Nurses: The NHS is at breaking point

[GroundEffect]

Joey Ramone said:

fatandwheezing said:

That means every employee costs on average about £23 per day, plus this also covers all the facilities drugs and stuff. Sounds like a bargain to me.

Nope

NHS costs £106 billion per year, which is just under £300 million per day.

I don't know what that does to your employee costs exactly but I'm guessing you're looking at... a lot.

And the monumental drug costs? My mother is a pharmacist specialising in oncology. For ~150 patients she spends £6M a WEEK on medication.

And the other overheads? I'm sure powering, watering and maintaining a hospital is free, right?

[pim]

Whatever the N.H.S cost it isn't going on Nurses salaries.

My daughter is a Mental Health nurse and she hasn't had a pay rise for six years..

There are so many pressures on the often underspend mental health part of the N.H.S.

Nobody really has a answer regarding the health service.I was watching a program where surgeons where involved in deciding the availability of beds.Crazy system.

[alfie2244]

According to my OH, 40yrs in NHS, now retired but doing interim...........Hospital where she is currently - 700 beds and according to her 180 blocked with people that shouldn't be there (similar in all Trust she has been in since retiring)....big part of the problem I would say.

[Murph7355]

pim said:

...
Nobody really has a answer regarding the health service.I was watching a program where surgeons where involved in deciding the availability of beds.Crazy system.

There is no answer.

You could double spending and there will still be people dying (people are very good at that) and people who don't get access to the latest treatments.

We have to stop thinking of the NHS as "free" (it very much isn't) and we have to start providing service against what can be afforded (we are still running a heavy deficit and have what, 1.5tn of National Debt).

It also needs to not be a political football. Give it a budget and then get the politicians out of there.

[Sheepshanks]

pim said:

Whatever the N.H.S cost it isn't going on Nurses salaries.

My daughter is a Mental Health nurse and she hasn't had a pay rise for six years..

Has she been at the top of her pay scale band for 6 years?

[pim]

Sheepshanks said:

Has she been at the top of her pay scale band for 6 years?

She is at top of her payscale now.I believe it is under £30.000.

She loves the job and I am quite proud of her that she choice this career.

[Plymo]

The amount of money wasted on non-healthcare stuff is what amazes me.
A few months back I was working for a company that provided security guards for "bed watch" which is basically protecting doctors/nurses from violent patients (quite a few were dementia sufferers, others were on drugs etc). The guards were paid £120 for a 12 hour shift.

BUT: NHS pays parking/security contractor (if they wanted to do the parking they had to provide security as well as part of the contract) about £400 per shift.
Then the parking/security contractor pays another security company £300 per shift.

So a service that should cost £120 costs the NHS £400! apparently it is not that unusual.


I didn't do the bed watch myself, I was working for this security company directing traffic around the hospital as they had road works being done - this was funded by a similar arrangement mostly paid for by the council (I think!), who paid the roadworks contractor, who paid this security company to pay 3 guys to stand in the middle of a road all day trying to get people to obey the signs and diversions they had put up.

The amount of people who ignored it or got very abusive with us is a topic for another discussion in itself though...

[pim]

I did some security work in hospitals after I retired.Believe me the pay was very low for long shifts and a lot of hassle.

The security guards in our case never got the money they deserved that problaby went to the top.

[jjlynn27]

pim said:

Whatever the N.H.S cost it isn't going on Nurses salaries.

My daughter is a Mental Health nurse and she hasn't had a pay rise for six years..

There are so many pressures on the often underspend mental health part of the N.H.S.

Nobody really has a answer regarding the health service.I was watching a program where surgeons where involved in deciding the availability of beds.Crazy system.

While waiting for a friend to end his shift and finish handover, I've seen an in-patient attack on mh nurse, pulled hair, spitting with obligatory screaming and name calling. Luckily, two porters were near by to restrain the patient.

That same nurse will in course of her day have to deal with rejects who'll come to check if she is rushed enough according to their rushness scale or if she dares to stop for a minute and pick up the catalogue. Then she'll have to smile when above mentioned dregs of society tell her how they pay her salary.

[sidicks]

pim said:

She is at top of her payscale now.I believe it is under £30.000.

She loves the job and I am quite proud of her that she choice this career.

Hypothetically, and assuming she was on a salary of £30k, do you think would she prefer an uplift to her salary of (say) 20% to £36k, but with no pension?

Edited by sidicks on Friday 13th January 09:16

[Plymo]

pim said:

I did some security work in hospitals after I retired.Believe me the pay was very low for long shifts and a lot of hassle.

The security guards in our case never got the money they deserved that problaby went to the top.

I can believe that! With this company the guards were on £10/hr, but the company before paid the minimum wage.
All were zero hours so no job security or paid holidays.

[Derek Smith]

markcoznottz said:

Oh right so people are living longer so just keep paying for them, suck it up basically. NHS spend was peanuts in your day, even inflation adjusted. Maybe you could donate some of your ridiculous coppers bribe, sorry I mean pension to the NHS.

Ah! Jealousy.

I paid to keep old people alive in my time. I took very little out. I didn't moan about it, or complain that life hadn't been fair to me, or invent things to get upset about.

I'd point out that I still do pay taxes which help go to support the institutions, but I won' because it might upset you.

[s1962a]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/11/nhs-rec...

And YOU'RE paying for it!

[Derek Smith]

Murph7355 said:

There is no answer.

There is a simple answer, one that would work for state schools as well:

Every MP should be banned from accessing private health care. They'd soon sort it out then.

[pim]

You can never blame the patients it is very difficult for some people to function in our cut throat society.

One of my sons was diagnosed with schipzophrenia at the age of seventeen.He is 47 now and due to the right medication is living a reasonable good live.At first as parents we went through hell when we found out.Very little help for us and him at first.I used to visit him regulary in a building similar to One flew over the cuckoo's nest film.What got me he was and is very bright one of the best in his class to go in the Merchant Navy.I can tell you many stories how we had to cope with it all and the situations he has been in through his live.

Maybe seeing her brother how he had to cope that his sister choose this career after UNI.

[Digga]

jjlynn27 said:

I don't see why would you take last bit 'out'. Do you believe that population is getting healthier?

Gradully, drip, drip, drip, it is being forced onto us, smoking has been pretty successfully demonised, drinking and obesity soon to follow IMHO>

markcoznottz said:

Too many people in this country just dint give a fk and have no interpersonal skills. Plus it's all 'free'. It's also too easy to just 'bump along' in this country and do ok, not amazing but not living in a cardboard box.

There is no excuse, and I think it should be possible for hospitals to exclude the worst offenders.

As a general aside, WRT not just to hospitals but also GPs, it is always easier to get an appointment for a dog at a vet than to see a GP. The NHS might ponder that; prevention is usually better than cure. De-cluttering the surgeries of people requiring long-term geriatric care would be a start.

[nikaiyo2]

Luther Blissett said:

I know facts don't matter but we're really not that inefficient...

I think those figures are usually quite deceptive and don't compare like for like. A guy I know who was a director of social services for a major County Council told me that most of the European figures include a lot of spending that we fund outside of the NHS. Nursing homes for instance in France and Germany are "health care" and in those figures, the UK it is LA spending not NHS.
I am sure he told me that France health spending includes the cost of Glasses.

[WestyCarl]

In an organisation the size of the NHS there will also be some examples of waste, however I don't think this is the issue.

The main issue is the NHS is unsustainable due to;

Higher demand
- more "self inflicted" health issues such as obesity, diabetes, alocohol, drugs, etc
- longer life expectancy, reduced community care for the aged
- illnesses now treatable (25yrs ago they weren't)

Higher cost
- New drugs / treatments are more expensive.

I'm not sure of the solution but this is the "elephant" in the room that no politician wants to talk about due to the NHS "being sacred"
Until we "redefine" what we want the NHS to be in the 21st century, we'll lurch from one crisis to another with no real action.

[ucb]

s1962a said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/11/nhs-rec...

And YOU'RE paying for it!

Well Hunt did say they would find an extra 5000 GPs

http://www.gponline.com/conservatives-pledge-5000-...

[RicksAlfas]

The NHS will always be at breaking point, until the powers that be recognise that it is no longer a sustainable service in this day and age.

It was a wonderful creation, and the envy of the world when it started in the late 1940s, but with the cost of looking after our ever increasing and ageing population, it simply isn't sustainable to keep going in the same way.

But for many people it's ingrained in their psyche. They just need an NHS. They expect it to be there. Because of this, politicians skirt round the issue as it's a taboo subject, so it will never be sorted out. What was once so great has become a millstone round our neck.

There should be a £10 charge a day to enter a hospital. It can include parking and a cup of tea, but when you enter the hospital as a patient or a visitor it's £10 no matter what.