How to get treatment?

fred246

The problem is the NHS is a political football. It needs to be independent of politics. The problem is the politicians dictate the final bill. Imagine a man giving his wife £50 to feed the family. They have another baby. She asks for more money. He says no. She buys less meat, more frozen food. Inflation runs at 5%. They have another baby. The children eat more. She asks for more money. He says economize. Food goes up in price. She asks for more. He says no. She gets stressed. The kids eat more. She needs more money. Otherwise they will starve. That's like the NHS now. It needs more money. The population is getting bigger and older. All the politicians can say is economize. All the waiting targets have been thrown out of the window. The NHS can work but the bill needs to be adjusted according to the needs of the population.

Manxman_in_exile

fred246 wrote: »

The problem is the NHS is a political football. It needs to be independent of politics. The problem is the politicians dictate the final bill. Imagine a man giving his wife £50 to feed the family. They have another baby. She asks for more money. He says no. She buys less meat, more frozen food. Inflation runs at 5%. They have another baby. The children eat more. She asks for more money. He says economize. Food goes up in price. She asks for more. He says no. She gets stressed. The kids eat more. She needs more money. Otherwise they will starve. That's like the NHS now. It needs more money. The population is getting bigger and older. All the politicians can say is economize. All the waiting targets have been thrown out of the window. The NHS can work but the bill needs to be adjusted according to the needs of the population.

Despite disagreeing (quite strongly) with your earlier posts, I tend to agree with you here.


A few random points:

• it won't get better until voters vote for more NHS spending
• we encourage reductions in smoking and drinking (with consequent immediate reductions in related income from duties) in the hope of increasing a "longer more healthy life", but we appear to have no plans whatsoever to cater for an increasingly older population with related problems (eg dementia) while still having to fund the current problems of smoking and drinking
• I think the NHS does "waste" money on issues which are social rather than health problems. We need to define clearly what is a "health need".

IIRC (I may be wrong - someone please correct me if I am) after the banking crisis and Gordon Brown had "saved the world" we (or at least NHS mental health services) were told to save 20% over the following five years. I attended cost reduction meetings where service managers were almost in tears. They and I had trusted a Labour Government.

IAmWales

I think the NHS does "waste" money on issues which are social rather than health problems. We need to define clearly what is a "health need".

That's not going to change until social care is properly funded.

IIRC (I may be wrong - someone please correct me if I am) after the banking crisis and Gordon Brown had "saved the world" we (or at least NHS mental health services) were told to save 20% over the following five years. I attended cost reduction meetings where service managers were almost in tears. They and I had trusted a Labour Government.

Do you have any further information on this please?

As a service user, I know that mental health services have always been underfunded, but it's only the past five years that I'd say they've been woefully inadequate. I'd be interested to know about funding before this period.

Manxman_in_exile

IAmWales wrote: »

That's not going to change until social care is properly funded.



Do you have any further information on this please?

As a service user, I know that mental health services have always been underfunded, but it's only the past five years that I'd say they've been woefully inadequate. I'd be interested to know about funding before this period.

On your first point I'm not necessarily referring to "social care". What I was trying to say (poorly) was that it seems to me that the NHS gets extended into areas that are not what I personally would describe as "health" problems. This will not make me popular, but I'm thinking of things like infertility treatments. Although some infertility issues can be treated "medically", I am not convinced that they ought to be covered by the NHS as what I consider "health" is not necessarily affected.


I understand that these issues may impact upon mental health, but perhaps they ought to be treated as mental health or well-being issues rather than "medical"ones. I agree that mental health services are atrociously underfunded - especially for younger people (children, adolescents and young adults).


I fully appreciate that not everybody will agree with me on this. But I do not think that these treatments are priorities when NHS budgets are effectively being cut (or at least not rising equivalently to demand).


These are often characterised as "demand" pressures on the NHS, but in reality they are "supply" pressures as medicine and science develop new treatments for conditions not previously available.


Re your second point. Well this is my recollection of ten years ago - I may very well be mistaken and will be grateful if anybody can show I am wrong. But I'm fairly certain that the big reductions in funding during the last ten years (whether described as cost improvements, service improvements or efficiency savings etc) all stemmed from Gordon Brown's decision to bail out private sector bankers. Where could the money come from, except the public sector (eg NHS mental health services)?


As I say, I could be mistaken about what happened ten years ago - and if so I apologise.


EDIT: I retired from a mental health trust over five years ago - so maybe my brain is addled!

Manxman_in_exile

IAmWales wrote: »

As a service user, I know that mental health services have always been underfunded, but it's only the past five years that I'd say they've been woefully inadequate. I'd be interested to know about funding before this period.

I've just looked for my old trust's accounts for that period (2007/08 and 2008/09) on their website and can find nothing. It's not a user friendly site.

seven-day-weekend

UPDATE: Our wonderful NHS

After waiting for several weeks, my husband has had a letter regarding his NHS appointment for his procedure:

.......There are no appointments available.


Make of that what you will.

seven-day-weekend

He was always going to go privately for this treatment, but had to wait for an NHS appointment before Benenden would help him.

Thankfully they have said they will help, but he is going to fund this procedure without their help as it is quite cheap, and save the Benenden funding for the next one to investigate a hiatus hernia, which will be a lot more.

POPPYOSCAR

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

UPDATE: Our wonderful NHS

After waiting for several weeks, my husband has had a letter regarding his NHS appointment for his procedure:

.......There are no appointments available.


Make of that what you will.

That is ridiculous!

What does your GP say?

My husband has a hernia(well three actually) he had a choice of several places to make an appointment.

seven-day-weekend

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

That is ridiculous!

What does your GP say?

My husband has a hernia(well three actually) he had a choice of several places to make an appointment.

Yes there is a choice but all he needed was a letter so that he could approach Benenden for help; therefore he went with the default one.

He hasn't seen the GP yet, the letter only arrived yesterday.

I personally think that, in the triage procedure, someone has looked at his details, decided. 'oh, nearly 70, he's not important, he can wait' and put his file in the out tray.

thepurplepixie

I recently waited 8 months for an appointment as the hospital was running that department with locum Consultants. They were running clinics on Saturdays and Sundays as I assume the locums were working in their own hospitals Monday to Friday. They can't give appointments if they haven't got the staff and the NHS is crumbling due to underfunding. It is going to get alot worse but that is what the country voted for.

I phoned up about waiting for the appointment twice and both times they apologized and explained they hadn't got a Consultant and I know that was and is true because I looked at their advertised vacancies. The good part of it was the clinic was extremely streamlined and rather than just a preliminary appointment I saw the Consultant, appropriate treatment and I was back home in an hour.