some anger management classes!
you need to chill out too pal, perhaps you can fashion me a more reasoned responce to "I sincerely hope they make you suffer".
We got sent home after 8 hours, no beds, would have been intresting to see what had happened if they had just sat there.
The medical staff weren't doing anything to help my family until I arrived and asked in a raised voice why they had been left in a coridor, thats the point?!
djglover and Van Halen have been suspended for 24 hours to cool off for throwing abuse at each other.
Raise it with the hospital then for lords sake!
Slightly OT, but if anyone is reading this and is the position of using maternity services soon I can recommend home birth. We had our last at home and it was great.
btw, IME NHS managers are no worse than private managers, just under greater public scrutiny.
ahhh the old nhs debate.....
I spend an awful lot of time in hospitals, in A+E and various wards with my wife who's illness varies from longterm debilitating to lifethreateningohmygodpanicA+Etime.
I have seen a top consultant receive a call from his wife mid session with my wife, and run (yes, run) to the carpark to stop his daughter being admitted, as cdiff was so prevalent.
I have seen a junior doctor under unbelievable strain and pressure who still had the decency to ask how I was and if i needed a cup of tea, instead of having his break he got me one.
A nurse who shouted at a senile elderly lady who was left in her own waste for over an hour..... on the floor.
In normal life shouting and screaming to get your own way is not acceptable, however having your family in danger under the care of others is not normal.
A few months back, my wife had cdiff from her previous stay in hospital, her isolation room was several hundred yards from the main doctors area in A+E. Because of this neither the dr on duty or any of the nurses "could" put a simple canular in to get her her vital meds...... for 8 hours... she was left to rot in her room, i got the distinct impression the nurses couldnt be arsed with scrubbing up every time they entered the room, so they left her.
come 3am after much tooing and froing and me sat at home on the phone, i offered to drive in and wheel her to A+E, the nurse on the ward laughed at me, and told me the door was locked, and she wouldnt let me in.
I can honestly say I would have lost it with her and probably strangled her, if she had have said that to my face, but I decided to point out my displeasure to the Dr in charge, they got the canular in within 20minutes.
My wife is alive because we have a free and often excellent NHS, however like any profession/vocation there are good people and bad.
It's definitely worth complaining through the right channels.
When the little one was born she and her mother ended up staying for a week in the hospital. I ended up changing sterilising fluids for her bottles and other things. The staff were obviously overworked and actually pretty much asked me to complain.
If they don't have any hard written evidence then they can't say they need more staff/resources.
Don't just complain on forums like this, let managers and MPs know.
Djglover needs @ least 48 hrs to chill and care for his family!
Other half has been shaking her head and laughing @ some of the drivel on here!
Asked her to find out if she is any where near the Top 5 Midwife in the UK.
knowing djglover personally, he's a sound guy, and some of the self-righteous pap spouted on this thread just makes me realise nothing is going to change, because people won't let it.
As to hoping he suffers in A&E? Well done fella. Feel proud of that one.
[i]knowing djglover personally, he's a sound guy[/i]
have a quiet word then and tell him that he's coming across as nothing of the sort.
[i]Asked her to find out if she is any where near the Top 5 Midwife in the UK. [/i]
Ask David 'Kid' Jensen, he'll know, presumably.
I've said it before... bring back national service - make [i]everybody[/i] do a year as an auxiliary nurse.
It would do wonders for the healthcare debate.
[i]the NHS exists for the benefit of doctors, not patients.[/i]
My dad is coming up to retirement after spending his working life in public health - first as an army doc, then as a GP and finally as a Paediatric Consultant. And let me assure you - there are few jobs more demanding than the latter, not least when there are no PICU beds in the entire ****ing country. I'd say the public have got good value out of him.
As for the NHS - NuLab are screwing it up royally, not least because of their obsession with [pseudo] "choice", PFI and handing over great chunks of work to cherry-picking ISTCs.