For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1882927
avtur3 wrote:His treatment was pretty woeful, case notes being lost, medication not being administered on time, family were having to chase hospital staff to get medication administered, not even being taken to the bathroom. Contradictory information from different medical staff, it was heartbreaking to here his wife's account of how he was being treated.

I've said similar in a recent thread about the CAA - do raise these things as complaints if you can show specific examples, because at least it will then be raised with the individuals as issues. A senior person at the trust will need to investigate.
We recently raised a complaint about NHS care - they did a fairly through investigation and said they would take some things onboard. Eg, for Covid reasons, someone had removed all of the signs and instructions on how to use patient equipment (call bells, etc), but then they didn't have a process for telling patients how to use that equipment

Some of the things complained about, they could show in the notes that my wife was wrong about (being on various drugs, it was hard for her to keep track of what was going on, and they did some monitoring when she was asleep) so its often hard to see all sides of an issue. Sometimes complaints allow a department to take a step back and look at a situation in a different way.
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By eltonioni
#1882972
johnm wrote:Since we no longer have an Empire the sensible course of action would be to close down the MOD and spend the money on Health and Social Care :twisted:


Definitely one of your more sensible ideas. Closing down the MOD and privatising UK defence is worth serious consideration.
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1882978
Yeah, they'd outsource it to the cheapest zero hours contractors who then would get a job in a warehouse or delivering pizzas as soon as the enemy showed up. Remember what happened at the Olympics? Sudden need for large, well-trained army to replace security contractor.

I question the need for nuclear weapons.
#1882982
@Pete L they should get @johnm in to do the procurement, write and administer the contract. Then all will be well. Savings all round. Efficiency so great that Trident can be cancelled since the Ruskis will be quaking at the mere mention of the new MOD Standard Form Of Contract being wheeled onto the battlefield.
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1882986
Back to GPs for a minute, although actually not.

One of the reasons that it took two years to diagnose Viv's stomach tumour is the local NHS bods kept shuttling her case notes between Wycombe and Stoke Mandeville so she never appeared on a waiting list.

I can understand overwork, and it's not a clinical failure, but what kind of person even gets to thinking that's a good idea.

There is a good deal of venality in the bit of the NHS that isn't arm-deep in people's bodies.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1882993
No doubt and there are dysfunctional clinicians as well.

I however don't think that those qualities are absent in clinicians working in other health care systems or that Carp managers are a unique UK preserve.

Both in Germany and the NL there is a huge administrative system of insurances which clearly all needs to be fed from the equivalent of NI contributions and just looking at my own shop here I can assure you all that the admin/information exchange here with the insurers is much more time/hassle/money expensive here than it was in the UK with a practice with a unit looking after 7-8 times as many patients.

The NHS is working at the back of the drag curve whereby a lot of effort is wasted on fire-fighting which could be avoided if there was some more clinical action possible to deal with what is clinically necessary.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1882995
The issue is an infantile implementation of "business" practices that often don't actually work that well in business

Targets can promote counter-productive behaviour when set by the simple minded in a complex environment.
We've been discussing a classic example in relation to CAA turn round times.....

The idea that the lowest bid is the most efficient bid is still extant and still mind numbingly stupid.

Just throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it, it might even make it worse because someone now has to figure out how to get it spent.

Artificial markets have the same issue as simple minded targets....competition doesn't improve matters in this kind of environment, collaboration does.

I could probably come up with a few others, but I'm sure you get the picture. :roll:
By avtur3
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1882999
riverrock wrote:
avtur3 wrote:His treatment was pretty woeful, case notes being lost, medication not being administered on time, family were having to chase hospital staff to get medication administered, not even being taken to the bathroom. Contradictory information from different medical staff, it was heartbreaking to here his wife's account of how he was being treated.

I've said similar in a recent thread about the CAA - do raise these things as complaints if you can show specific examples, because at least it will then be raised with the individuals as issues. A senior person at the trust will need to investigate.
We recently raised a complaint about NHS care - they did a fairly through investigation and said they would take some things onboard. Eg, for Covid reasons, someone had removed all of the signs and instructions on how to use patient equipment (call bells, etc), but then they didn't have a process for telling patients how to use that equipment

Some of the things complained about, they could show in the notes that my wife was wrong about (being on various drugs, it was hard for her to keep track of what was going on, and they did some monitoring when she was asleep) so its often hard to see all sides of an issue. Sometimes complaints allow a department to take a step back and look at a situation in a different way.


Thanks for your reply, in this case I am an observer, but will offer advice if I can. I know that a complaint has already be raised is respect of the first interaction with the GP, this was raised before the sad final outcome.

I know from my own experience that complaints can be useful to help organisations focus on how they might improve. We had an incident with my M-i-L being hospitalized after a fall, it took 14 hours of waiting in A&E before we got to see a consultant. The consultant was horrified by our experience and advised us to complain in order to highlight systemic failures. Unfortunately that system was so full of bureaucracy that it wore us down before we reached an outcome. When dealing with a person who is unwell there comes a point where one has to apply all of one's effort to that person's well being above and beyond the rights and wrongs of the system, I have to admit we were worn down by the process.
#1883110
kanga wrote:BBC item on current experiences of GPs and their Reception staff, both currently much abused in print and social media

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59253118

Over the last ten years of knowing a bunch of them, I've realised that they put up with incessant bullying from patients but also a small but lovely minority of patients who get it and shower them with Christmas choccies and biscuits :) They are a rare breed and don't deserve the opprobrium that they receive.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1883113
When I was practising in the UK I made a point of doing some desk time too at regular intervals.

And when a patient abused staff at the front desk I would sort them out and got them to apologise at the same front desk, worked very well.

Having clear rules and practises and sticking to them and always standing up for staff does help. I also train receptions staff to have the skills and tools to deal with patients; we also understand that patients who contact us are likely to be suffering in one way or another, may be anxious/upset/unwell which, at times, make them be less cuddly than they might normally be.
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By eltonioni
#1883169
Whoooaaaa!




This NHS religion thing has tipped over the edge in that tweet right there. It's not for customers to "respect" it. It's a paid for service for good or ill, not a damned totem pole to worship.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1883172
Nobody or nothing needs to be worshipped.

Appreciated may not be a bad attitude.

Discuss, criticise, cajole, stimulate by all means. It can be better, it must be better.

Tweeting non-sense does nothing, other than making the tweeter look like a fool.
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