How to solve the NHS funding crisis

zagubov

antrobus wrote: »

Of course that happens. Medical negligence is a fact of life.

What effect does that have on the NHS funding crisis?

In fact, even in the rabidly free-market, poorly-unionised, expensively over-lawyered US, it's one of the main causes of death.

Comms69

dotchas wrote: »

You still require equipment and a radiographer @£30000 per annum for their skill and expertise after 4 years at uni.
So no, its not practical for a GP service to provide xray facilities, also you need a radiologist to report the images.

A much quicker way to save the NHS is to get rid of unnecessary staff at management level, sitting in offices ,never having seen a ward, theatre or imaging department. They are easily identified by their ridiculously long meaningless job titles, which no-one understands.....

Which ones?

I hear this a lot ( my long meaningless job title takes me out of the office unfortunately ).

Is it HR we cut? IT? Procurements? Estates? Catering? Hotel services? Which not clinical job is so surplus to requirements?

There!!!8217;s a statistic somewhere that got every soldier in the field, the MOD has 5 people to support him or her.

The NHS is similar.

Most trusts operate on a 4-6,000 strong workforce, those staff need a strong framework around them.

vivatifosi

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

I cannot understand some of the comments by some posters.

Having been visiting my brother in hospital for going on 3 months I have seen what nurses have to do.

They also have the pressure of getting it right. I would not want the responsibility.

Glad there are those that do and they should be paid well for the difficult and valued job they do.

This would attract more to the profession and the NHS be less reliant on agency staff.

I agree. My dad died in hospital last year so I spent a lot of time on the wards. I saw nursing staff of all grades right up to matron getting involved. They had trouble getting staff, he was on a geriatric ward which they had trouble recruiting to, including HCAs.

The need to clean elderly patients and help them with their toilet needs did not go away when they couldn't get enough HCAs in to cover a shift.

westernpromise

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

Go and shadow a nurse on a medical ward for a day, or a junior doctor on call for a night, and then tell me that the NHS is run to benefit the staff!

Show me a doctor in the dock for corporate manslaughter over 1,200 deaths at Mid Staffs Hospital and tell me it's not.

LHW99

You still require equipment and a radiographer @£30000 per annum for their skill and expertise after 4 years at uni.
So no, its not practical for a GP service to provide xray facilities, also you need a radiologist to report the images.

Yet most dentists seem to manage to run an x-ray machine and interpret the x-rays. Its the sort of size that could investigate extremities for breaks, which would be a quick check to see if there was something wrong or not. Things involving larger areas of damage (skulls, ribs pelvis) probably wouldn't arrive at a GP anyway. Much of the cancer, soft tissue damage, internal bleeding investigations seem to be done with MRI or similar now which would have to be in hospitals.
There are many surgeries that can and do offer minor operations etc on the premises, which a small x-ray machine could IMO supplement.
Perhaps we do need to go to the "large centres of expertise" in major cities + small local "cottage hospital" facilities elsewhere. Unfortunately, even if it would be cost-effective and likely save lives by ensuring that specialists keep up their skills bas they would see rarer conditions more regularly, there are a lot of lobbyists whose reaction is "don't want my local hospital closed".

Red-Squirrel_2

westernpromise wrote: »

Show me a doctor in the dock for corporate manslaughter over 1,200 deaths at Mid Staffs Hospital and tell me it's not.

Have you read the Francis Report?

westernpromise

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

Have you read the Francis Report?

Let me guess, is it a whitewash?

Thrugelmir

LHW99 wrote: »

Perhaps we do need to go to the "large centres of expertise" in major cities + small local "cottage hospital" facilities elsewhere.

That's the German model. Major centres can be a considerable distance away from where you live.

Cakeguts

My mother was a radiographer. At that time they used photographic film that they had to process in a dark room. So you loaded the film into the plate in the dark room exposed it to take an x-ray of the patient and then took it back to the dark room and developed it. They had to check that they had got the right exposure and that they had an x-ray of the right part of the patient. They didn't need a degree to do this. Now you need a degree. It seems that the radiographers that are being trained now are stupid or slow learners in that with fewer skills needed and less to learn they need to get a degree. Why?

antrobus

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

The RCN is about as much as a chocolate teapot when it comes to standing up for their members.

But the question is, do they have a "role in how the NHS operates"?

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

...
If you think nurses don't do basic care and hygiene, see my advice to westernpromise above, and do the same!

What I said was that medics and nurses "normally don't get involved with cleaning up blood, p*ss and sh*t".

Don't make things up.:)

And I've spent enough time on hospital wards to know what medics, nurses, and HCAs supposed to do.