Disgusted at the NHS

tandraig

I also worked for a charity - a cancer support charity - and while i heard tales of excellent care - i have heard tales of appalling care! in about equal measures! as you know from earlier posts - i spent a lot of time sitting about in childrens ward - and have to say - day nurses you are dead right about night staff!! no they dont do their jobs! but - at same time - when my son was really ill once i sat with him for a week and the poor kid in the next bed (for some reason no parent was with him) didnt get washed etc. in the end i did it for him as he felt grubby and was upset! and was told off by staff as it wasnt my place to do it! i also had one stupid nurse who put my son on ventolin then didnt even turn on the oxygen so he could inhale it! then swanned off back to her knitting! so i did it! oh - and i had one registrar who plainly didnt know squat about asthma who prescribed 5ml of ventolin when the usual dose was 20ml ?? and didnt even know about hydrocortisone injection - told him i better write the prescription as he was going to kill my son - pillock!!

loftus

There are 14 million hospital admissions and over 60 million outpatient appointments in England alone. When you consider that complaints amount to the tens of thousands (although every complaint is one too many) I think it fair to say that the majority of people receive good care.

Oldernotwiser

Caroline73 wrote: »

Depends on what you are having done...routine procedures are fine but if you suffer post operative complications overnight, there is often only one junior doctor on call. I know of junior house officers who work as the RMO at private hospitals overnight.

You pay for consultant level care during the original op, but overnight your consultant will probably be asleep at home miles away. In an NHS hospital you will have an anaesthetist, theatre team and at least a registrar level surgeon on site.

You can get round this situation by choosing the private wing of an NHS hospital - the best of both worlds.

Oldernotwiser

loftus wrote: »

There are 14 million hospital admissions and over 60 million outpatient appointments in England alone. When you consider that complaints amount to the tens of thousands (although every complaint is one too many) I think it fair to say that the majority of people receive good care.

Not necessarily; some people either have very low standards or just don't like to complain.

Our local papers often had letters thanking the hospital,mentioning the specific ward they'd been treated in. In several cases, my husband or aunt had been in exactly the same ward at the same time and the care there was appalling!

My parents called their GP out in the middle of the night when my mother was ill; he said she had a minor problem and completely missed the condition that killed her a couple of hours later! For years afterwards, my dad said what a wonderful doctor he was for coming out after hours.

I despair of people sometimes and wonder how we can ever get standards to rise with these sort of attitudes around.

loftus

I'm sorry, when 14 million in patient procedures generate 90,000 complaints thats is 0.6% - 0.7% of patients complaining. Assuming that numbers of people who receive poor care don't complain I still believe that leave an overwhelming majority of people receiving care that is, at the very least, acceptable.
To suggest that these people just have low expectations is taking an overly pessimistic and slightly patronising position.

tandraig

disagree loftus - NO-ONE should get poor care - THAT is unacceptable. except to the bean counters perhaps!

loftus

Maybe you should read my posts - a few posts above I said that every complaint is one too many.

However if you can show me one organisation that achieves perfection please do. The sad fact is that mistakes in the NHS can have devastating consequences for people.

Oldernotwiser

loftus wrote: »

To suggest that these people just have low expectations is taking an overly pessimistic and slightly patronising position.

I don't agree. Myself, husband and various relatives have had unsatisfactory treatment in more than 6 hospitals and none of us have complained, which leads me to think that the numbers who do are really a very small tip of the iceberg.

When you take an interest in your own healthcare and bother to research treatment options you get a good idea of what is best practice and can be very well aware how far standards often drop below this. If you don't realise this and you're admitted to hospital and just accept what you're given then I do think that this is a question of low expectations.

If this is a condescending attitude then so be it.

loftus

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I don't agree. Myself, husband and various relatives have had unsatisfactory treatment in more than 6 hospitals and none of us have complained, which leads me to think that the numbers who do are really a very small tip of the iceberg.

When you take an interest in your own healthcare and bother to research treatment options you get a good idea of what is best practice and can be very well aware how far standards often drop below this. If you don't realise this and you're admitted to hospital and just accept what you're given then I do think that this is a question of low expectations.

If this is a condescending attitude then so be it.

Okay lets assume that for every complaint thats made there are 10 people unhappy with their treatment that don't. That means 1,000,000 patient episodes are unsatifactory. Leaving 13,000,000 that are acceptable or better.

Oldernotwiser

loftus wrote: »

Okay lets assume that for every complaint thats made there are 10 people unhappy with their treatment that don't. That means 1,000,000 patient episodes are unsatifactory. Leaving 13,000,000 that are acceptable or better.

Would any business survive if about 7% of it's customers were dissatisfied and many of the others considered its services as no better than "acceptable"?