Unpopular opinion - NHS is useless
Discussion
M1AGM said:
Unions have consistently been the culprit given by consultant friends of mine as to why private throughput is so much more efficient. One consultant friend put together a business plan for how to improve his department’s productivity to reduce waiting lists and was told by the chief exec that it was a non starter due to the unions.
Often an excuse made by poor managers who can’t be bothered to do anything new or novel.Why upset the ‘way of things’ when you can do nothing and blame the unions instead?
Seen it to many times in my industry (rail) where innovations and ideas are blackballed by management blaming unions only for the unions to say “erm, what?”…
pavarotti1980 said:
Griffith4ever said:
They are our 1st point of contact other than A&E. Matters not that they are subcontactors. Our local surgery is a s
t show of rudness and agression, by the staff.
it makes a massive difference if the implication is they are NHS staff when they are employed by private contractors. That is an employer issue not the NHSt show of rudness and agression, by the staff.If someone abroad asks me to describe our wonderous "free" medical system, it starts with our GP surgeries, unless it is A&E.
Griffith4ever said:
pavarotti1980 said:
Griffith4ever said:
They are our 1st point of contact other than A&E. Matters not that they are subcontactors. Our local surgery is a st show of rudness and agression, by the staff.
it makes a massive difference if the implication is they are NHS staff when they are employed by private contractors. That is an employer issue not the NHSt show of rudness and agression, by the staff.If someone abroad asks me to describe our wonderous "free" medical system, it starts with our GP surgeries, unless it is A&E.
Griffith4ever said:
I think it's fair to say we are discussing our free-to use medical system (not specifically the NHS), and the first and ONLY point of contact to see, say, a physio, is your GP. GP surgeries are funded by the NHS. The fact they are private is neither here nor there. It's a mechanism. They are funded by the NHS, and by implication , part of it, as far as us, the consumers, see it.
If someone abroad asks me to describe our wonderous "free" medical system, it starts with our GP surgeries, unless it is A&E.
Physio is now self referral in large parts of the country. If someone abroad asks me to describe our wonderous "free" medical system, it starts with our GP surgeries, unless it is A&E.
You are correct they are contracted by the NHS the same as dentistry, community pharmacy and dentistry which nobody would regard as part of the NHS
Got Dad into hospital Thursday night after suffering with a throat infection/mouth ulcers for several weeks which was affecting his eating. They wouldn't give anything to fix it, dentist didn't want to know. He feet started to swell with water retention so they gave him tablets for it. This drove him over the edge and he had every side affect. He rung me delirious Thursday to come over but ring an ambulance. Did that, they said 4hrs but ring back if it was worse. Got there and by now his stomach was really hurting too, being totally empty. Phoned back and now it was 8hrs so I took him myself. Stayed with him all night in A&E until 5am, went to work, come back to find him still there. Went home, got bits for him and went back Saturday morning. At least now they'd moved him to a bed, then took him up to a ward. This was Saturday.
They put him on drips and didn't feed him until yesterday but throughout the whole time, no one will tell him what was going on as if they are keeping things from him. Tests all the time yet no results. Obsessed with his levels but they'll never be perfect. Being diabetic his sugar level is now all over the place as all the things they are giving him are way too sweet. It was all under control and almost gone before he went in. He's compos mentis and has been the whole time. He's more than ready to go home. He can feed himself so he'll be fine but they're still insistent they need to keep an eye but not say why. He feels a lot of it is going through the motions without much purpose. Lot of double handling and faff which drives him nuts. It's amazing how inefficient the NHS is. No wonder it's pissing money away. He isn't getting a good nights sleep because the drip is on overnight and every 30mins or if he moves it alarms. I'll leave it until Friday but I really don't see why he can't come home, even if he stays with me a week just to be sure. He's 69 but is pretty fit, always walks to do a shop, does 3-5 miles a day normally. He just wants to get back to it.
They put him on drips and didn't feed him until yesterday but throughout the whole time, no one will tell him what was going on as if they are keeping things from him. Tests all the time yet no results. Obsessed with his levels but they'll never be perfect. Being diabetic his sugar level is now all over the place as all the things they are giving him are way too sweet. It was all under control and almost gone before he went in. He's compos mentis and has been the whole time. He's more than ready to go home. He can feed himself so he'll be fine but they're still insistent they need to keep an eye but not say why. He feels a lot of it is going through the motions without much purpose. Lot of double handling and faff which drives him nuts. It's amazing how inefficient the NHS is. No wonder it's pissing money away. He isn't getting a good nights sleep because the drip is on overnight and every 30mins or if he moves it alarms. I'll leave it until Friday but I really don't see why he can't come home, even if he stays with me a week just to be sure. He's 69 but is pretty fit, always walks to do a shop, does 3-5 miles a day normally. He just wants to get back to it.
KobayashiMaru86 said:
Got Dad into hospital Thursday night after suffering with a throat infection/mouth ulcers for several weeks which was affecting his eating. They wouldn't give anything to fix it, dentist didn't want to know. He feet started to swell with water retention so they gave him tablets for it. This drove him over the edge and he had every side affect. He rung me delirious Thursday to come over but ring an ambulance. Did that, they said 4hrs but ring back if it was worse. Got there and by now his stomach was really hurting too, being totally empty. Phoned back and now it was 8hrs so I took him myself. Stayed with him all night in A&E until 5am, went to work, come back to find him still there. Went home, got bits for him and went back Saturday morning. At least now they'd moved him to a bed, then took him up to a ward. This was Saturday.
They put him on drips and didn't feed him until yesterday but throughout the whole time, no one will tell him what was going on as if they are keeping things from him. Tests all the time yet no results. Obsessed with his levels but they'll never be perfect. Being diabetic his sugar level is now all over the place as all the things they are giving him are way too sweet. It was all under control and almost gone before he went in. He's compos mentis and has been the whole time. He's more than ready to go home. He can feed himself so he'll be fine but they're still insistent they need to keep an eye but not say why. He feels a lot of it is going through the motions without much purpose. Lot of double handling and faff which drives him nuts. It's amazing how inefficient the NHS is. No wonder it's pissing money away. He isn't getting a good nights sleep because the drip is on overnight and every 30mins or if he moves it alarms. I'll leave it until Friday but I really don't see why he can't come home, even if he stays with me a week just to be sure. He's 69 but is pretty fit, always walks to do a shop, does 3-5 miles a day normally. He just wants to get back to it.
That sounds terrible, your poor Dad. Of course, his levels are going to be all over the place if he isn't getting a good nights sleep. I hope you get everything sorted quickly and you can get him home. They put him on drips and didn't feed him until yesterday but throughout the whole time, no one will tell him what was going on as if they are keeping things from him. Tests all the time yet no results. Obsessed with his levels but they'll never be perfect. Being diabetic his sugar level is now all over the place as all the things they are giving him are way too sweet. It was all under control and almost gone before he went in. He's compos mentis and has been the whole time. He's more than ready to go home. He can feed himself so he'll be fine but they're still insistent they need to keep an eye but not say why. He feels a lot of it is going through the motions without much purpose. Lot of double handling and faff which drives him nuts. It's amazing how inefficient the NHS is. No wonder it's pissing money away. He isn't getting a good nights sleep because the drip is on overnight and every 30mins or if he moves it alarms. I'll leave it until Friday but I really don't see why he can't come home, even if he stays with me a week just to be sure. He's 69 but is pretty fit, always walks to do a shop, does 3-5 miles a day normally. He just wants to get back to it.
It’s often interesting listening to people who don’t work in the NHS commenting and recycling the tropes they have heard secondhand, or what they think is happening. Of course lived experiences are important, but there are circa 1.7 million GP contacts a day in this country, with a huge amount of good work been done, yet the budget for primary care doesn’t reflect that demand. There are going to be issues with that level of demand, but let’s not pretend that there aren’t millions of patients dealt with efficiently and effectively everyday by primary care. The problems are exacerbated by a number of things.
My wife works for the NHS in a nursing role. She is allowed to work from home a couple of days a week (virtual and telephone clinics) which is great for her, the environment on saved travel and means real office space isn't needed but I am baffled at how disjointed the NHS is and how it controls GDPR and even basic efficient processes...
They don't provide company laptops and instead expect you to log in via a secure remote vpn connection on your own personal laptop. A bit tight and on the face of it it's pretty secure however they don't provide any Office 365 licences and they have to access Outlook, Word via the web.
There are things you can't do on the web based versions, and features such as saving a copy of an email from a webbased outlook is turned off (although you can print as a pdf.... ). I see why they might have turned off that feature to prevent you copying it out of the vpn however their IT helpdesk asks YOU to buy a personal office365 subscription and they then configure your work email to download into full fat client outlook on your personal computer outside of the VPN negating any security.
I refused to buy the office 365 licence and stopped them in their tracks as I don't need the subscription nor do i see why I should be paying for it. However it got me thinking - there must be loads of personal laptops out there with NHS email and patient data saved on non encrypted devices....
Don't get me onto snipping tool used on a personal machine to take screen shots of hospital systems as a means to jot down/remember data whilst doing some other administration. I do not understand how the NHS can be compliant with GDPR in the way it operates. I really don't think anyone who is in post responsible for IT, Compliance and Technology has any clue of the roles and use cases of their systems.
Oh and they don't provide company mobile phones so all telephone clinics are performed on my wife's personal mobile phone, including, sometimes, text messaging with patients. Mental.
They don't provide company laptops and instead expect you to log in via a secure remote vpn connection on your own personal laptop. A bit tight and on the face of it it's pretty secure however they don't provide any Office 365 licences and they have to access Outlook, Word via the web.
There are things you can't do on the web based versions, and features such as saving a copy of an email from a webbased outlook is turned off (although you can print as a pdf.... ). I see why they might have turned off that feature to prevent you copying it out of the vpn however their IT helpdesk asks YOU to buy a personal office365 subscription and they then configure your work email to download into full fat client outlook on your personal computer outside of the VPN negating any security.
I refused to buy the office 365 licence and stopped them in their tracks as I don't need the subscription nor do i see why I should be paying for it. However it got me thinking - there must be loads of personal laptops out there with NHS email and patient data saved on non encrypted devices....
Don't get me onto snipping tool used on a personal machine to take screen shots of hospital systems as a means to jot down/remember data whilst doing some other administration. I do not understand how the NHS can be compliant with GDPR in the way it operates. I really don't think anyone who is in post responsible for IT, Compliance and Technology has any clue of the roles and use cases of their systems.
Oh and they don't provide company mobile phones so all telephone clinics are performed on my wife's personal mobile phone, including, sometimes, text messaging with patients. Mental.
VeeReihenmotor6 said:
My wife works for the NHS in a nursing role. She is allowed to work from home a couple of days a week (virtual and telephone clinics) which is great for her, the environment on saved travel and means real office space isn't needed but I am baffled at how disjointed the NHS is and how it controls GDPR and even basic efficient processes...
They don't provide company laptops and instead expect you to log in via a secure remote vpn connection on your own personal laptop. A bit tight and on the face of it it's pretty secure however they don't provide any Office 365 licences and they have to access Outlook, Word via the web.
There are things you can't do on the web based versions, and features such as saving a copy of an email from a webbased outlook is turned off (although you can print as a pdf.... ). I see why they might have turned off that feature to prevent you copying it out of the vpn however their IT helpdesk asks YOU to buy a personal office365 subscription and they then configure your work email to download into full fat client outlook on your personal computer outside of the VPN negating any security.
I refused to buy the office 365 licence and stopped them in their tracks as I don't need the subscription nor do i see why I should be paying for it. However it got me thinking - there must be loads of personal laptops out there with NHS email and patient data saved on non encrypted devices....
Don't get me onto snipping tool used on a personal machine to take screen shots of hospital systems as a means to jot down/remember data whilst doing some other administration. I do not understand how the NHS can be compliant with GDPR in the way it operates. I really don't think anyone who is in post responsible for IT, Compliance and Technology has any clue of the roles and use cases of their systems.
Oh and they don't provide company mobile phones so all telephone clinics are performed on my wife's personal mobile phone, including, sometimes, text messaging with patients. Mental.
That's strange, my wife does a similar NHS role and has a laptop and phone provided, even had an office chair delivered for her. They don't provide company laptops and instead expect you to log in via a secure remote vpn connection on your own personal laptop. A bit tight and on the face of it it's pretty secure however they don't provide any Office 365 licences and they have to access Outlook, Word via the web.
There are things you can't do on the web based versions, and features such as saving a copy of an email from a webbased outlook is turned off (although you can print as a pdf.... ). I see why they might have turned off that feature to prevent you copying it out of the vpn however their IT helpdesk asks YOU to buy a personal office365 subscription and they then configure your work email to download into full fat client outlook on your personal computer outside of the VPN negating any security.
I refused to buy the office 365 licence and stopped them in their tracks as I don't need the subscription nor do i see why I should be paying for it. However it got me thinking - there must be loads of personal laptops out there with NHS email and patient data saved on non encrypted devices....
Don't get me onto snipping tool used on a personal machine to take screen shots of hospital systems as a means to jot down/remember data whilst doing some other administration. I do not understand how the NHS can be compliant with GDPR in the way it operates. I really don't think anyone who is in post responsible for IT, Compliance and Technology has any clue of the roles and use cases of their systems.
Oh and they don't provide company mobile phones so all telephone clinics are performed on my wife's personal mobile phone, including, sometimes, text messaging with patients. Mental.
Onelastattempt said:
That's strange, my wife does a similar NHS role and has a laptop and phone provided, even had an office chair delivered for her.
Same for daughter. She had two phones, normal work one and duty one, so with her personal mobile was carrying three around. However they’ve just done away with the mobiles and moved to voip which does rather tie her to the laptop, but OTOH means once her laptop is shut she’s not being bothered.I think all NHS staff can get a M365 licence.
98elise said:
I thought I'd add to this thread having experienced terrible NHS inefficiency yet again.
My mother is having cancer treatment at the moment which means dealing with a surgical, oncology, CT, MRI etc.
Appointments seem to be chaotic with text reminders for appointments she hasn't had. Forms not done. Confusion as to what the appointments are for.
Multiple times we've raised her prosthetic heart valve when having CT, MIR etc and they never seem to know if it's ok and expect her to find out in each case.
Today we attended her first radiotherapy appointment (a CT scan) and again it was chaos. She only knew there was an appointment because of a text reminder (no paperwork had been sent and consent forms haven't been done). When we got there we asked about the heart valve and radiotherapy and they didn't know, so they cancelled the CT and asked her to find out with the heart surgeon (so a wasted CT scan).
Surely knowing if certain procedures are ok with a prosthetic heart valve is something doctors should be consulting each other about, not an elderly person being the go between!
Edited to add...
Now spoken to the Oncologist who has said the valve is fine for radiotherapy, and another appointment is booked. I still find it very odd that an 80yo patient the one liaising between doctors about what's safe and what's not!
To continue the saga we attended her first radiotherapy appointment today (the first of 15). I'm taking her to and from hospital so it's taking a bit of planning. In the past few weeks we have had 3 different sets of appointments sent to her!My mother is having cancer treatment at the moment which means dealing with a surgical, oncology, CT, MRI etc.
Appointments seem to be chaotic with text reminders for appointments she hasn't had. Forms not done. Confusion as to what the appointments are for.
Multiple times we've raised her prosthetic heart valve when having CT, MIR etc and they never seem to know if it's ok and expect her to find out in each case.
Today we attended her first radiotherapy appointment (a CT scan) and again it was chaos. She only knew there was an appointment because of a text reminder (no paperwork had been sent and consent forms haven't been done). When we got there we asked about the heart valve and radiotherapy and they didn't know, so they cancelled the CT and asked her to find out with the heart surgeon (so a wasted CT scan).
Surely knowing if certain procedures are ok with a prosthetic heart valve is something doctors should be consulting each other about, not an elderly person being the go between!
Edited to add...
Now spoken to the Oncologist who has said the valve is fine for radiotherapy, and another appointment is booked. I still find it very odd that an 80yo patient the one liaising between doctors about what's safe and what's not!
Edited by 98elise on Wednesday 9th August 12:19
When we arrived they tell us we've come at the wrong time, and the time we have for tomorrow's is also wrong (even though they provided the schedule).
We ask if they can give us the revised times for the next 14 appointments and they say there is no point as they are likely to change. The best we can do is ask when to come in next, at each appointment.
Slowboathome said:
Whole thing is a complete lottery.
I've generally had excellent care. My mate - 40 miles away has had some shocking experiences.
This seems to be the crux of it - either the care is first class with a whole team of people looking out for you or the patient is the one doing all the admin, chasing up appointment dates, printing off blood test forms, etc. I've generally had excellent care. My mate - 40 miles away has had some shocking experiences.
Sheepshanks said:
Onelastattempt said:
That's strange, my wife does a similar NHS role and has a laptop and phone provided, even had an office chair delivered for her.
Same for daughter. She had two phones, normal work one and duty one, so with her personal mobile was carrying three around. However they’ve just done away with the mobiles and moved to voip which does rather tie her to the laptop, but OTOH means once her laptop is shut she’s not being bothered.I think all NHS staff can get a M365 licence.
MesoForm said:
Slowboathome said:
Whole thing is a complete lottery.
I've generally had excellent care. My mate - 40 miles away has had some shocking experiences.
This seems to be the crux of it - either the care is first class with a whole team of people looking out for you or the patient is the one doing all the admin, chasing up appointment dates, printing off blood test forms, etc. I've generally had excellent care. My mate - 40 miles away has had some shocking experiences.
Red9zero said:
MesoForm said:
Slowboathome said:
Whole thing is a complete lottery.
I've generally had excellent care. My mate - 40 miles away has had some shocking experiences.
This seems to be the crux of it - either the care is first class with a whole team of people looking out for you or the patient is the one doing all the admin, chasing up appointment dates, printing off blood test forms, etc. I've generally had excellent care. My mate - 40 miles away has had some shocking experiences.
said:
Interestingly though, You could only use the pool laptop if you have your own smart phone as you need access to google authenticator.
I also noted that some of the nurses are now getting their work emails on their personal mobile phones...I did wonder how secure this is, as if the phone gets stolen you're relying on the user of that phone to ensure it is secure.
Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff