NHS - A Complex System in Crisis.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/01/11/nhscrisis-bbc-reports-what-theresa-may-and-jeremy-hunt-are-hiding-now-lets-see-them-resign/

Do politicians really think we are daft? Our first hand experience can be dismissed as anecdotal, but it is real & relevant. We have family, friends & aquaintances who experience the NHS first hand. Each of us probably has a bank of experience of the NHS - both excellent, (probably historical), bad, (probably within the last 5 years), & dreadful, (probably the last year or so).

That adds up to a perception of the reality of service provision that few politicians have, because they probably don't use the NHS. They probably have private health insurance. They also have direct links with private healthcare insurance companies.

http://nhap.org/what-you-can-do/facts-fingertips/links-between-mps-lords-and-private-healthcare/

Theresa May's denial of a "humanitarian crisis" in the NHS does no one any favours. At best she is misguided. At worst she is shockingly ill informed. But she is not alone - the Conservative party is full of people like her. That's why the NHS is in the state it is.

I have a close friend. Her brother developed an acute, incapacitating agonising back problem just before Christmas. He couldn't walk, sit or stand without serious pain. He "didn't fit the criteria for an ambulance to take him to hospital". Eventually they got him to A&E. It was closed! He had to go home. Over the counter painkillers are useless for acute pain like this. Eventually A&E opened. He wasn't fast tracked. They had to sit around for hours waiting for a bed to be available. The only scanner, which he needs, has been broken for days & won't be repaired untill Monday the 16th. This has now been going on for about 3 weeks. 3 weeks of total incapacity & dreadful pain. 3 weeks of stress & extreme anxiety for the whole family.

The medics are in the situation of having to make impossible decisions about prioritising patients which they shouldn't have to be even considering. Whose condition is likely to result in death? Whose pain is worst? Who is most incapacitated? Their job is highly skilled & already stressful enough. Every patient is important & entitled to the best treatment when they need it, not when there is an available doctor or bed.

I imagine that the only way medics can do their job is by trying to keep a degree of emotional separation between themselves & their patients. Not to is the way of complete breakdown & inability to function. The politicians appear to have that emotional separation in spades. They seemingly have no problem condemning patients to a poor service which is not meeting their needs.

This was all forseeable years ago. Any politician worth the name should have been planning for this very situation from the post war baby bulge. They didn't do it. They only look as far as the next election. SHAME ON THEM.

PS
My friends brother became very ill at home. He was very nauseous & kept passing out. Eventually he was readmitted to hospital. They couldn't discover what was wrong. Eventually a medic discovered that they had given him the wrong pain medication & the symptoms were due to overdose. He had been given a high dose, quick release version of Tramadol & told to take too many. This negligence meant that he saw a consultant for the first time since the whole saga began. He is now back home & feeling much better thank goodness. This really shouldn't happen.