I'm pretty sure that many of
those who choose to read the likes of the Daily Mail on a regular basis must
have a pretty poor opinion of the NHS and many of those who work within it,
after all the startling revelations that particular publication has chosen to
highlight over the past few months, ostensibly as part of its own national
campaign to uncover multiple and widespread instances of horrifying healthcare,
which people might expect to receive if they are ever unfortunate enough to
become seriously ill and require hospitalisation in the UK.
It's important to note from the
outset that I don't work for the NHS, never have; and apart from a few days
spent in an observation ward, following a heart attack, I actively avoid having
anything to do with doctors, nurses, medical consultants, clinics, surgeries or
hospitals, as they make me extremely nervous and uncomfortable, not because of
what they are, or what they do, but simply because you're asked to hand over
control of your body, your health and sometimes your dignity to a complete
stranger, which I would rather not have to do.
Even though I am a comparative
stranger to the NHS, on those few and rare occasions that I have had to put
myself into the medical expert's hands, for the most part, my overriding memory
of the experience hasn't necessarily been the exceptional standard of care
provided by the nursing staff, or the encyclopaedic medical knowledge of the
doctors, but rather the generally piss-poor behaviour of a minority of
patients, who sometimes seem to behave as though they're paying guest's staying
in a swanky hotel; and that the nursing staff are little more than paid
servants who are supposed to be attendant to their every need and whim.
Because of campaigns lead by the
likes of the Daily Mail; and a number of other supposedly outraged
publications, we now seem to have handed huge areas of control of our national
healthcare system to the patients themselves, or in some cases to their
relatives, neither of which are in anyway qualified to know what they're doing.
As a result, we now seem to have a situation where nurses, healthcares,
doctors, matrons and managers are occasionally having their decisions made for
them, or forced upon them by a small number of patients, or relatives, who
happen to know their "rights"; and threaten to make a formal
complaint, or worse still litigate, if their express wishes are not followed to
the letter, by the nursing staff who are actually supposed to be in charge of
the ward.
Knowing someone who works within
the nursing profession, in an extremely busy hospital, I am often astonished,
even occasionally gobsmacked at some of the incidents that occur on our
hospital wards, mostly as a result of individual patients or their relatives
playing the system, or just knowing their rights. There are those who demand to
be given the use of bedpans or commodes at all times of day and night, even
though they're fully mobile and perfectly capable of using the ward's normal
toilet facilities. There are the patient's who deliberately and regularly wet
or soil themselves, just because they can't be bothered to ring the bell and
ask for a bedpan, commode, or to be taken to the hospital toilet. Then there
are those patient's who can't get up to use the bathroom, but are still mobile
enough to go outside for a cigarette; or the patients who are too weak to go to
the bathroom, five yards away, but can somehow summon up the energy to walk
well over two miles to go and buy themselves a burger from the local
McDonald's, still dressed in their pyjamas, slippers and dressing gown.
And then there are the concerned
relatives who loudly berate the nursing staff for allowing Aunty Flo, or
whoever it is, to sit in a comfortable bedside armchair for more than half an
hour at a time, noisily demanding that the poor dear be put back to bed, even
though she's been lying in the bed for so long that she's begun to develop
sores. Then there are the relatives who demand that their disruptive uncle, who
refuses to stay in bed, must be attended by a member of staff during all of his
waking hours, in order to prevent him from falling over and hurting himself.
And of course there's the relative who insists that their feeble or dying, mum
or dad, aunt or uncle should be practically force-fed by a member of staff,
because they happened to notice that there was some food still left on their
plate. And then there are those occasions where an entire ward's timetable and
procedures are suspended, just because the nursing staff are forced to monitor
a single troublesome patient, at the behest of a concerned relative, who has
made it quite clear to the hospital's management that she knows her
"rights" and is quite prepared to enforce them, should she not get
her own way.
What a complete and utter
shambles some of our NHS services have become! We not only have A & E
departments and Ambulance Services dealing with cases like dog mess on people's
shoes; and cat scratches that could easily be treated by the individual
themselves, but we also appear to have some our busiest hospital wards being
run by patients and their relatives; and all because the NHS and those that run
the service seem to be terrified of being sued by this new army of timewasters
who purport to know their "rights".
On top of this, A & E
Departments around the country are being massively overstretched by wave upon
wave of patient's many of whom should not be there in the first place, or would
not be there if other healthcare professionals were doing their jobs properly.
Thanks to both the Labour Party and the current Coalition government, we have
arrived at a point where the newly privatised "111" Health Help-lines
are tasking Ambulance crews to increasing numbers of non-emergency calls,
whilst GP patients, unable to see their family doctors because of new working
practices, are voting with their feet and making the choice of visiting
Accident & Emergency departments, often for the most spurious of reasons.
To add to the growing
frustrations, we now have a situation where one of the main providers of the
"111" service, NHS Direct, is seeking to withdraw from its numerous
emergency helpline contracts, simply because the commercial viability of such
contracts are largely unsustainable, given the increasing level of demand
generated by the British public. In the meantime, GP's, who are typically being
rewarded with salaries of £100,000 per annum for a rapidly diminishing medical
role in British life, have seen some of their members exhibit the barefaced
cheek of suggesting that patients should be charged for each appointment, with
the suggested fee range being in the order of anything between £5 and £150 per
consultation, despite the fact that these doctors are already being paid for
their time and expertise by the NHS in the first place.
Although nobody doubts that
problems have occurred at the likes of Stafford and Tameside hospitals, which
were highly regrettable for those who lost loved ones; and should not in any
way reduce an injured parties right to seek fair and equitable compensation.
However, thanks in part to the likes of the Daily Mail and their often
questionable revelations, aren't we seriously in danger of "throwing the
baby out with the bath water", so to speak. Having created an almost
endemic climate of fear within the NHS amongst those who work there, the
healthcares, the nurses, the doctors, matrons, consultants and managers,
haven't they essentially given the whip hand to every man and his dog who wants
to take advantage of this very precious health commodity, the NHS. To have
created a situation, where the lazy, the mean spirited, the malicious and the
selfish minority can put their own needs and demands above those of the less
demanding majority, is an unsustainable absurdity. We vehemently demand that our
healthcare workers show us kindness, respect and courtesy whilst we stay in
hospital; and yet no similar demands are made on the patients themselves,
leaving them to freely abuse, mistreat and occasionally physically assault our
care workers, generally on the basis of "they're too ill to know
better". This excuse is such a "crock of shit", as for the most
part, those who are committing these verbal and physical assaults are perfectly
aware of their own actions, but because they're in hospital they seem to think
that the normal rules don't apply; and they should! So when our politician's
come to have a rethink about how we might create a better, more equitable NHS,
perhaps they might consider introducing a set of enforceable rules and
regulations both for the patient's, as well as the staff.
As for other matters, such as the
recent overcrowding of our local A & E Departments, with
"emergencies" such as dog mess on the shoe, or cat scratches, or
severe hangovers, perhaps the government and NHS England might like to consider
fining those private companies, who consider such events to be so serious that
they require an ambulance in the first place. Maybe by targeting the actual
bottom line, the profits, of such companies, might make them a little more
careful about how they use such precious resources. At the same time, maybe the
current government should consider renegotiating the extremely generous GP
contracts that Mr Blair's former government apparently signed off without any
regard for future consequences. A £100,000 of anyone's money is a significant
sum, even today; and it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect GP's to actually
earn their vast salaries by actually treating most of their patients in their
surgeries, rather than forcing them to rely on the local A & E Department
instead. In the event that government and GP's can't reach an accommodation on
any new contract, then perhaps the most obvious solution is simply to remove
any GP that doesn't wish to sign a new contract from the national NHS list; and
use the money saved to employ a new group of doctors, who are generally more
amenable to the fresh terms, or alternatively simply use the funds to try and
bolster existing A & E services, thereby filling the gap left by the newly
unemployed family doctors.
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