anyone got faith in the NHS?

I think the NHS could do with some improvement, but for what it is I think it is a good service.

The bureaucracy is frustrating, but for the most part, the staff work their hardest with the resources they have.

If you can afford private healthcare, fair enough, but for those that cannot, rest assured there are still many disillusioned, stressed, overworked, but nevertheless, truly caring individuals within the NHS.

[Shellywoozle]

I have NO faith.

You know my story, broken arm and I under the care of a foot surgeon. His registrars left me in a sling for 8 weeks and when the foot surgeon saw me all he could say was oooh you better have physio cause you have left it in the sling too long. Oh and you're arm isn't healing. At no time did anyone physically touch my arm/shoulder.

I ended up going to my GP and they referred me to another hospital.

In the meantime the foot doctor decided he didn't know what to do and referred me to arm surgeon who booked me in for an op without seeing me. Only to cancel it the day before and said come back in 3 weeks.

Oh and you can go back to work, it's not mending on X-ray but it is mending in theory so off ya go back to work .... my job is very active and I need my arm.

I am still off sick 3 months later and getting rather depressed ..... NHS sucks!

[northwind]

I do. I've had some ****-ups but some brilliant results, it all balances out. Well, I think so anyway. The care I've had for my diabetes, the world beating standard and advancement of the surgery on my leg, and the excellent physio and backup I've had since has all been simply brilliant, and the fix they did on my leg is still considered cutting edge 2 years later, and pretty rare in the rest of the world. If they'd done the traditional hip replacement, I'd not be able to do half of what I can now, I'd have loss of mobility and probably a fair amount of pain, and I'd have more surgery to look forwards when it wore out (every 7-10 years). As it is, I'm a wee bit gimpy but I can walk, jump, ride a bike, even run a bit. That's beyond valuing...

But, they did make a complete **** up of my treatment for coeliac disease, which is probably why I'm osteoperotic at 27, which is probably why I broke my hip in the first place... So, I have no faith at all in that particular department, but the NHS in general have been brilliant for me.

2 months ago I was dischared after my latest bike stunt, this time I've had no problems with the bone side, found everything that was broken and did a good job at fixing me up. Physio was great etc...

Internal injuries though, after them being unable to determine what was causing my problems, they claimed it was stress, and discharged me at that, (only thing they found was a bruised liver and a bit of internal bleeding). Now I'm still having eating and breathing problems, and my doctor is experimenting with medication rather than refering me to a specialist... I wouldn't mind if it was something small like hartburn, but this is eating and breathing, stuff that you don't wanna screw about with... the orthopoedics have said to my doctor that he should refer me to an internal specialist in the hospital, but he's too arogant to do anything. So yes I am loosing my faith.

Originally Posted by Shellywoozle

I have NO faith.

You know my story, broken arm and I under the care of a foot surgeon. His registrars left me in a sling for 8 weeks and when the foot surgeon saw me all he could say was oooh you better have physio cause you have left it in the sling too long. Oh and you're arm isn't healing. At no time did anyone physically touch my arm/shoulder.

I ended up going to my GP and they referred me to another hospital.

In the meantime the foot doctor decided he didn't know what to do and referred me to arm surgeon who booked me in for an op without seeing me. Only to cancel it the day before and said come back in 3 weeks.

Oh and you can go back to work, it's not mending on X-ray but it is mending in theory so off ya go back to work .... my job is very active and I need my arm.

I am still off sick 3 months later and getting rather depressed ..... NHS sucks!

its my idea to go back to work i'm really really bored i'll just sort mail with one hand

I set up a private medical scheme for my team. However I have cancelled it as Standard Life found any excuse not to pay and left me with a £600 bill.

So we're back to the NHS.

Anne has had a few scares and goes to the boob clinic at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford, under the care of Mr Christopher Hinton. He is simply fantastic. He does surgery in the morning, clinic in the afternoon. If any woman - or man, I occasionally see men there - is worried he makes sure that they are seen that week, even if the clinic goes on till 9pm. It's a terrific service and one that we in Shropshire are most fortunate to have.

Originally Posted by Ed

I set up a private medical scheme for my team. However I have cancelled it as Standard Life found any excuse not to pay and left me with a £600 bill.

Hmmm - I think we are with Standard Life must check it in the morning.

I've only ever had one really bad experience in the UK - 5 years ago though with our local hospital - hopefully it has changed. Overall I thought the facilities and services were sub-standard compared to Australia and Denmark though - the only other systems I have used.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by graemepaterson

I'm unlikely to use the NHS

That's what I said too!

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Speaking of funds, the NHS budget has trebbled in the last 10 years.

How can any trusts complain about being broke, where has all the money gone?!

Modern medicine is expensive. Take me frinstance, my hip op costs apparently 10 times as much as a simple hip replacement! (taking into account the huge level of training needed to do it) But it works far better. The physio costs massively more too, since after a hip replacement they'd have got me walking again, and there'd be no point putting in the hundreds of hours it took to get me actually fixed- I'd just never have been able to reach this point.

They keep people alive for years on constant medication who would simply have died a decade ago. Untreatable conditions have become treatable or even curable. Newer and better hardware comes along that needs to be bought. It all costs. And if they don't offer the latest million pound service, it's all over the press. Of course, I'm sure they p*** a lot against the wall too but it's not all red tape and nonmedical costs.

Originally Posted by drefraser

Another issue is that doctors can be arrogant and poor communicators but most of the problems I've seen described above are related to the time pressure in the system not allowing good explanations to happen.

In my experience, the worse the communication, the better the doctor I suppose if you can't talk to other human beings, you must have to be better at your job to compensate!

Mainly from other people experinces the standard of care seems to vary wildly. Doctors/Nurses have a very difficult job to do and when they mess up it is very easy to point the finger, lets face very few of us get through a day without making some sort of mistake.

However I have also seen a friend HR going v.high while lying in bed and nurses doing nothing, at the end of the day they should of reasured him. Although they might have seen it before he (or me) hadn't. I also know of someone who was droped and brain damaged on the operating table. Of my brief experince of hosplitals they arnt always the cleanest nicest places in the world and I really object to paying for parking when you are visiting, sound riddiculous but its something you could do without.

Then agian I have recived good care from hospitals, my main gripe is my local GP's who seem to think you are fine unless you are lying on the floor dying.

I have EVERY faith in the NHS. A search on my recent posts will reveal infuriation with the red tape and paperwork but when the brown stuff hits the fan the front line staff have literally saved my life on several occasions now.

My only complaint with doctors, and it's specific to doctors, is the communication. It's probably down to the pressure to make an instant diagnosis, but in relatively uncharted waters like neurology it seems every doctor comes up with a different diagnosis but then presents that like it's 100% definite and sure fire. Sometimes just saying "we don't know, but we have a fair idea how to fix it" is fine, rather than being told with complete authority two completely different things. I work in IT, I can therefore spot professional bullpoo a mile off (the IT industry probably invented it), offer your best guess for sure, just don't present it like it's a 100% fact

The other gripe won't really affect us until we're way passed motorbike riding age, but it's the way they treated my grandad on his hospital death bed. He was admitted in November, all the staff were proudly wearing their poppies and failed to see the irony of how they just wrote off the elderly dying man who actually earned his poppy by fighting in the very wars the poppy remembers (ok, so not the fields of Flanders, but WW2).