I always knew the day would come when I had to spend my first night in hospital for reason of my own health for the first time since I was born and last night was it. The lergy that hit me at the weekend turns out to have been a gall stone giving grief.
What have I learned so far? First, I have to admit, is that morphine is an amazing pain killer.
Second is just how extraordinary the NHS can be. Once it was clear I needed to come in everything moved remarkably quickly and smoothly from GP to hospital to tests and diagnosis. Now I am well aware that I have presented a fairly simple case , but I am still impressed.
Third, the need for integration is so obvious when looking at the whole process I have been through and yet the whole ethos of NHS privatisation undermines this.
Fourth, the vast majority of NHS staff make the private sector look silly. Purpose clearly matters to these people. I cannot see how working for a private sector provider could improve this; indeed, much recent reading I have done suggests how hard it is for private sector providers to recruit staff to serve the NHS.
Fifth, I am not alone in thinking this: the guys around me share that view. I have asked them.
Sixth, the hospital I am in is under threat. It has a big deficit and supposedly low ratings. But, close it and the nearest hospital for all in here would be 40 miles away. The social cost of that would have been enormous. So would the economic cost: I doubt I could have withstood getting here in a car if the journey had been 40 mikes; an ambulance would have been needed.
Seventh, what this says to me is the frontline can work well so if reform is needed (and I know all the arguments for reform ) then it is the back end that needs change. The obvious answer is to remove the enormous admin cost of the faux market in the NHS.
Eighth, I have already improved enough to have a sausage bap for breakfast.
Ninth, I can blog from an iPhone - and haven 't before.
But most importantly, my commitment to this amazing institution is stronger than ever.
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Wishing you a speedy recovery Richard.
Everything you say here is true.
Need you back soonest as the Tory propaganda is ramping up. John Redwood reckons the reduction of top rate income tax to 45p has increased revenues by £9bn:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/04/02/the-45p-income-tax-has-brought-in-billions-extra/
Meanwhile out here Cameron and Farage continue to talk about the need to be tough with Europe or to reform it. The real threat to our living standards (which is more than just the gross income) and democracy comes from the corporate capture which both not only ignore, but seem to promote.
Don’t rush back to work, get well first. all best wishes
My sympathies are with you Richard. I had my Gall Bladder
removed a couple of weeks ago, definitely a good move. Gall
Stones are bloody painful, so good luck with that.
I have spent the last two years probably being treatedby
various NHS hospitals in my area. The care I have received
I couldn’t even begin to quantify. The staff are always professional
And caring. What is being done to the NHS is beyond
criminal. I must have cost thousands of pounds. Where else
would I get this sort of treatment.
Jam sponge and double custard, worth every moment in hospital
Best wishes Richard. Hope you are better soon.
Your points about the NHS are spot on. I recently discovered I have breast cancer (early and treatable, thank goodness) which has brought me for the first time in my life into the ambit of GPs and hospitals. I’m bowled over by the efficiency of the staff and how brilliantly the different services and departments work together.
I’m telling everyone about it: an attempted counterweight to the steady drip drip drip of propaganda against it.
Good luck with your breast cancer treatment. It is an issue about which I know more than I would wish, but I also know as a result that the NHS provides great cancer care.
I’ve been in three times between Sept 2011 and October 2012 with a gall bladder abscess, gall bladd removal and acute cellulitis. Incredibly impressed by the medical and nursing skills I encountered. I hope they sort your gall bladder out for you – my gb pain felt as if there were crocodiles inside me gnawing my stomach! Have’t had any problems since they took it out.
I’m delighted your condition’s been diagnosed and hope these steps are the first on a path to complete and early recovery – and well done blogging a first class post from your iPhone.
Best wishes
Congratulations for blogging under the circumstances. Glad it’s a good outcome. Get well soon.
Get well soon Richard. Your iPhone blog post is nicely formatted and free of speeling errors. Well done!
I’m afraid I can’t share your sympathetic view of the NHS. Whilst I have been treated there in casualty very well, I have had other experiences which have been nothing short of disastrous.
Personally, I now walk with a limp thanks to the NHS being unable to diagnose a dislocated kneecap on three separate occasions, with long waits to see a doctor between each. Once they did finally spot it the waiting list for the operation to repair the damage done was 6 months. Privately I had it done by an expert surgeon 2 days later.
My Father has also recently suffered at their hands. After being rushed to hospital by ambulance crews with a suspected stroke, once the casualty doctors found it wasn’t a stroke they lost interest and sent him home saying he had Bell’s Palsy. He actually has Ramsey Hunt syndrome and now can’t control half of his facial muscles, thanks to the NHS staff being too lazy to run some simple blood tests which would have shown the true cause. Indeed, the (correct) diagnosis he received was from a private doctor, but too late to save the nerves in his face.
As I say, the service I and my family have received from the NHS has been very mixed. It can be excellent, and it can be essentially third world. It certainly doesn’t live up to the private healthcare I have witnessed and experienced. What the reasons are I cannot say, but it isn’t for lack of resources – my health insurance is cheaper than the amount spent per head of population by the NHS.
There are very, very few private doctors in the UK
The vast majority are moonlighting NHS doctors
Likewise nurses
Sorry – but your analysis does not stack
This isn’t analysis – it’s personal experience.
Maybe I’m unlucky, but my experience of the NHS has been at best bittersweet. Some things can work well, but often the care is poor. For example, my Dad was in hospital within 10 minutes after the call. The ambulance service were great. Unfortunately, they needn’t have bothered given the care he was given at the hospital.
There are plenty of private doctors. Again, maybe this is just London, but I have never had to wait more than a couple of days to see a doctor privately. I’ve had to wait a couple of weeks just to get a set of X-rays out of the NHS.
I’m sorry, but you will never convince me the NHS doesn’t need serious reform, at a bare minimum. All I need to do is go home and see how unhappy my Dad is, thanks to the NHS, all for the lack of a simple blood test.
Pleased to hear that your problem is relatively easily treated Richard. Hope you are soon back to full health. In the meantime, try to take it easy.
All the best Richard – we need a return to a philosophy of ‘public purpose’ the notion that corporate control can create this is madness. The madness is set to continue for the time being -I look forward to your return with renewed health and fighting spirit!
Good to hear that what’s been ailing you has been identified and can now be dealt with, Richard. You can now also understand why laudanum was such a popular “beverage” once upon a time 😉
Interesting to read your observations of the NHS. There’s no better position from which to evaluate a service than as a recipient. Your sixth point is particularly important, I think, because from what I see and read rationalisation of hospital provision is clearly an objective that’s being actively pushed by Hunt (who now turns out to be a master interventionist), generally under the guise of “there is no alternative” given a hospital is “bust”. What is grossly underplayed in every account of the costs and benefits of such policies that I’ve seen so far is consideration of the burden (i.e. costs, in the broadest terms) then imposed on actual and potential hospital users (patients). Consequently its very useful to see you framing these on the basis of your own, real, experience.
Anyway, glad to see blogging from an iPhone works for you. And there seem to be less typos than normal 🙂
Ow! That last remark was cutting!
Maybe I had time to proof read…
🙂
well get him back on grammar fewer typos!
Wishing you a speedy recovery.
And yes, our abstract observations about profit-driven transactions being the wrong framework for the delivery of essential services come into a sharp focus when we see the service first-hand.
And this is the experience that the majority of people I know have of the NHS; it should be headline news every day. Get well soon Richard 🙂
Get well soon
All the very best for a speedy recovery and getting back to your family….and all the very best to them as well after what must have been somewhat of a shock. Future health and happiness to you all.
Glad to hear you are on the mend. NHS is very good at acute care, no argument, but not so hot on chronic conditions. Still subject to rigid hierarchies and consultants
who go AWOL and admin that still needs improving.
Private medicine more at whim of freelance consultants
I’m genuinely baffled by some of the comments on here. Were we to have private healthcare then, it goes without saying, poor people wouldn’t have healthcare at all. Therefore, all the back & fro stuff about whether you (meaning a white, middle-class suburban respectable you) get a better service from the NHS or from private is a bit irrelevant isn’t it ?
Without the NHS a lot of people would be left to die in the street!
I’m genuinely baffled by some of the comments on here. Were we to have private healthcare then, it goes without saying, poor people wouldn’t have healthcare at all. Therefore, all the back & fro stuff about whether you (meaning a white, middle-class suburban respectable you) get a better service from the NHS or from private is a bit irrelevant isn’t it ? Without the NHS a lot of people would be left to die in the street! Reply – See more at: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/04/03/it-had-to-happen-2/comment-page-1/#comment-686097
Hi…
Best wishes for a speedy recovery. I know what that pain is like. I had four gall stone “attacks” before I self diagnosed what was wrong and things moved rapidly after that. Well done Google! Unfortunately (or fortunately) depending on which way you look at it I was also diagnosed with diabetes and a thyroid problem that could have had serious consequenses. Not good news but thanks to the staff at QEH Gateshead they were caught in time and dealt with.
BTW I agree with your evaluation of morphine as a heavy duty pain killer!