NHS. The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent.

Fruitcake

My family have had cause to rely heavily on the NHS in the last year, with varying levels of treatment quality.

The calm voice of the Operator when my wife collapsed with chest pains.

...stay on the 'phone, is she breathing... good, help is on its way, unlock the front door, turn on an outside light, shut away any pets, get a list of her meds...

Paramedics arrived in 4 minutes, an ambulance shortly afterwards. I can honestly say that it was the closest I have ever been to panicking that night. I do not begrudge a single penny of all the tax I have ever paid when the paramedic said, "it's not a heart attack."

A few weeks later she was admitted as a day patient and dischaged the same day minus her gallbladder. A textbook operation and remarkable recovery inside two months.


My Uncle/Father-in-Law has been having various problems for a while and recently ended up in hospital with a serious infection because someone from a specialist department ignored advice. On admission, the process that caused the infection was reversed but the advice to administer IV anti-biotics by our GP was ignored. Five days later he was finally given oral anti-biotics, against advice, and he was promptly violently sick. He was sat in it for 45 minutes before he was cleaned up, and then not very well.

Overworked nursing staff I can appreciate, but indefferent and offtimes surly is not appropriate in a caring profession. Having to ask for routine charted treatments to be carried out because they had been missed is unacceptable. Nurses not using the anti-biotic hand foam between patients, including one who wiped the back of his hand across his nose before drifting off to another part of the ward is disgraceful. Nurses who wouldn't make eye contact with patients in case they were asked to do something is just plain wrong.

Then there were nurses who held patients hands and looked them in the eye when talking to them. Nurses who talked to the family members. Nurses who lifted the spirits of everyone on the ward. Nurses who kept putting off their breaks just to do one more job. The Staff Nurse who listened to us and then refused to carry out the repeat invasive procedure that caused the infection in the first place and called for a Consultant to review his case.
...and then he started to get better.
...and then he came home.
...and is getting better every day.



His GP, who read through three pages of notes and questions about his condition and the problems he had in hospital, and then re-read and answered every question in turn. The care and treatment he has given us all is unquestionably first class.


The Casualty team who fixed me up when I stupidly fell and rammed a rusty nail-head into my hand cannot be faulted.


These are just a few observations of my experience during the last twelve months. I am not trying to find fault or appoint blame for the failings of the NHS. In my experience, the bad or indifferent has been vastly outweighed by the wonderful treatment my family have received.

Praise where praise is due.
Complaint where complaint is due in the hope that things can be improved.

McKneff

Good post there frutcake :T:T

and this one for the goodies in the NHS:T:T

Raggs_2

When I was at uni I severely sprained my collarbone, went to A&E, was seen by triage in 20 mins (I wasn't emergency by any means), doctor in 40, x rayed within an hour and a half, and had seen a physio in another 20 (with a repeat booking for the next day). Same thing happened when I did the same thing to the other side. And when I sprained my knee, same again except no need for the doctor or xray, so I was out in about an hour.

I was very pleased myself. I'm happy to wait for a free service, assuming of course it's not making any large difference to my condition.

Fruitcake

I didn't mention the home care support we have had for my Uncle/FiL when it became too much for us to care for him just by ourselves. I can't even remember the names of all the different groups that were brought in to action.

Visits a from the Rapid Response Nursng team (and they were rapid when we needed them.
District Nurses.
Physiotherapy.
Care connect.

He was bathed and changed, had his "obs" taken, given his medication, results tabulated, "poked and prodded" as it were.
We had all kinds of appliances brough in to assist with his care and mobility from perching stools to pressure relieving mattresses. On loan for as long as we need them.
All joined up care from diferent departments with handover notes written up for us, and the next team to visit.
Last but not least, home visits from our most excellent GP surgery.

There were the odd mix-ups with communication between some of the departments concerned, but the actual care received from the people who visited was second to none.

We have certainly had our money's worth. :T

Angelic

I'd be here all week with the amount of experience I have with the NHS, Last time was last week and i'm glad they exist as i'd be dead without them.
I have had some negative experiences like missing letters , slow after care but I love the NHS and feel guilty when I think about how much I cost them each year.
I think the NHS is at it's best when it comes to A&E and the staff are taken for granted. I'll never know who he was but a triage nurse saved me once by admitting me (I was almost turned away ) which led to ICU and other things happening. The people who looked after me in ICU were the nicest people i've ever met and I regret being too shy to send a gift.
I'm not too happy with my local chemist but I don't think I can blame the NHS for the mistakes they have made in the last couple of years.

Fruitcake

Angelic wrote: »

I'd be here all week with the amount of experience I have with the NHS, Last time was last week and i'm glad they exist as i'd be dead without them.
I have had some negative experiences like missing letters , slow after care but I love the NHS and feel guilty when I think about how much I cost them each year.
I think the NHS is at it's best when it comes to A&E and the staff are taken for granted. I'll never know who he was but a triage nurse saved me once by admitting me (I was almost turned away ) which led to ICU and other things happening. The people who looked after me in ICU were the nicest people i've ever met and I regret being too shy to send a gift.
I'm not too happy with my local chemist but I don't think I can blame the NHS for the mistakes they have made in the last couple of years.

I think you are right. Taken on balance the care my family have received has been excellent. There have been problems and failings but these are generally isolated cases.

Maybe we have been lucky, but we have received good care when we needed it most.

crispsandwich

I'm training to be a nurse (a few months to go!) and it's ace to see that some people really do appreciate when we do our jobs properly. In my experience, we get a good kicking in the media when things go wrong but don't often get praised for what is a very difficult (but incredibly rewarding) job. Unfortunately, I have come across a lot of people who think that just because they pay taxes, hospitals should be like hotels and staff should break their backs caring for them. Last week I dealt with a VERY snotty young woman who tried to refuse to let me take 'her' (ward) fan (that she wasn't using) for me to provide for a patient who had a sudden spiking temperature. I wish everybody could appreciate that things sometimes go wrong, despite the best intentions. A lot of it has to do with poor staffing levels and poor communication. A nurse looking after 16 patients will miss a few things, unfortunately. It shouldn't happen but it does. Often. There aren't enough pairs of hands on wards full of ill people who need a lot of different cares. The attitude of some members of the public doesn't help. Neither does the fact that despite a 'zero-tolerance' policy on abuse, staff on the shop floor are often undermined by ward managers more concerned with patients' rights and potential complaints they may have to deal with. With regards to the alcohol hand-rub, I don't use it. It chaps my hands horrendously after repeated use and it should not be used as a substitute for washing with warm water and soap, which I do between all patients and procedures.

Anyway, nice post Fruitcake. I hope your Uncle is making a speedy recovery .

vyle

Sadly my experience with the NHS has been mediocre at best, and my mother in law and a good friend of mine are still suffering because of huge failings in the NHS.

They diagnosed me with quite a serious condition but didn't tell me the results of the tests. I only found out when I went to my GP for something unrelated. She went to do something and I read the diagnosis off her screen and had to quiz her about it.

I was sent to the hospital to get orthotics because of very bad hip and back pain. they gave me off the shelf ones that weren't suitable at all, but refused to make custom ones, despite my problems getting worse, so I had to buy some myself for £350. Oddly, my uncle got some made after he had some heel problems.

The physiotherapty department at my local hospital gave me exercises that actually made various injuries WORSE. They claimed I was doing them wrong until a senior physio came out and explained that I had been given the worst possible exercises for the injuries I had.

My mother in law had an epidural left in for long enough to paralyse her for a few days.

My friend, however, has had the worst luck. A failed operation on his intestines resulted in infection. They operated again to try and fix the first mistake but left a scalpel inside him, which lacerated muscles around his back and caused an infected wound that has left him without the use of his legs and on a colostomy bag.

4 years of admin errors, multiple bouts of MRSA and months spent in hospital and he has had ONE operation that went to plan, but that operation should have been in december, but they forgot to book it on the computer, only wrote it down in his appointment card. The worst thing is that that one successful operation was the fifth attempt to properly connect the colostomy bag into a stoma without breaking it, infecting the hole or failing in some other way.

I know there are a lot of people in the NHS who work very hard, but to be honest, I'd be scared sh1tless if I had to go into an NHS hospital if I needed anything serious doing. I'd rather shell out and go private.

tandraig

while i really appreciate the wonderful people in the NHS, especially those who looked after me when i was a child, my own child and saved his life a few times, somehow, its the idiots, morons, rude, incompetent ones who really stick in my mind - probably because i couldnt do anything about them!
Over the last 55 years I have seen the NHS decline, as a child I remember nurses on their hands and knees wiping up vomit. now they just leave it and eventually its cleaned up by 'hotel services'.
I remember one young doctor who used to come in on his day off to play with us kids! I associate one song with him as he often used to sing it to me as a lullaby. nowadays you are lucky if you can keep them at the bedside long enough to answer your questions. (not always their fault i know - emergencies in a & e can have them rushing off)
I remember in my teens after a car accident - being lovingly bed bathed and my hair washed by two SENs - and that made me feel 100% better.
these days I avoid my gps surgery like the plague! why? well a few years back I had a lecture from his practice nurse on my eating habits.... which are actually fine......and she weighed about twenty stone! not to mention that although i feel well - they insist on me having prescriptions - the latest one for cholesterol - had about two pages of side effects! and my cholesterol level ? well that was all of 0.2 above recommended level. and then there was my blood pressure - I need tablets for that too - initially a bit high when i was going through a court case and was stressed - but although they have been normal for a few years now - I still need to take them??? although they too have a long long list of side effects, a few of which i complained about.
huh - I have decided that enough is enough - I refuse to take the tablets. if an emergency happens i wont see the gp anyway, he doesnt do house calls. I feel ok and quite frankly - think the farther i stay away from gp the better i feel! tbh i have come to the conclusion that modern medicine is ok if you have a life threatening condition - but otherwise - stay well away!

Mrs_Ryan

tandraig wrote: »

Over the last 55 years I have seen the NHS decline, as a child I remember nurses on their hands and knees wiping up vomit. now they just leave it and eventually its cleaned up by 'hotel services'.

We're not all like that!! On the ward I work on we frequently have to clean up urine, faeces, vomit etc and we do it ourselves - just the other day I was down on my knees doing that job!!!

lindseykim13

Well this reminds me of the time i was rushed to hospital with severe lower abdo pain was treated like a hypocondriact sp? by the a+e staff made to get up to go to toilet, collapsed. Floated in and out of conciensness sp? moved from one bed to another on foot, transfered to another hosp where they finally gave me a scan 9 hours after the ambulance came to find i had seroius internal bleeding from a ruptured ovary!
You should have seen their faces and how quick they got me down for the op, i'd lost 2.5litres of blood to my stomach cavity and nobody had noticed. I'm only 26 and had 2 little ones at the time (now got 3) who could have quite easily not had their mummy thanks to them not taking me seriously. In my experience the nhs is a bloody nightmare.