Issues in the Brit NHS?

[sacharlie]

Is fraud an issue?
Other issues?

[Burgerman]

More issues than you could ever imagine. Mostly inneficiency, waste, incompetency, and huge waiting times. Also in winter we get to wait around with all ilness and emergencies on trolleys for days due to lack of beds. Or equipment. Or staff. Because they dont pay well enough to keep good staff because they are always pleading poverty while wasting money hand over fist. Most people never see it. But having spent a year in hospital and dealing with them since for 20 years I am astounded at the incompetence, lack of skills, and sheer difficulty of EVERYTHING. They make contacting them hard on purpose to disuade you.

For e.g. try actually getting an appointment to see a doctor. It takes days to get one if you call at the specified time slot, and literally weeks to months to be seen. For a timed alocation of 10 mins... And then they send you home with a painkiller or nothing in many cases. Its all about saving money. While wasting it everywhere. After repeated appointments and much wailing, you may be treated to another wait to see a specialist in hospital, if they have the time where they que you up, and charge you to park. Yes, a truly marvelous system. Its so hard to actually deal with anyone that I gave up on wheelchairs and paid for my own for a decade, buy my pills illegaly overseas because its just easier than fighting the system. At the same time they MADE me have 3X 2k patient liftts that I didnt want, tried to refuse, and are never going to be used. They stay in my garage. I sold one... 2 left. That took half a dozen assesements in groups of 3 people in seperate cars, and both the electric ones have endless ongoing 3 monthly safety checks on the lifts, on a contract with some private company. So theres people dying in corridors, while I have 3 lifts I did not want. And other unable to get cancer drugs etc. You really couldnt make it up. Thats socialist medicine for you.

Or just try getting an NHS dentist... You have a better chance of winning the lottery. So yes, stick with your private system. Its where we go if we need real treatment for something the NHS hasnt the money to do, or the staff/time in a sensible timeframe.

[wheelie junkie]

Some bits work, other bits fail miserably. I wait less than 6 hours to see a GP, phone in the morning, ignore the stupid receptionist and just get GP to call me back, they always do within an hour, explain problem and they will be out same day. Even had one get a prescription sent out to me same day. Like any surgery they are short on GP's but you just have to push them, luckily being vented they are always concerned about me especially after they failed to spot a pleural effusion which nearly killed me. Intensive care unit which found the problem in 15 minutes weren't too impressed.

On the converse 9 months in a high dependency unit watching chaos, one nurse pleased that her fitness device recorded she had walked 7km, I tried to explain that was almost 2 hours where she wasn't nursing but it fell on deaf ears.

I've lost count of how many hours I've wasted waiting, for doctors, nurses, x rays, biopsies, scans or having to chase thing's up. Inefficiency at it's worst.

Incredible battles with my CCG over my continuing health care package, fighting for the care I need. They seriously expected me to sit in chair for 7 hours without being moved for pressure relief until I pointed out that if the Care Quality Commission found a nursing home leaving patients for 7 hours they would take action against the nursing home. Finally got the 1 hour a day funded.Absolutely no consistency to the package they will fund despite clear guidelines but they just rewrite those to fit their budgets.

Too big and not controllable.

[Burgerman]

Utter confusion, ignorance, inaccessibility through lack of interest, and ignorance. Millions of chiefs, and meetings, few indians without a care or a clue.

Money wasted hand over fist in endless group assessements, letters, meetings,rediculous decisions that take up to a year to make by panels of people that know nothing about you in many cases or just get lost in the system if you dont ring a dozen different numbers weekly. In every case nobody can ever make a decision, as thats always pushed further up the chain, or its a group decision. Its a hopeless beurocratic mess of inadequate people that are only interested in having no personal responsibility and getting a wage out of it.

Socialist medicine at its best.