I just cant understand why we dont put the extra penny on tax and funf the service properly.. My sister in France cant understand our service. They are old and creaky but there just arn't any delays. What a stupid state we have allowed to develop in our health service.
As they say "Something must be done!"
This isn’t about money it’s about staffing in the last 2-4 years people have left the NHS like you wouldn’t believe. It’s partly money, nurses and paramedics are paid terribly, and as a result are now leaving in their droves.
Please do not call an ambulance unless you actually need one, as Steven pointed out it will not get you seen any quicker. It will not ensure an admission or operation, what will happen is, especially in east of England you may wait up to 10+ Hrs for the ambulance as a non emergency, when they come they can do an ECG, and not much else so take you to hospital, then along with a dozen other ambulances you’ll sit outside the NNUH, waiting hours to be off loaded and blocking that ambulance from going out to any other emergencies (which is why there are huge delays) at one point a few months back it was over 24 hours for a non emergency ambulance and if you were actually having a heart attack you might wait a few hours still to get an ambulance.
If you genuinely need one then call 999 otherwise get yourself to hospital.
I don’t understand why you’d need to go to america for a 30k op when there are plenty of private specialists here who would take your money off you?
In the US they will do what you ask but not necessarily what you need, at least here a private doctor will tell you what you actually need, however if you have heart failure then no £30k operation no matter where it’s done is going to reverse the damage and you might just be pissing your money away.
If you phone the hospital switch board someone would normally always answer, then ask to speak to the secretary of your consultant, if you can’t get answers that way then speak to you own GP and push them for some resolution.
The NNUH isn’t a specialist cardiac hospital so if in doubt push your gp to be referred somewhere else, papworth being our nearest cardiac specialist hospital, see if you could get a reduced wait being referred to the Paget or Ipswich (not Kings Lynn unless you want the roof to fall on you) if it’s just a stent issue, then there are plenty of other places you can go without waiting for Norwich, also bear in mind norwich has the only local PPCI suite which is where they do the emergency stents for heart attacks, if they have limited staff then it can have a knock on effect of cancelling planned procedures.
There is no current answer to this problem it’s very much a government issue, who ever is in government needs to start paying staff especially nurses their worth because right now it’s getting to the point they could go and work at a supermarket and earn more with a better work life balance. No government wants to increase the NHS wage bill. Same problem with airports they are not paying enough so not retaining staff. It’s a reoccurring problem all over the place we seem to be back to Victorian economics where the rich’s wealth is exploding while everyone else can’t afford the basics like food and heat
% delivered on my expectations of him.
