Discuss.

[Diddy]

Unless there has been an improvement since 2009 there needs to be some major --- kicking done within the NHS or certainly one of the hospitals close to me.

My dad had an operation back in 2009 and infection control on the ward was more or less non existent and my dad contracted an infection along with quite a few other patients on that ward, there was a matron over 4 wards including the one my dad was on who had no mandate to do her job properly she was on a 9 - 5 contract and her hours could not be varied yet many of the staff she was over worked permanent nights and were never spot checked by her. Myself and my brothers had a meeting with her and catalogued a number of problems we had noticed in the ward my dad was on she was horrified at what we saw going on and we were only there for a few hours each day. This is obviously still happening as I'm still talking to people who have had a knee op and got something they didn't want, an infection.

My dad left hospital in a body bag, I refused the death certificate until the cause of death was properly recorded they even tried to cover that up.

In the last 6 years I have had a number of consultations for a couple of problems the quality of which has been very varied to say the least, one was for a suspected heart problem the consultant was fantastic guy who took the time to explain that the heart murmur I had been told I had for more than 40 years was because I was plumbed differently to the normal standard, the other for shoulder problem that was caused by a misdiagnosed broken collar bone 22 years ago, I was told it was whiplash from a road accident at the time, I have never met so one size fits all practitioners while getting treatment for this who don't seem able to accept everyone is different

The NHS needs some --- kicked and could learn a lot from these private healthcare providers, I'm not saying it needs privatisation but it needs a good shake up

Sorry to hear about your father, I had very similar with my mother too. The cover ups were awful to say the least. I don't know what the answer is but I am proud of the bits of the nhs that do what they are supposed to. You do realise that private treatment in the UK generally means getting treated by the same Doctor/Surgeon or Consultant as you would if you had went NHS. Often using NHS facilities too, Not always but often.
Unfortunately these NHS employees are human and will cover their friends backs in the same way as you may cover a friends back at work, Only thing is they are dealing with people and life and death which is much more emotive than some prat ordering the wrong size of armour cable. But I do know where you are coming from having went through it with my mother, and also having myself had excellent treatment at the same hospital in different departments.

 

[UNG]

Sorry to hear about your father, I had very similar with my mother too. The cover ups were awful to say the least. I don't know what the answer is but I am proud of the bits of the nhs that do what they are supposed to. You do realise that private treatment in the UK generally means getting treated by the same Doctor/Surgeon or Consultant as you would if you had went NHS. Often using NHS facilities too, Not always but often.
Unfortunately these NHS employees are human and will cover their friends backs in the same way as you may cover a friends back at work, Only thing is they are dealing with people and life and death which is much more emotive than some prat ordering the wrong size of armour cable. But I do know where you are coming from having went through it with my mother, and also having myself had excellent treatment at the same hospital in different departments.

Consultants doing NHS and private work is nothing new, I spent 25 years doing contract work in NHS premises until 2004 it was quite common to hear of consultants, surgeons and anaesthetists doing NHS work in a morning and private in an afternoon back in the 80's. It was not unusual to hear the occasional kick off because a consultants morning clinic had over run and they were late for their private work or would have to skip lunch

 

[trev]

Mrss trev's aunt had a didgy hip which needed replacing and was told the waiting list for it was pretty long. She had come into a tidy amount of cash on the death of her husband (which he had stashed secretly over the years but that's another story) and so asked if she could go private, the GP made a call there and then and she saw a consultant (the same one she'd have waited months to see on the NHS incidentally) 2 days later. About a fortnight later she had a shiny new hip and was eventually pain free. So we al know that it happens and has done for years.
This thread was intended to be more of a discussion on the privatisation by stealth of the NHS. I don't think that patient care will improve and experience tells us that private (profit making) companies are no better at delivering services than their state ran counterparts.
Never mind, I'm in no position to complain about a thread wandering off topic or in a different direction from what it's supposed to be

 

[UNG]

Labour told us they were building new hospitals they never made it clear at the time it was going to be done using PFI's and that only the medical staff would be NHS employed and all the support staff would be transferred to the PFI company running the hospital so was that a stealth move to privatisation at the time

 

[Guest111]

What really gets my goat,and bear in mind my wife works in the nhs is that these consultants are allowed to do as much private work as they do,very often in an NHS hospital in the same theatre.Imagine how you'd feel if you found out at the last minute that the op you'd waited several months for was cancelled at the last minute,not because of an emergency,but because someone with more money than you had took your place in theatre because they could afford to pay and you couldn't.I.ve seen my wife come home stressed to hell because she's spent all day trying to contact patients and tell them tomorrows clinic is cancelled,what she can't tell them is it's because the consultant is doing a load of private work.

 

[ferg]

I'm not suggesting The NHS should be run as a business but if you ran a business in the same way the NHS is run it would collapse catastrophically.

Civil servants are absolutely notorious for wasting money on an unimaginable scale.

I have no objection to private companies being contracted to run parts of the NHS.

IF they increase standards AND reduce operating costs.

The profits they then make are a percentage of the overall savings.

The NHS itself should be able to do this but for some reason they don't, nothing changes and they take the easy option of cutting services.

 

[telectrix]

agreed. some years ago, the MD of the company i worked for had a brother who was a hospital porter. one day he was asked to take 6 huge bags of clinical waste to the incinerator. being a nosy sod, he opened a bag to find it full of brand new dressings, bandages etc. all the bags contained the same. on asking a senior nurse why they were going to the incinerator, he was told " we've got no room to store them". unbelievable.