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NHS Code Black

merlin

merlin

Avatar changed - Town names deemed offensive.
We were at the Royal Berkshire Hospital yesterday.

All day it was in Code Black - not a single spare bed in the hospital.

That resulted in waiting around ten hours in A&E + AMU without more than a sandwich and a pair of paracetamol whilst the patient was suffering from acute pain and was unable to walk.

It's not even cold. :mad:
 
Sorry you had a bad experience - I mean it. I spent all day at a different (though nearby)hospital trying to help the Chief Exec and Chairman think how they could reorganise things. It's very tough now and the main reason seems to be because it's just so difficult to discharge people (especially when such a high proportion of them are fail, older people who need lots of care and lots of service).

Lots of talk about NHS Trusts taking over social services budgets and GP surgeries to try to pool resources. It might help if we can get on with it, but there is just so much crap in the way - regulations, legislation (yes, some of it I was partly responsible for, etc). Also not much goodwill...anywhere.
 
Tim, we could see the bed blocking but realistically that's not going to change I assume. Elderly people have accidents and have chronic conditions that become acutely life threatening.

I see queues down the road to see a GP the same day and patients then get 5 minute appointments in order to resolve any issue. Cases like yesterday (back injury resulting from seizure) really need fairly rapid assessment and treatment from a properly equipped centre.

I would like to imagine that it's going to get better but without substantial investment I really can't see a situation where people aren't made to really suffer when they injure themselves. The contrast with France is truly astounding IME.
 
My 81 year old father needed a pacemaker. He kept being delayed, because our local trust couldn't get one due to 'stock shortages'. Beginning of September was the earliest. By the end of July he became so weak that we called an ambulance. He spent a fortnight in an evaluation ward, then 3 weeks in the cardiac ward whilst he waited for a slot. During this time he developed a spiteful ulcer on his ankle, he became weak and confused, and was in constant agony. The op, when it came, was at another trust (Barts) 25 miles away. He was then returned to the cardiac ward for another 3 weeks whilst they waited for a bed in a rehab ward at another hospital. By the time he got there he was so weak and confused that there was no chance of effective rehab, so after another 3 weeks he was returned to us, bedbound, incontinent, and in constant severe pain, a condition entailing the need for 2 carers 4 times a day at a cost of £400 a week. He came back from hospital nearly 3 months after going in for what should have been a routine, in-out op, a fraction of the man he had been when he went in, during which time he blocked a bed in an acute ward for 6 weeks.

It is difficult not to conclude from such tales, and there are many, that the NHS is in deep, deep trouble.
 
one wammer and one other hi fi forum tried to sort out the a&e in Worcestershire with no success !! then later most of the consultants resigned . its not a pretty sight in a&e !
 
Tim Jones said:
Lots of talk about NHS Trusts taking over social services budgets and GP surgeries to try to pool resources. It might help if we can get on with it, but there is just so much crap in the way - regulations, legislation (yes, some of it I was partly responsible for, etc). Also not much goodwill...anywhere.
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Sounds like a good idea to me. There's considerable overlap between healthcare and social services, so coordination might result in better outcomes for less money. The chief of Manchester police was calling for the same in a radio interview, and also wanted the police adding to the mix since much of their time is with the same individuals who are involved with social services and casualty departments.
 
I really don't think GP's surgeries either have the equipment or the capacity to take on much more.

From what I see they are already overstretched and GP's are retiring at an increasing rate of knots - often because they feel they cannot provide the service expected of them by the patients.

I really dread to think what will happen if we have the anticipated severe Winter after the festive period.
 
Wonder what would happen if we still had a John Harvey-Jones to give the NHS of today a look over, bet the same issues he saw in Bradford would still be rife.
 
We, as a nation, have voted in a government sworn to starve public services of resources (don't believe the "ring-fenced funding" business when they've demanded completely infeasible "efficiency savings" and not factored in the ever-increasing sums required by an aging population and advancing technologies).
We need to decide, as a nation, whether we'd rather pay more tax or have a rapidly failing NHS. Up until now, we've wanted to pay less tax. That's ok, but we will then need to pay extra for private medicine (via insurance or direct payment) to fill in the gaps.
It isn't complicated, but for some reason open discussion is complete political anathema. And we tolerate that status quo.
 
What a depressing thread this is. Just over a decade ago I was run over by a car, suffered a fractured skull, was in a coma and had other injuries. I was rescued by a helicopter crew and my life was saved by the medical staff of London's Royal Free Hospital.

I got MRSI while I was in the Royal free and couldn't be operated on after that. A few years later my urethra was rejoined at Middlesex Hospital and I had unsuccessful eye surgery in Moorfields.

I now live opposite the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, but to be quite honest I am not counting on their help if something goes wrong. The idea of having to wait for months for surgery, or a spare part, is obscene. I've got an impacted wisdom tooth, which my dentist says has be be removed by a hospital operation. They have no idea how long I will have to wait for this.

The NHS is one of the main reasons I still live in the UK. The fact that it's free at the point of use is incredibly important. The UK has moved from free education to having the most expensive universities in the world, thanks to arch-capitalist moron Blair for introducing fees. The same will to happen to the NHS I think, Jeremy C**t's background and connections point to this.

If this happens, I will move abroad. It's hardly worth staying for the Queen, a Parliament and constitution being undermined by the Tories, and a 'free press' and BBC which are a right-wing joke.

If we have to pay more tax to keep the NHS going, then fine. The first people they should start with are George Osborne's family firm, they have paid no tax in the last few years despite the fact that they have earned £200 million.

Jack
 
I can't see how this level of conspiracy theorising and calling people c*nts is going to get anyone anywhere. I take the point about tax, etc, but I have trouble seeing how to avoid the NHS simply growing every year as a proportion of GDP. Where's the break on that slippery slope?

The context is this - the NHS is getting around a 1% real terms increase a year. But demand is rising consistently by around 4% a year. The solution on the table is to control demand better - and constructing a properly joined up service that avoids people (especially people with long term conditions, or frail older patients) having to be acute admissions at one end of the NHS in the first place and then becoming a delayed discharge at the other end.

So we need single organisations where the docs can use a single (probably capitated) budget to plan and provide - not a pointless separation between commissioners and providers that now seem almost completely redundant, or quasi-market mechanisms like tariff.

This is entirely my personal view.
 
Tim Jones said:
I can't see how this level of conspiracy theorising and calling people c*nts is going to get anyone anywhere.
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I tend to agree but it's always an emotive subject.

The context is this - the NHS is getting around a 1% real terms increase a year. But demand is rising consistently by around 4% a year. The solution on the table is to control demand better.
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From an outsiders' POV we've had decades of "controlling demand better" and "reorganisation initiatives" which has been accompanied by an increasing lag between supply and demand. That 3% gap has been continuous and is ongoing. A Politically driven spending promise is going to do little other than to protect the party from some criticism and to keep a lot of managers in work looking for efficiency savings and restructuring projects to get their teeth into.

Meanwhile far too many of the public have IMHO been left to suffer for far too long. There should be an open discussion about spending and about funding options in order to bring services such as the acute units witnessed this week into line with out neighbours.

I personally have had enough of seeing different groups paid considerable sums to redistribute effectively the same pot. I don't see why a citizen should have to suffer unnecessarily here in the UK but increasingly they do.
 
Whilst it would be difficult not to level all manner of accusations relating to NHS funding at both this government and the coalition which preceded it, there is a herd of elephants residing in the sitting room which nobody, at least nobody who supports the Labour Party, seems to want to notice; There were a hundred odd splendid new hospitals built between 1997 and 2008 under Private Finance Initiatives, into which were written ongoing 'unitary charges' - contracts which include both ongoing maintenance and loan-repayments - which amount to some £80bn over 30 years. Most of these contracts were rip-offs of banking or insurance industry proportions, between 3 and 5 - sometimes much more - times the original (undoubtedly inflated) capital costs. There are hospital trusts paying 10 or 15% of their annual budget on these unitary charges, huge sums of money by any account.

A lot of folk here seem to take any opportunity to jab at the Tories, but the vast majority of these contracts were signed off under the Blair/Brown administrations.
 
It's not a conspiracy theory and a c**t is exactly what I think George Osborne is. His family firm, Osborne and Little, have have paid no corporation tax for the last seven years, despite the fact that they have made big profits. Read about it here and there.

Explain that to me. We're not all in it together at all.

Before Blair became PM, university education in the UK was free for students. He introduced fees. They are now the highest in the world.

I will find some articles which outline Jeremy Hunt's connections to private health later on. I am sure you already know them.

The NHS might be in a very bad position and more social and elderly care will obviously free up bed space. Will the Tories pay for this? I doubt it.

One this is for sure, Osborne and his cronies are decimating the NHS and this suits them just fine, because they want more privatization.

Jack
 
Tim Jones said:
I can't see how this level of conspiracy theorising and calling people c*nts is going to get anyone anywhere. I take the point about tax, etc, but I have trouble seeing how to avoid the NHS simply growing every year as a proportion of GDP. Where's the break on that slippery slope?

The context is this - the NHS is getting around a 1% real terms increase a year. But demand is rising consistently by around 4% a year. The solution on the table is to control demand better - and constructing a properly joined up service that avoids people (especially people with long term conditions, or frail older patients) having to be acute admissions at one end of the NHS in the first place and then becoming a delayed discharge at the other end.

So we need single organisations where the docs can use a single (probably capitated) budget to plan and provide - not a pointless separation between commissioners and providers that now seem almost completely redundant, or quasi-market mechanisms like tariff.

This is entirely my personal view.
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yes completely agree
one example . you need social workers and discharge liason nurses to actively work at getting folks out of hospital to nursing homes etc.

now if someone goes into hospital with a pressure ulcer they will be safeguarded and the social workers will be bogged down in meetings endlessly dealing with this bureaucracy . it often turns out to be some other lesion but what a waste of time !!!

also as we have said before there are constant arguments about who will pay for the nursing homes and they ask the poor old wife or husband to top up the cost . how the heck do they do that unless they sell the ground they are living in.

happens all the time and this is one reason why we get bed blockers

had a friend round here recently who was sent in for months to sort out the a&e dept of 3 group hospitals . be interesting this year to see if their efforts have made a difference

there is almost no communication between secondary and primary care about issues . the two go merrily on their way not learning from these things
although there have been some good examples like shared drug formularies etc
 
eternumviti said:
A lot of folk here seem to take any opportunity to jab at the Tories, but the vast majority of these contracts were signed off under the Blair/Brown administrations.
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Of course Blair and Brown were stupid for using PFI to underwrite NHS projects, but that is what you'd expect from Red Tories. This doesn't excuse what Cameron and his cronies are doing though.

All of this underlines the importance of Corbyn and the socialist wing of Labour. If you want a free NHS, vote for them during the next general election. You certainly won't get it from Hillary Benn and his Red Tory cronies, who I hope are either deselected or cross the House. There is no room for them in the Labour Party.

Jack
 
Tim Jones said:
Sorry you had a bad experience - I mean it. I spent all day at a different (though nearby)hospital trying to help the Chief Exec and Chairman think how they could reorganise things. It's very tough now and the main reason seems to be because it's just so difficult to discharge people (especially when such a high proportion of them are fail, older people who need lots of care and lots of service).

Lots of talk about NHS Trusts taking over social services budgets and GP surgeries to try to pool resources. It might help if we can get on with it, but there is just so much crap in the way - regulations, legislation (yes, some of it I was partly responsible for, etc). Also not much goodwill...anywhere.
Click to expand...

Treat the staff like shit and goodwill disappears.
 
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