NHS - good & not so good stories

[Shinythings]

I work for the NHS and I have a few things to say on the topic.

The good:

- A lot of services are hideously underfunded and dangerously understaffed. With that in mind it's often a miracle that good, consistent care is given and so many have great things to say.
- Many services run on staff goodwill alone, unpaid hours, going above and beyond etc.
- The vast majority of staff get into the job to try and help, often in completely unworkable circumstances, but they still try.
- Your clinician expertise isn't going to be any better if you go private as NHS clinicians also work privately and standards are the same. You are essentially just paying to be seen quicker with nicer surroundings.
- Bottom line is you get free at the point of access healthcare, which is amazing.
- I can honestly, hand on heart say nearly every person I've ever worked with, works hard and tries their best to help every single day.

The bad:

- There is so much money wasted on stupid things.
- It is practically impossible to get rid of bad/dangerous staff, they just are 'moved on' to a different area.
- Whisteblowers are in my experience not protected and are gotten rid of.
- Upper management (those who have never actually worked as clinicians) do not give a flying fuck about the quality of care, they just want patients out the door.
- Staff are worked until breaking point, have dangerously high caseloads and will absolutely be thrown under a bus if they make a mistake because of this.
- The sheer amount of abuse and pisstaking that goes on from the general public is astonishing.

Unfortunately, in the decade I've been in the NHS the bad is increasingly outweighing the good. Myself and my colleagues are asking ourselves why we keep going more and more often and I've seen so many skilled, dedicated clinicians leaving in large numbers. Honestly, unless you've worked for the NHS with all it's faults and pressures you can never understand it.

If you're having a poor experience, 9 times out of 10 it's because there simply aren't enough staff or resources to deliver the standard of care you deserve.

The NHS is an amazing thing. AMAZING. We should never take it for granted. If it were run better, appropriately funded, dangerous staff could be removed and people didn't take the piss, it would be perfect.

 

[Begborrowsteal]

I honestly think that gynaecology and women’s healthcare in general in this country is absolutely terrible and we are let down day after day year after year, I’m lucky that I don’t have any “leakage “ problems after having a baby but no woman should have to put up with it and learn to live with it, I find that women are just expected to put up and shut up where Heath is concerned.

My pelvic floor is really weak after my kids (two 2nd degree tears and a large episotomy and forceps) and I went to my GP about my concerns, that whilst I wasnt particularly leaking (more so now), I felt numb and sex was causing an issue. The Dr said "when I had my kids.. its common etc etc" I shut her down; it is common but that doesnt mean its normal or ok. One womans experience doesnt cover all.

I've now realised I think I have a slight prolapse but I'm so downtrodden about it all, I don't even want to seek help.

 

[SonicTheSpikeyThing]

My Nan had a heart attack about 6 years ago now. She had a stent fitted and they ruptured an artery whilst doing it but didn’t know or notice. She was moved back down to recovery and we were finally able to see her. The colour drained from her and she died right in front of a family member. Thankfully they pulled the buzzer and they all came running, resuscitated her and took her back down to surgery. I don’t know all the full ins and outs of it but I do know she ended up with brain damage from the lack of oxygen. Her own gp basically convinced the family to make a complaint as she’d seen it happening a lot from this hospital and apparently it’s preventable. Well they made the complaint and mysteriously all of the information and paperwork regarding the operation, the complications and her hospital stay was completely wiped from the systems. No trace to be found at all. I have nothing against the nhs but I did find that kind of shady that everything mysteriously vanished.

 

[Choco88]

A few years ago when pregnant with my youngest I was at the maternity assessment ward being monitored for reduced movement.

The lady in the bed opposite me was there with her mum and toddler. While she was waiting to leave she changed the toddlers nappy on the bed. Five minutes after she had gone another patient was given her bed no sheets changed or anything surely changing the sheets is basic hygiene. No wonder we’re in a pandemic

 

[Shi123]

I’m an NHS ICU nurse, and I just want to say I’m so sorry so many of you have had these experiences I live by the mantra of what way would I want my mum or husband cared for, but yes sadly a few of my colleagues do not.

I had terrible experiences when having my baby. Healthcare is definitely a culture where if it’s rotten at the top it trickles down. One hospital was well run and the staff where happy and my care was fab, but when I went to the main mat hospital for emergency admission, the staff where miserable and didn’t even speak to each other. My care was awful and i still think about it. It has really reinforced my drive to be caring and considerate despite pressures since coming back from maternity leave. I never want to make anyone feel how I felt.

I had major issues with medical staff when my grandfather was dying and the hospital team who cared for him. We took him home with the help of Macmillan nurses who where absolutely fab.

I will say in my experience, we have a big issue with agency nurses and auxiliaries. Many do not have the same work ethic as permanent staff as they won’t be around to pick up after the slack.

Another issue with NHS staffing is how untouchable the bad eggs seem to be. I’ve got one co-worker who was verbally abusive and several of my colleagues and I reported him multiple times and nothing happens. We took it to the band 8 managers and he had a few months paid sick leave. Seriously like.

 

[Rodneytrotter]

I put a complaint into PALS (I think that's what they are called) 11 years ago. They said that after checking notes and interviewing the staff, there was no record of what I said actually happening. Case closed.

 

[Phil Anne Throw Pee]

Touch wood, I have never needed hospital treatment. I do have a number of mental health issues and my experiences are very mixed. Getting a good GP is very much the luck of the draw; I've had some good and some terrible.

I have worked in contract roles at the NHS over the years and it was a real eye opener. Consultants being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week, some utterly shocking. One awful old bitch used to go up to people's desks with detritus and rubbish and say 'Darling could you put that in the bin?' Hundreds of thousands spent on 'hot desking' when the antiquated IT systems could barely cope. It needs a massive overhaul but I think most are too institutionalised, it will never change.

 

[WadieHaddadsChocolates]

This is fucking horrifying. A butcher doctor who they are 'supervising' instead of firing, one patient they won't admit is living or dead, and a woman who was bullied mercilessly by some utter cunts of 'nurses' when she was suffering from the effects of the butcher doctor's surgery.

I really wish it was practice to push nurses and doctors straight into court for this level of behaviour. Ruin the fuckers. Prison sentences. \Poverty making fines. Sell your houses fines. Public name and shame. There are mistakes and there is being an evil cunt. As it is, I bet none of them even gets their professional accreditation yanked. As for these butcher doctors, they deserve prison cells and the colleagues who who knew their incompetence and didn't do anything about it deserve to be demoted to the bottom of the pay scale and also named and shamed.

Injured patient left in urine-soaked bed sheets and labelled ‘lazy’ by nurses after botched surgery (msn.com)

For Ms Wilson, a mum of two, her experiences on the wards at the Norfolk hospital have left her physically and mentally scarred. She is receiving therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I have completely lost confidence in the hospital. I won’t go back there. I have a lot of night terrors and flashbacks and I see Dr Valero everywhere I go. He is always there.”

Ms Wilson was admitted in January 2020 for emergency surgery to remove her gall bladder. During surgery, Dr Valero caused severe damage to her liver and connections to her intestines, removing the gall bladder but also the entire bile duct.

Although a bile duct injury is a recognised complication in 1 per cent of gall bladder operations, Dr Valero injured three patients in a matter of days and the alarm was only raised by clinicians at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge after the patients were transferred there for life-saving surgery.

Within days of being admitted to the ward after surgery, Ms Wilson began to deteriorate and was violently sick and unable to move.

“I couldn't get out of bed and the nurses were saying ‘You're just being lazy. You're just making yourself worse’. They were absolutely horrific to me. The whole time I felt like I would have probably been better at a vets.

“I was sitting in my own urine, sometimes for days. I was vomiting constantly. They weren't helping me to get washed or anything, but they put in my notes that I was refusing to be washed.

“They did silly little things like knowing that I couldn't get out of bed but wanting me to, they would leave my table out of arm's reach. I couldn't reach my phone, I couldn't reach my water.”

She described how a cleaner helped her to drink on one occasion saying: “That was the only single piece of kindness that I had through my entire stay. The hospital refuse to tell me who she was but I would love to say thank you.”

In one incident after one of her drains was left to burst because it had not been emptied during the night, Lucy told a doctor it had not been emptied and an agency nurse later accused her of “grassing” on her. Ms Wilson and her husband Paul lodged a formal complaint and they didn’t see the nurse again.

She added: “Another nurse was made to apologise at my bedside because she called me ‘bloody lazy’ because I wasn’t getting up. She was made to say sorry to me at my bedside, but not until I was being transferred to Addenbrookes hospital. I think by this time, they'd realised how sick I was, and how they had missed it all.”

The alarm was finally raised after her sister-in-law, a palliative care nurse, visited and recognised how severely ill she was. She insisted on a doctor being called and an MRI scan was hastily arranged that showed Ms Wilson had suffered serious injuries.

She was transferred as an emergency to Addenbrookes Hospital where surgeons operated for more than 11 hours to repair the damage and save her life.

They had to use 21 litres of saline to wash out 4.5 litres of corrosive bile that had collected in her abdomen.

In contrast to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Ms Wilson praised the care of nurses at Addenbrookes Hospital, saying: “Every single nurse I came across there, every single one, it was like they were made to be a nurse.”

While the repair surgery has left her in a better condition than Mr Tooth, she is facing more surgery and has been left incontinent and weak. She struggles to walk or lift anything.

Honestly, if I found a relative or friend being treated like this in any hospital I would have trouble not taking the nearest nurse-offender by the hair and mashing their face repeatedly into a hard surface.

I think there are certain NHS hospitals that basically need dismantling brick by brick and many staff barring for life from being near patients. You need to root out every single nurse with a shitty attitude without mercy or the culture that allows mistreatment of patients will never be destroyed.

It's not the fact that some shit people become nurses and doctors and some are basically thick and useless, it's the fact the NHS and other medical institutions seem to constantly cover up for them and punish whistleblowers that destroys my confidence in the profession.

 

[Herefortheteeeee]

I’m sure this is a controversial comment but having had to use the NHS numerous times over the last 2 years, I have little faith in it. I pay almost £200 a month in NI. If I was to pay that in private health insurance, it would cover my family sufficiently and offer a level of care that is substantially better than the service we get from the NHS. Something has to change.

 

[inkypinkyponky]

Sounds horrific what you went through, im so sorry. I took my mother to a&e during a manic episode as she was at risk of harming herself or someone else - the doctor made a call and laughed about it. He got firmly put in his place. Its disgusting and a crisis in waiting. Mental health support needs to be a real focus.

I know how hard it is to fight, so well done for pushing this. I would be tempted to take it to the press too.

That is shocking I was sectioned the next day, was in for 6 weeks. Which is why they can't deny how unwell I was.
I want to move on but I cant just give up now. If I don't get anywhere with this next layer of management I may consider speaking to the press

 

[Icbaaaa]

When my baby was around 6wks old, I attended my GP due to my mental health taking a complete dive and feeling like I couldn't keep myself safe/really struggling with dark thoughts. I was crying explaining how I was feeling and he replied to me "my wife had 3 kids and managed to get on with it. I'm sure you can since you've only got 1 baby." I was horrified. I called my health visitor and broke down telling her how I felt, she came out to see me and got me in touch with the perinatal mental health team who visited me weekly until my son turned 1. I couldn't fault them at all, they were so wonderful and helped me really out of a dark time. Anytime I call my Dr's though, I still refuse to see that GP and always will avoid him now

 

[Bubblesdahling]

Undiagnosed endometriosis for possibly 29 years! My periods had always been painful and really heavy and by 14 yrs old I was taking time off school every month. Made to feel like I had a low pain threshold or was weak or should just get on with it. Had 3 children naturally so was told it couldn't be endo as my fertility was OK. Numerous GP's fobbed me off with various types of contraception. Things got worse and worse especially after each pregnancy. But it reached a head 2 yrs ago when I couldn't cope with the bleeding and pain. It was like contractions for 6 days every month and changing my towels every 1-2hrs max even through the night! Finally got a referral for internal and external scan, both showed nothing but due to medical reasons I had eliminated all forms of contraception(for controlling periods). Was given the choice of womb ablation which would only help for approx 2 yrs or a hysterectomy. I opted for the hysterectomy as I seriously could not cope any more and my periods were controlling and ruining my life.
Luckily, I had 2 surgeons and when the opened me up, they found stage 4 endo and I was riddled with it. Full hysterectomy except one ovary to keep some hormones and bowel surgery too. My surgeon said I should have been crawling around on the floor with the amount he had to remove and could not believe I had been fobbed off for so many years

 

[Flowergirl14]

Glad I set up this thread, very interesting to hear all your stories; some of them are really heartbreaking.

20 years I was in hospital with a broken leg, all the ladies on my ward were in for hip and knee replacements;
and so of a certain age.
I was about 30 at the time, and so the youngest on the ward.

Handsome hubby used to come and visit me late after work, and then we would have a quick kiss and cuddle as he was leaving.
One lady in her 90's was on her commode, pulled back the curtain and and said "Can I have one of those, come here"!
I said to him don't worry, they all have new knees and hips; they can't catch you......

Hubby beat a swift exit out the door, they scared him!!!

 

[Dishes]

My own experiences have always been good but sadly my elderly mother was on a geriatric ward (4 patients, 3 nurses and 2 HCAs) in May and died because they didn't give her medication that had kept her alive for years. We kept on and on asking why they'd stopped her medication and no one had an answer and we were constantly told 'she will start it again tomorrow' but it was too late. She was treated appallingly, neglected and was shown no kindness. I witnessed awful things on that ward - nurses arguing with confused patients, nurses being so rude, unkind and name calling. This ward was in the press 6 years because of patients dying of neglect and being humiliated and nothing has changed. The staff showed my mum no respect,.compassion or empathy and it's breaks my heart. My sister was a nurse and she was disgusted by what happened that she quit her job. It made her feel ashamed of profession and she could no longer do it.

 

[Notworthy]

I never want to see the NHS go for a system like the US, as healthcare really shouldn't be a blessing it should be a right, but as other posters have pointed out, the NHS needs to be stripped down and completely redone. There is an inherent need for more doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants etc, but A LOT of NHS money goes to hospital CEOs, businesspeople etc. Back when I was doing my a-levels (a few years back) I had a history teacher who I really liked who peaked my interest in the NHS and how it works, so I did a project on it & how it could possibly be reformed. There is 100% a better way to run it (and one of the first things should be banning the prescription of 20p-in-Boots paracetamol and ibuprofen - unless of course that person is on the breadline etc - as the amount of money spent on those drugs by the NHS annually is staggering) but, as other posters have stated, any Conservative government that attempt to reform it would face protests, outrage so I doubt it will ever change.

On the story front, my great-nan was the most healthy 83 year old you could meet. She went swimming regularly, enjoyed long walks & was very active in the community (ran community groups and things like that). They found a small tumour on her stomach and diagnosed it as stage 1/2 cancer (I can't remember which now) and all she would require was surgery to get rid of the tumour. The surgery went well and she came round from theatre very well and she was alert. As a family, we were thrilled. After visitation hours, she begun to feel slightly unwell which she was told was normal. She asked the nurse to take her to the toilet, but the nurse said no for whatever reason. My nan walked to the toilet on her own, got into the doorway and collapsed with a stroke. Nobody knew she was missing. I'm not sure what the time period was between the stroke and them finding her, nor what stroke treatments are, but it had completely changed her life. She remains paralysed down her left side, unable to walk so she is confined to a wheelchair, my great-grandfather did not qualify for any grants from the government so he adapted their home himself with wood (to make ramps) and plastic tubing (for rails). I've never really got over it, and everytime my parents have to see the doctor now I get quite anxious that they too will receive lacklustre care.

Why do people think that the US system is the only other option, most of Europe have privatised medicine, it just works a lot better than either the NHS or the US system (which I have used and is actually excellent)

 

[Geranium]

I was diagnosed with a moderate to severe bladder prolapse after having two operations for an abscess which caused sepisis. My care was really efficient in hospital and the care from the nurses in the community who packed my wound daily for 6 weeks was wonderful, very kind and thorough. However I was told I had to basically put off getting anything done for my prolapse for as long as possible. I’ve gone from a very active person who ran and did weights to someone who can only really walk and swim. I’m in constant discomfort which some days makes me feel low.
But the worst experience was when I saw the diabetic nurse after being diagnosed with Type 2. I was basically told it was all my fault for being fat and lazy (I was indeed a bit overweight but not lazy doing around 8 fitness classes per week plus daily walks ) with a bad diet (that last was not true). She has left me with deep rooted feelings of guilt and self hatred plus a deep shame of being Type 2, many of my close family and friends don’t know because of my shame. My diabetes care is all handled by the practice nurses and I have never seen a specialist or doctor. I have food phobias now plus enormous feelings of guilt for eating anything. I have often considered suicide.

 

[TJ90]

We have one amazing GP at our surgery. He is wonderful. You know if you’re lucky enough to get an appointment with him (they’re like good dust) that he’s going to be running behind. Because he takes the time with his patients, he explains things thoroughly in a way that you understand, he takes the time to look at your records before you go in, he will draw diagrams explaining what’s going on in your body. If every NHS worker was like him it would be a dream, albeit you’d be running very late!
Apart from him, I’ve had appalling service from almost every other NHS worker I’ve come across.
Even a surgeon made me cry at my pre-op he was that nasty.
I’ve been left in blood stained bedding for 6 hours whilst suffering a miscarriage without pain relief in hospital because the night staff were ‘too busy’ to sort it. I cried myself to sleep because I was that scared. I was losing so much blood and by 6.15am I asked someone to help me to the shower, I was told to wait until 7.30 for the next shift to come on.
The way my grandad was treated in hospital with his dementia was heartbreaking.
My late father in law was diagnosed with angina and it was only 8 weeks later when he was seen by another consultant there were actually tumours in his lungs sadly, he died not long after.
If I could afford private health care I wouldn’t think twice!
I understand the NHS have some amazing, talented and wonderful staff, I just wish I had come across more of them.

 

[vodkandcokeplz]

I was having an ectopic pregnancy had all the symptoms etc and just had a feeling. I’m quite good with pain but when it became too much my partner drive me to A&E where I was told there’s no chance I’d be having an ectopic pregnancy, as if I was I’d know about it as I’d be in so much pain etc. I was made to feel that daft that I left and was told to come back if the pain got worse. A week later I went to a different hospital had an internal ultrasound and it ruptured was rushed into an operation the same day. I lost my fallopian tube and now have only 50-70% of getting pregnant due to scarring etc and I could of bloody died. Maybe if the original hospital had taken me seriously, done bloods or something maybe it could of been dealt with before rupturing.

 

[justheretoread99]

Read lots and lots of bad stories so wanted to add a good one from today.

Spoiler: Trigger Warning: Self Harm

This morning I had an MRI scan, and after changing into the gown you have to wear there were a few self-harm scars visible on my arms. I did my best to try and hide them. However the nurse who was taking me to the scan area saw them. She just gave me a massive hug and told me everything was going to be okay.

I was a bit nervous and upset for the MRI anyway as I hate small spaces but the kindness of this lovely nurse just sent me over the edge in emotions. (In a good way). She was so caring and really made sure I was ok throughout the scan and before I went home. Some may seem this as something so small, but to me in a time of distress, it meant the world.

Some people are quick to judge the NHS (myself included) but there really are some amazing people working for it. Happy New Year all

 

[Lord Voldemort]

I took an overdose at 14, went to A&E where I saw a psychiatrist who advised me to write poetry instead of self harming & sent me on my way
Also been told 'if you really wanted to die you would have done it by now'
The worst I think was a nurse who literally told me to 'try harder next time' after a suicide attempt...absolutely disgusting