TaxiDriver Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 I think the OP has it right to a degree. If I'm unwell and try and get an appointment at the Dr's, I can't get an appointment to see my GP for several weeks (but you're Not Allowed to book an appointment weeks ahead) so usually end up not bothering. If needs be (usually Asthma related) and I need emergency treatment I'll drag myself to A&E and crawl in on my hands n knees mid asthma attack then get told off for either A. Not going to my Dr's before it got that bad B. Not phoning for an ambulance My dad despite living a healthy and active lifestyle was diagnosed as needing an 'urgent triple bypass' He waited 3+ years and had a massive heart attack and died on the spot, 3 days later the hospital contacted him with the great news that they could have him in early ******* So yeah ........NHS = No Hope of Survival We'll leave you long enough, You won't need us Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
39TDS Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Immigration must be part of it because whenever I go into a hospital it strikes me that a very small proportion of the people working in them were born here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-G Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 My sister needs an operation on her back, she's been told it'll get done a lot quicker if she goes private - but of course it will cost her. We don't know the cost to the NHS if she waits longer for it so to be fair I can't say with certainty that the doctor gets more money out of it. There is obviously a reason for offering the private option quicker - it may not be financial but who knows? I do know that the medical centre I am registered with used to have full waiting rooms for about 12 doctors and we sometimes couldn't get an appointment till next day and then we'd wait there to be seen maybe an hour later than the appointment time. These days there are about 5 doctors there and we now have to almost get abusive to get an appointment within a week - by which time the issue may have got better or worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iano Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 In Ireland you pay 60 Euros to visit your GP, It costs you 100-130 Euros to present at A&E and a night in hospital is (I think, don't quote me) about 100 Euros. They don't have a Crisis, funny that don't you think? We sort of do; we have an A+E crisis in that over December there were 600 people waiting on trolleys in A+E. This is normally below 100. Its a large spend for us also, but it isn't out of control. I think the OP has it right to a degree. If I'm unwell and try and get an appointment at the Dr's, I can't get an appointment to see my GP for several weeks (but you're Not Allowed to book an appointment weeks ahead) so usually end up not bothering. If needs be (usually Asthma related) and I need emergency treatment I'll drag myself to A&E and crawl in on my hands n knees mid asthma attack then get told off for either A. Not going to my Dr's before it got that bad B. Not phoning for an ambulance My dad despite living a healthy and active lifestyle was diagnosed as needing an 'urgent triple bypass' He waited 3+ years and had a massive heart attack and died on the spot, 3 days later the hospital contacted him with the great news that they could have him in early ******* So yeah ........NHS = No Hope of Survival We'll leave you long enough, You won't need us Sorry to hear that. We cover this through health insurance. I pay for private insurance (c. €98 a month) and this means that I can get access to private hospitals, but, more importantly, if I want a procedure done (be it important like cardiac or preventative like something orthopedic, my insurance company pays and I get treatment very quickly). If you don't have insurance, the procedure is free but there is a waiting list. I recently had an MRI done on my knees. Because I was private, I was able to get the scan done and the results back within a week of my GP telling me it was needed. If I were a public patient (no insurance), I think the wait would have been 6-8 months for the scan and then another month for the results to come back to me. The A+E charge is for everyone, my health insurance covers most of it (I think I have to pay 20 quid), unless you have a GP referral in which case there is no charge. We have the same problem you have in that elderly people are clogging up the system because they have no senior care facilities to go to, and their families won't take them back home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sussexboy Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 I agree with the commentators about the bed blocking from elderly patients. I lost my mum last year. She spent the last 12 weeks of her life in a hospital bed because there were no nursing home places available to give the 24hr nursing care that she needed. Even if we had room at home we did not have the skills needed to look after her. During this time the eight bed ward she was in did not change much in the patients contained there. Also, as I have contact with many hospitals worldwide on a professional basis, we in the U.K. have a huge management problem. There are far too many managers per bed in most hospitals. The frontline staff are on the whole dedicated and very competent, but extremely overworked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pigeon controller Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 My observation of the situation with bed blocking is as follows:- When you were non clinical you were sent to a sanatorium or convalesnt home to free the bed. Locally we have had three very large mental institutions closed and made into housing estates, these inmates now block beds and also cause major problems in the service sector. Reported Tuesday, a woman phoned the 999 ambulance service eight time in one evening. The care system , Old People homes has become an industry creating profits , they are aware of the old having capital invested in property. A girl at the stables has been quoted £ 1000.00 a week for her mother to have 24 hour care. My daughter has informed me that she will look after me if I need it and throw a few crusts into the Man Cave?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norfolk dumpling Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 We have 'enjoyed' more than our fair share of the NHS over the past 5/6 years (son has had cancer for 6yrs, father in law cancer/heart problems, mother in law seriously mentally ill and wife has had a blue light visit) and although we have seen the best and the worst of this public service there is no doubt for 99% of us this is an excellent service with excellent staff who are highly trained. When it does go wrong it can go badly wrong (we have experienced this first hand too) but we the general public do little to help ourselves. Social ills - drunks, fatties, selfish demands - are evident at all entry points to the NHS. The demographics - aging population - and unreasonable expectations are stretching resources to the limits but how do we cure the unnecessary usage? One suggestion was more smaller hospitals embracing GP services too. These would have A&E (of sorts) departments with the main hospitals have a casualty department for those with life changing injuries or illnesses. Plus a degree of ruthlessness over social cases. I could see this working as the 'offering' today's is very confusing GP who have limited access, 111 who have limited abilities, pharmacists who can advise on routine matters or the A&E wards who, currently, catch everything which misses the rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVB Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Whenever I go to a private hospital it is full of NHS patients cluttering it up. They even have designated car parking spaces for 'premium' I.e paying patients. So who are these NHS patients who go to NHS hospitals? A&E? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keg Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Whenever I go to a private hospital it is full of NHS patients cluttering it up. They even have designated car parking spaces for 'premium' I.e paying patients. So who are these NHS patients who go to NHS hospitals? A&E? I went to see my GP with trigger finger and one of the options was to go to a private clinic. I was told when i queried this with my GP that the NHS pays the same or less than it would normally cost, keeps the waiting lists down and the private clinic earns on a facility that be have been empty and costing rather than earning over the same period. I think the question is wider still than just the NHS, It comes down to the fact that we have x income as a country from all forms of taxation etc but the demand on that income is huge and everything seems to be a priority. Do we focus on health, the military, Policing? If health then which sector? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prospero Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 The NHS is the 5th LARGEST EMPLOYER IN THE WORLD!!! IN THE WORLD!!! For a country the size of the UK. Think about it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wb123 Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 The NHS is the 5th LARGEST EMPLOYER IN THE WORLD!!! IN THE WORLD!!! For a country the size of the UK. Think about it... What is the issue? It is the only place in the world you will find one employer covering that many hospitals. When you look at the number of staff per head of population it is a tad under most comparable nations, but they have multiple employing organisations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Green Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 (edited) The NHS is the 5th LARGEST EMPLOYER IN THE WORLD!!! IN THE WORLD!!! For a country the size of the UK. Think about it... crazy to me, how many of them are pen pushers and bean counter? Edited January 12, 2017 by Vince Green Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon R Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Those who think immigrants are mainly young and fit make me smile. Many arrive with serious health problems and are a significant drain on NHS resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKPoacher Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 'Deliberate' use of the NHS—use by those who come here specifically to receive free treatment or who come for other reasons but take advantage of the system when they're here—is hard to quantify. It's thought to be very roughly between £110 million and £280 million a year. 'Normal' use of the NHS—by foreign visitors who've ended up being treated while in England—is estimated to cost about £1.8 billion a year. The majority of these costs aren't currently charged for. Only about £500 million is thought to be recoverable or chargeable at the moment. https://fullfact.org/health/health-tourists-how-much-do-they-cost-and-who-pays/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velocette Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Those who think immigrants are mainly young and fit make me smile. Many arrive with serious health problems and are a significant drain on NHS resources. +1 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/615109/London-TB-capital-Europe-mass-migration-poverty Nobody likes to mention figures like this,,,,immigrants are whiter than white,,in a manner of speaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twistedsanity Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Dave-G has it spot on. Anyone who thinks it isn't is delusional. Most of the immigrants here work long hard hours doing the jobs the lazy ***** British think are below them and pay tax, yes they have caused the population to rise (as have all the old baby boomers) but it's the government who have a responsibility to pay a portion pro rata of that extra tax the immigrants pay into the NHS which clearly hasn't happened, every time an Immigrant fills their car, buys cigarettes or goes to tescos the government makes more money so it's not just earnings related. I'm afraid anyone who believes the problem is as simple as a rise in numbers due to some Immigrants coming here that is causing all the countries problems are the delusional ones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKPoacher Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Most of the immigrants here work long hard hours doing the jobs the lazy ***** British think are below them and pay tax, yes they have caused the population to rise (as have all the old baby boomers) but it's the government who have a responsibility to pay a portion pro rata of that extra tax the immigrants pay into the NHS which clearly hasn't happened, every time an Immigrant fills their car, buys cigarettes or goes to tescos the government makes more money so it's not just earnings related. I'm afraid anyone who believes the problem is as simple as a rise in numbers due to some Immigrants coming here that is causing all the countries problems are the delusional ones Maybe not all the problems. But they add to the already serious situations such as insufficient hospital places, holding back education due to excessive numbers of non English speaking pupils in some schools, lack of cheap and social housing, etc, etc. Yes, there are issues in that a lot of British people don't seem to want to work and there doesn't seem to be the resolve to make them. I can understand that many businesses would rather have willing foreign workers than unwilling British ones. But the problem of millions of unemployable adults has to be addressed and bringing in migrant workers isn't helping to address that problem. It is however adding to the burden of the NHS and anyone who denies this must be living in cloud cuckoo land. The figures I posted above show that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Green Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Those who think immigrants are mainly young and fit make me smile. Many arrive with serious health problems and are a significant drain on NHS resources. Part of the reason for this was the policy of allowing people who were already here to bring in 'dependant relatives'. An absolutely crazy state of affairs because as soon as they arrived the relatives became dependant on the state instead of the relatives that brought them here. But ......If it was your mum or dad you would do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoozer Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 I personally think the NHS issue is largely due to the much higher than planned for levels of immigration. :good: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malinois Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 The NHS issue is the fault of the Thatcher tory government. They created lots of middle manages and split each ward, office, arm into it's own little business with lots of clerical staff and it's own structure of management. The reason being not that it was better for the NHS but white collar workers and management are more likely to vote tory. For every doctor, nurse or paramedic you see there are 10 people behind them managing. Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viking Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 (edited) Of course its true , everyone knows that its true , but how dare you say it out loud without being branded a racist. be like me and dont give a ****, im no racist, but if iv something to say it gets said, brand me all you like im not saying its just there fault but when they come on the tv laughing at this country for the benefits they get, and the fact they can come over for free treatment, doesn't help Edited January 12, 2017 by viking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaymo Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 +1 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/615109/London-TB-capital-Europe-mass-migration-poverty Nobody likes to mention figures like this,,,,immigrants are whiter than white,,in a manner of speaking. Hope you read he article fully and didn't jump to conclusions! After all, take this excerpt "In his report Dr Sahota said: There is a clear link between TB and migration but it is a complex story that is easy to misinterpret. While more than 80 per cent of London TB cases occur in people who were born abroad, it is unlikely they brought active TB into the country. We do not know how many people come to London with latent TB. Initially you can from the opening lines of the article blame immigration but to read further and digest it would appear that in this case TB is thriving more than likely due to the poorer conditions these people are experiencing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrowningB525 Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 The NHS issue is the fault of the Thatcher tory government. They created lots of middle manages and split each ward, office, arm into it's own little business with lots of clerical staff and it's own structure of management. The reason being not that it was better for the NHS but white collar workers and management are more likely to vote tory. For every doctor, nurse or paramedic you see there are 10 people behind them managing. Ian Do you have a source for this? I'd like to read it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon R Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 I will have to agree to disagree with Twistedsanity and others who cannot see the obvious. Carry on in ignorance, if it makes you happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaymo Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Viking If you ever watch any of the 'Benefits' type programmes on tv then it's not just 'Jonny foreigner' that laughs at their 'easy money' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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