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Some UK hospitals with emergency services in complete state of crisis

sw104 4y ago
The NHS isn't built to handle the modern British man/woman's health. According to the ONS, 64% of adults are overweight and obese. To add to that, we have a more aged population than when the NHS was founded. Binge drinking and social drinking are the absolute norm, and smoking/vaping is on the increase (smoking increased during Covid because people were "bored", people take up vaping who never smoked). People abandon the last bastions of basic daily exercise in walking and cycling, in preference of e-scooters. A population with an apathetic view towards keeping fit and healthy. The NHS will only get better if a good proportion of the population decide to handle their own health. That seems unlikely to happen. Go to any gym and see what the very few people who exercise constitute as a workout. Walking on a treadmill for 15 minutes or sat on machines reading their phones. However everybody seems to walk around in athletics / yoga clothing. Go out for a run and see how many people you see running. Most people you meet do zero exercise beyond walking around. All the while, every apartment block in our cities sees 20 Deliveroo/Just Eat takeaway deliveries per hour. Restaurant dining is a multiple-time-per-week activity. Salty and oily food dominates in fast food, takeaways, ready meals and restaurants. This makes people angry because it's the truth. If you want to see why the NHS will collapse, take a 5 minute walk around any built up area in the UK and look at people's (substantial) guts.
- DanBC 4y ago
  Most of the people in hospital who are medically fit to discharge but who need a care package before discharge are underweight, not overweight.
user-extended 4y ago
Do Rich People get to have their own Private Healthcare Services & Hospitals separate from the NHS? --> If yes, nobody cares about this in a position of power.
- oriettaxx 4y ago
  :( yes, they are still living in a bubble: do not care at all for what they call "peasants". From the other side I think non-rich (and the many just poor or poorer) do not get angry enough since they do realize it's hard for many others (Ukranian and Russian e.g.): I guess we still have to wait awhile until somebody wakes up and reckon "the king is naked". btw: Nigel Farage is not sleeping well
- gmac 4y ago
  Yes, but not really for urgent care. All Accident & Emergency (ER) departments are NHS-run, so everyone can expect poor state provision to bite them when they're most in need. For education, on the other hand, rich people and MPs can indeed fully opt out. And private schools still have charitable status.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Well, private schools take approx. 550k pupils out of state schools while parents still pay the same amount of tax. Since the state system spends about 6.7k per pupil this means either (a) that the state saves 3.7b a year, or (b) that the state could spend an extra 380 pounds per state school pupil with the money. My conclusion is that private schools are helping tremendously but are singled out for ideological reasons/politics of envy. Many families who send their children to private schools could not afford a 20%+ in tuition fees, so would fall back on state schools and the net effect on state schools/government finances would be negative. It's different for healthcare because, first as you mention everyone has to go to NHS' A&E for an emergency, but also now the same facility/professional runs both NHS and private services. If you need to go to (NHS) hospital for potentially important checks and analyses they'll tell you the next appointment available is in 3 months on the NHS or next week privately. Dentists will say that they don't take new NHS patients but will happily see you the next day privately (that one is purely because NHS charges have not been increased in 10+ years so that dentists don't want to bother with so little money anymore). If private healthcare had to be provided only in fully private facilities then potentially it could help. But, same as for schools, the state should not take the opportunity of fewer patients to cut spending. All that being said, at the moment the main issue at A&Es and hospitals seems to be a massive surge in the number of patients.
greggarious 4y ago
Why is this happening? In the USA, folks with no insurance go to the ER because they're obliged to treat everyone whereas an "urgent care" can claim you issue isn't life threatening. (Then someone down on their luck can get ill and die from lack of antibiotic or a small wound infection.) Does something similar happen in England, or are they just extremely short staffed?
- oriettaxx 4y ago
  I think people working in Health Service have had just enough: you can fool them for some time, but you cannot fool them all the time: now that is not covid emergency anymore, they are just taking more care for themselves
- gmac 4y ago
  Almost all healthcare is free, so this is not the main mechanism. If people can't get a GP appointment soon enough, they might turn up at A&E (ER). But mainly, the problem is long-term underfunding and understaffing (exacerbated by Brexit). Check this excellent thread: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073
- DanBC 4y ago
  Hospitals should run at something like an 80% capacity. This allows safety and flexibility in the system. UK politicians have spent the past ten years talking about "efficiency savings" (meaning real term cuts), and so now the system is running normally at 90-95% capacity. And then you have something like COVID, combined with a bad flu season, combined with a bad respiratory illness season for young people, combined with a cold snap where councils didn't de-ice pavements, combined with Brexit meaning many staff have left, combined with years of defending of social care: All of these mean we have older, iller people in hospital, we can't get them out of acute hospital and into care / nursing homes because those don't exist anymore, we can't get them back to their own home with paid carers because all those staff left in Brexit. That means when someone is in ED and needs a bed there isn't one, and when someone is in an ambo and needs to get into ED they can't because there's no space, and when they're on the floor at home after a fall and need an ambo there are no ambos because they're all queueing at the ED. For years in England we've pushed risk onto ambo staff, and this year we've finally said acute hospitals have to share that risk, so we're seeing the inevitable results of over-crowding and over-full hospitals. And this is all entirely predictable and preventable - people have been describing FOR YEARS exactly what would happen and how it would happen and even when it would happen, and now it's happening. The blame lies squarely with a Conservative government that doesn't believe in tax funded public services and which has decided to cut as much as it can.
puffoflogic 4y ago
Remember, this is entirely the fault of privatization and has nothing to do with socialized medicine!
- jay_kyburz 4y ago
  Its not really the system that's the problem. There is a massive flu smashing the UK and the number of patients has gone from 500 to 3500 in a month. 5000 new Covid patients, and 9500 staff are out because of Covid. Its no wonder things are a little stressed.
chinabot 4y ago
1.5M people in UK work for the National Health Service, I doubt these are all over-stretched doctors and nurses. Bureaucracy and inefficiency must be rampant over there.
- DanBC 4y ago
  It should be obvious that they're not all doctors and nurses - there's nothing in the medical education of a doctor that would prepare them to be eg an accountant or a buyer. "The NHS is over-managed" is a tired, boring, argument that is easily debunked with a simple search. The NHS has fewer managers than similarly sized organisations. That's not a sign of an out of control bureaucracy.

The NHS isn't built to handle the modern British man/woman's health. According to the ONS, 64% of adults are overweight and obese. To add to that, we have a more aged population than when the NHS was founded. Binge drinking and social drinking are the absolute norm, and smoking/vaping is on the increase (smoking increased during Covid because people were "bored", people take up vaping who never smoked). People abandon the last bastions of basic daily exercise in walking and cycling, in preference of e-scooters. A population with an apathetic view towards keeping fit and healthy. The NHS will only get better if a good proportion of the population decide to handle their own health. That seems unlikely to happen. Go to any gym and see what the very few people who exercise constitute as a workout. Walking on a treadmill for 15 minutes or sat on machines reading their phones. However everybody seems to walk around in athletics / yoga clothing. Go out for a run and see how many people you see running. Most people you meet do zero exercise beyond walking around. All the while, every apartment block in our cities sees 20 Deliveroo/Just Eat takeaway deliveries per hour. Restaurant dining is a multiple-time-per-week activity. Salty and oily food dominates in fast food, takeaways, ready meals and restaurants. This makes people angry because it's the truth. If you want to see why the NHS will collapse, take a 5 minute walk around any built up area in the UK and look at people's (substantial) guts.

DanBC 4y ago
Most of the people in hospital who are medically fit to discharge but who need a care package before discharge are underweight, not overweight.

user-extended 4y ago

Do Rich People get to have their own Private Healthcare Services & Hospitals separate from the NHS? --> If yes, nobody cares about this in a position of power.

oriettaxx 4y ago
:( yes, they are still living in a bubble: do not care at all for what they call "peasants". From the other side I think non-rich (and the many just poor or poorer) do not get angry enough since they do realize it's hard for many others (Ukranian and Russian e.g.): I guess we still have to wait awhile until somebody wakes up and reckon "the king is naked". btw: Nigel Farage is not sleeping well
gmac 4y ago
Yes, but not really for urgent care. All Accident & Emergency (ER) departments are NHS-run, so everyone can expect poor state provision to bite them when they're most in need. For education, on the other hand, rich people and MPs can indeed fully opt out. And private schools still have charitable status.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Well, private schools take approx. 550k pupils out of state schools while parents still pay the same amount of tax. Since the state system spends about 6.7k per pupil this means either (a) that the state saves 3.7b a year, or (b) that the state could spend an extra 380 pounds per state school pupil with the money. My conclusion is that private schools are helping tremendously but are singled out for ideological reasons/politics of envy. Many families who send their children to private schools could not afford a 20%+ in tuition fees, so would fall back on state schools and the net effect on state schools/government finances would be negative. It's different for healthcare because, first as you mention everyone has to go to NHS' A&E for an emergency, but also now the same facility/professional runs both NHS and private services. If you need to go to (NHS) hospital for potentially important checks and analyses they'll tell you the next appointment available is in 3 months on the NHS or next week privately. Dentists will say that they don't take new NHS patients but will happily see you the next day privately (that one is purely because NHS charges have not been increased in 10+ years so that dentists don't want to bother with so little money anymore). If private healthcare had to be provided only in fully private facilities then potentially it could help. But, same as for schools, the state should not take the opportunity of fewer patients to cut spending. All that being said, at the moment the main issue at A&Es and hospitals seems to be a massive surge in the number of patients.

greggarious 4y ago

Why is this happening? In the USA, folks with no insurance go to the ER because they're obliged to treat everyone whereas an "urgent care" can claim you issue isn't life threatening. (Then someone down on their luck can get ill and die from lack of antibiotic or a small wound infection.) Does something similar happen in England, or are they just extremely short staffed?

oriettaxx 4y ago
I think people working in Health Service have had just enough: you can fool them for some time, but you cannot fool them all the time: now that is not covid emergency anymore, they are just taking more care for themselves
gmac 4y ago
Almost all healthcare is free, so this is not the main mechanism. If people can't get a GP appointment soon enough, they might turn up at A&E (ER). But mainly, the problem is long-term underfunding and understaffing (exacerbated by Brexit). Check this excellent thread: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073
DanBC 4y ago
Hospitals should run at something like an 80% capacity. This allows safety and flexibility in the system. UK politicians have spent the past ten years talking about "efficiency savings" (meaning real term cuts), and so now the system is running normally at 90-95% capacity. And then you have something like COVID, combined with a bad flu season, combined with a bad respiratory illness season for young people, combined with a cold snap where councils didn't de-ice pavements, combined with Brexit meaning many staff have left, combined with years of defending of social care: All of these mean we have older, iller people in hospital, we can't get them out of acute hospital and into care / nursing homes because those don't exist anymore, we can't get them back to their own home with paid carers because all those staff left in Brexit. That means when someone is in ED and needs a bed there isn't one, and when someone is in an ambo and needs to get into ED they can't because there's no space, and when they're on the floor at home after a fall and need an ambo there are no ambos because they're all queueing at the ED. For years in England we've pushed risk onto ambo staff, and this year we've finally said acute hospitals have to share that risk, so we're seeing the inevitable results of over-crowding and over-full hospitals. And this is all entirely predictable and preventable - people have been describing FOR YEARS exactly what would happen and how it would happen and even when it would happen, and now it's happening. The blame lies squarely with a Conservative government that doesn't believe in tax funded public services and which has decided to cut as much as it can.

puffoflogic 4y ago

Remember, this is entirely the fault of privatization and has nothing to do with socialized medicine!

jay_kyburz 4y ago
Its not really the system that's the problem. There is a massive flu smashing the UK and the number of patients has gone from 500 to 3500 in a month. 5000 new Covid patients, and 9500 staff are out because of Covid. Its no wonder things are a little stressed.

chinabot 4y ago

1.5M people in UK work for the National Health Service, I doubt these are all over-stretched doctors and nurses. Bureaucracy and inefficiency must be rampant over there.

DanBC 4y ago
It should be obvious that they're not all doctors and nurses - there's nothing in the medical education of a doctor that would prepare them to be eg an accountant or a buyer. "The NHS is over-managed" is a tired, boring, argument that is easily debunked with a simple search. The NHS has fewer managers than similarly sized organisations. That's not a sign of an out of control bureaucracy.