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alta-pete

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1 hour ago, 54_and_counting said:

The nhs and snhs isnt underfunded, its just seriously financially mismanaged, scottish nhs costs 15bill a year and rising, theres no way that should be spent and people having to book appointments for a&e

About 7% of gdp,  well behind the better funded European health care.

Edited by parsforlife
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23 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

My brief experience of working in the NHS backs this up. I was in a non-clinical setting but the pointless bureaucracy was overwhelming.

36C20347-962A-47D2-AB77-1A833C8C3CB0.png

Pointless bureaucracy or folk acting the c***?

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My brief experience of working in the NHS backs this up. I was in a non-clinical setting but the pointless bureaucracy was overwhelming.
36C20347-962A-47D2-AB77-1A833C8C3CB0.thumb.png.d720c7f53c9044c038908902ff12f6d4.png
I worked on some software they were looking to purchase to streamline their FOI responses. This was just Ayrshire and Arran and the volume of FOIs they were receiving was off the scale (all pre pandemic). Never seen anything like it and without going into too much confidential info it was more than 20x a similar sized local authority at the time
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It seems impossible to criticise the NHS without it being seen as a direct attack on the workers there. I do get it - the work and care that 99% have within it is second to none. I've experienced it first hand and probably more than I'd liked to have. This criticism had gotten even harder throughout the pandemic.

The reality, though, is that it is massively mismanaged, muddled in bureaucracy and abused as a political tool. I work in an architectural practice that is involved in many projects within a certain division of the NHS and its like pulling teeth and gives you a real image of the amount of money pointlessly flushed down the drain. 

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Recent personal story I thought I'd share.

Couldn't sleep due to pain from a recently diagnosed but unresolved issue that I knew required further medication. Phoned 111 at 1.30am. Lots of stupid questions (like really stupid, so much so that if I had been in real agony I'd have lost the tattie with the call handler even though I know they've got to go through their script), a fair bit of holding and then spoke to a clinician at 2.15am. Straightforward enough, he said he'd refer me to Forth Valley RH and they'd be in touch. Call back from FVRH at 3am - come in to the Out of Hours Service, we'll see you now.

Mrs a-p drove me in, arrived 3.30am. Very quick examination, big query about what shite my GP had prescribed and 20 mins later I'm back out and on my way again with an armload of antibiotics and proper (his words, not mine) painkillers. Back home in exactly 1 hour.

A couple of things of note come from my experience:

1. FVRH is (I think) supposed to be the worst performing A&E in the country. Using the Out of Hours Service, I was the only patient in the place and was seen immediately;

2. The Out of Hours Service is (maybe deliberately) very low key with next to no signage on the hospital campus and (again probabaly deliberately) as far away from A&E and public areas as is possible;

3. I've had this when dealing with others but (and an important caveat) if you can afford the time, phoning 111 before taking off for hospital really does save you a huge amount of time once in the place. The clinicians/admin will have pulled your records, made an initial diagnosis, forewarned the hospital you were on your way and they'd be primed to expect you. After that they just want you back out and on your way asap. The alternative to that - presenting at A&E unannounced - and I expect you're then just joining the back of the queue for the start of the routine admin shite that I'd covered off at home 2 hours previously. You can maybe now understand how wait times grow...

The big issue with that though is that if you do have a rapidly escalating situation that maybe starts on 111 but should be on 999 I'm not sure how long the process would be before the penny drops with them that you need, or how long it will take to get you, an ambulance. Here's hoping no-one needs test that anytime soon...

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9 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

Recent personal story I thought I'd share.

Couldn't sleep due to pain from a recently diagnosed but unresolved issue that I knew required further medication. Phoned 111 at 1.30am. Lots of stupid questions (like really stupid, so much so that if I had been in real agony I'd have lost the tattie with the call handler even though I know they've got to go through their script), a fair bit of holding and then spoke to a clinician at 2.15am. Straightforward enough, he said he'd refer me to Forth Valley RH and they'd be in touch. Call back from FVRH at 3am - come in to the Out of Hours Service, we'll see you now.

Mrs a-p drove me in, arrived 3.30am. Very quick examination, big query about what shite my GP had prescribed and 20 mins later I'm back out and on my way again with an armload of antibiotics and proper (his words, not mine) painkillers. Back home in exactly 1 hour.

A couple of things of note come from my experience:

1. FVRH is (I think) supposed to be the worst performing A&E in the country. Using the Out of Hours Service, I was the only patient in the place and was seen immediately;

2. The Out of Hours Service is (maybe deliberately) very low key with next to no signage on the hospital campus and (again probabaly deliberately) as far away from A&E and public areas as is possible;

3. I've had this when dealing with others but (and an important caveat) if you can afford the time, phoning 111 before taking off for hospital really does save you a huge amount of time once in the place. The clinicians/admin will have pulled your records, made an initial diagnosis, forewarned the hospital you were on your way and they'd be primed to expect you. After that they just want you back out and on your way asap. The alternative to that - presenting at A&E unannounced - and I expect you're then just joining the back of the queue for the start of the routine admin shite that I'd covered off at home 2 hours previously. You can maybe now understand how wait times grow...

The big issue with that though is that if you do have a rapidly escalating situation that maybe starts on 111 but should be on 999 I'm not sure how long the process would be before the penny drops with them that you need, or how long it will take to get you, an ambulance. Here's hoping no-one needs test that anytime soon...

My wife had the opposite experience - her GP referred her to A&E where, instead of being seen to straight away as should have happened , she had to wait 5 hours before being seen. They (A&E) knew nothing about the urgent referral and duplicated tests which she had already had done at her GP, and were at a loss as to why she was there, despite her covering letter. Total breakdown in communications. She was in 3 different departments before ending up in the right one (where she had been in the first place), as you say, no signage (probably for a good reason).

Edited by Jacksgranda
Typos
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1 hour ago, Pens_Dark said:

It seems impossible to criticise the NHS without it being seen as a direct attack on the workers there. I do get it - the work and care that 99% have within it is second to none. I've experienced it first hand and probably more than I'd liked to have. This criticism had gotten even harder throughout the pandemic.

The reality, though, is that it is massively mismanaged, muddled in bureaucracy and abused as a political tool. I work in an architectural practice that is involved in many projects within a certain division of the NHS and its like pulling teeth and gives you a real image of the amount of money pointlessly flushed down the drain. 

I did work for a contractor, who, before it was even officially opened, was in the new Coleraine Hospital carrying out alterations.

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15 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

I did work for a contractor, who, before it was even officially opened, was in the new Coleraine Hospital carrying out alterations.

Ridiculous, but entirely unsurprising all at the same time!

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1 hour ago, Pens_Dark said:

It seems impossible to criticise the NHS without it being seen as a direct attack on the workers there. I do get it - the work and care that 99% have within it is second to none. I've experienced it first hand and probably more than I'd liked to have. This criticism had gotten even harder throughout the pandemic.

The reality, though, is that it is massively mismanaged, muddled in bureaucracy and abused as a political tool. I work in an architectural practice that is involved in many projects within a certain division of the NHS and its like pulling teeth and gives you a real image of the amount of money pointlessly flushed down the drain. 

I remember Private Eye documenting the increase in bureaucracy and middle-management in some detail in the Nineties. I had to stop reading it in the end because it was just so damned depressing.

Anything that's implemented can be reversed, but it's pretty obvious that it's part of the long-term strategy of strangling the service until it becomes unpopular.

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1 hour ago, alta-pete said:

. I've had this when dealing with others but (and an important caveat) if you can afford the time, phoning 111 before taking off for hospital really does save you a huge amount of time once in the place

I was the same Saturday night an hour on the phone into A&E stitches in and out the hospital in under 40 mins.

Likely if I had gone straight to A&E I would have been ages as they go about their background work.

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Just today I had to “bin” a £165,000 anti-venom because the department that required it, told us to specifically order it in and package it appropriately no longer needed it. No returns on these sorts of things, went right into a waste bucket. The amount of money the pharmaceutical side of the NHS wastes is astronomical.

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9 hours ago, ICTChris said:

My brief experience of working in the NHS backs this up. I was in a non-clinical setting but the pointless bureaucracy was overwhelming.

36C20347-962A-47D2-AB77-1A833C8C3CB0.png

As a complete aside, how can you 'miss' the toilet with a shit?  You sit on the toilet and assuming you are not in space, the faecal matter travels down into the bowl.

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As a complete aside, how can you 'miss' the toilet with a shit?  You sit on the toilet and assuming you are not in space, the faecal matter travels down into the bowl.

Some folk, especially women, hover cause they are scared of toilet seats.
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My mother worked as an auxiliary nurse for a few years, and said that serious impaction was very common among elderly patients, some of whom had dementia.

Don't read the rest.

Spoiler

On several occasions, she had to help with patients who'd literally dug lumps of shite out of themselves with their bare hands and, in their discomfort, were none too careful about where it went.

She said the worst part was having to clean their fingernails afterwards.

 

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