NHS - A & E departments in crisis???

I love watching 24 hours in A&E filmed at King's. It show's 'real people' in crisis ... how they really are. Lovely genuine people and lovely Doctors.

Is this ridiculous government still trying to convince us that the British ordinary folk are that shallow that they will go to A&E just to get a little nick on their finger seen too and it is bankrupting the NHS?
A foreign woman called an ambulance for me once when I said I had twinges in my back and I was about to go in my bag and get some painkillers. I have never been so embarrassed in my life.

Why don't this tory racketeer government just admit they hate ordinary people?

ps.not mentioning the others... that has nothing to do with what I am making a point about.

GP's are partly to blame. They mostly only work the usual 9to 5 Monday to Friday shifts, so are not available for anyone outside those rigid hours. Also a lot of the drop in centres that people could use for minor cases have been closed.

The NHS also needs to go 7 days a week. Getting ill at the weekend is a nightmare from personal experience.

There are people who abuse the a&e service like my parents doctor who will never visit and have no test equipment other than a stethoscope so they just issue a referral to the a&e department to ensure they meet nhs guidelines...I remember my dad had a bad chest and without even spending 30 seconds extra on the phone they just told my mum to ring for an ambulance to take him to the a&e and this was mid day and all he needed at the time was some basic antibiotics and they was 2-3 mins drive away from the doctors surgery and my dad was wheelchair bound due to strokes/amputation so not the easiest of patients to just turn up

The NHS is profit driven and its just that they are making the doctors the main profiteers from delivering less and less service so the a&e services become the only 'general' service someone can get that actually can deliver anything worth talking about (the actual a&e staff are great and do try...pity the system is such a clusterf--k of half arsed doctors around here)

Originally posted by happinness
Is this ridiculous government still trying to convince us that the British ordinary folk are that shallow that they will go to A&E just to get a little nick on their finger seen too and it is bankrupting the NHS?

Its probably a worldwide thing. I know someone who's been a nurse in an emergency department, and from the stories told it seems that the overwhelving vast majority of "patients" simply shouldt be there.
From mentally ill or lonely people who wander in for a chat and pretend to have something wrong to get attention, to the drug users faking illness to get medications (or just steal things while people arent looking) and people who come in because of vague undefined "dont feel 100 percent" syptoms that they should go to the doctor for.

How bad it gets is they had a book with details of *regular visitors* to the emergency department.
They were so busy they almost didnt have time to deal with actual emergencies.

I want it all re nationalized. The NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE .... Not the INTERNATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE!

In my local A&E, not King's you'd be half pressed to get anyone to string a sentence together in English and that includes the Doctors. It is organised chaos. The hospital, was on the list of the filthiest. I won't drop names on this occasion. However, it was fine before it was turned into a trust ... then the rot set in. Cutting cost's, scrimping and saving, no wonder the Doctors don't want to work there and it attracts the local born and bread staff that have just about the confidence to get on a bus, let alone work in a big city hospital. The foreign staff come over for the experience and who can blame them, they get that all right!

What happened to the Matron's Labour promised? The dirty contract cleaners, who get paid peanuts.
Meals frozen from Wales and reheated in the hospital microwave. For God sake, they can do better than this. Nye Bevan would turn in his grave. All about profit??? Doctors aren't that unreasonable either .... maybe they have had enough. They
swore on the hypocratic oath and I am sure the majority of them are trying to don their best in testing orchestrated times.

sorry for my little rant ... it is because I care and find it difficult when our health should be number one priority, not nick picking over costs. Our health is priceless. I should know. Just give the NHS the bloody money. Give them anything they want. But don't keep blaming the public, they are the product of their environment.


hx