Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable reflects on his recent brush with A&E after he had his appendix removed. Here’s an excerpt:
My short experience told me that there is now excellent quality care in the NHS provided by some first-class people. I also sensed that the services are potentially fragile if put under financial stress.
My own adventure began when I collapsed in a heap several times after dinner at a friend’s house. The initial theory was food poisoning – a House of Commons crayfish sandwich eaten earlier in the day was chief suspect. When the ambulance team arrived, within seconds of the predicted time, they were worried about the fainting and wanted me checked out at the nearest hospital.
I hadn’t appreciated ambulance staff have advanced paramedic skills. When you are feeling half dead it is reassuring to know that the first contact with the NHS is with people who really know what they are doing.
There followed the almost obligatory long wait on a trolley in a cubicle in A&E. I am told this violates one of the numerous targets hospitals have to meet. But it wasn’t a problem. There were higher priorities: desperately ill old people and victims of assaults guarded by the police. I was safe and comfortable and the medical staff were calm, efficient and kind. …
While I was waiting for surgery the next day, long after the appointed hour, my son and daughter were waiting for me, chatting to the surgeons and anaesthetists. They waited and waited. There was a problem. No porter. No manager to sort it out. I discovered that such waits occur constantly. There aren’t enough porters. But we are in a recession and there are alarming levels of unemployment in Inner London which provides the hospital with its staff. So why is there a porter shortage?
I also discovered that a new multi-million-pound building next door had been poorly designed so that doors are too narrow for porters to take trolleys through. The underlying problem seems to be a preoccupation with the glamorous ‘frontline’ roles rather than the equally essential backroom systems. Or perhaps funds are rationed in ways which starve these less visible activities.
Armies win battles, however, not just because of brave soldiers but because someone is organising supplies of ammunition, lorries, food and drink. Good businesses also understand logistics. Public services are often woefully deficient in this area. The problem is called management. In the NHS, management seems to mean highly-paid officials sitting in big offices, attending meetings, burnishing their mission statements and issuing edicts to operational staff based on Government targets.
You can read the article in full HERE.
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Look at my stay in the NHS, I fell at work 96ft, broke my legs my back and had massive internal injuries. The ambulance people arrived and said they needed a Helicopter to take me to hospital Air sea rescue was called, so was the Police chopper, the Ambulance crew left. The Choppers both of them said they could not land or pick me up because that area was designated as dangerous it was an Oil Refinery. The Ambulance crew were called back and they again stated it was not a job for them, by this time I was in and out , and the police and a doctor arrived then I was finally moved by the ambulance crew but the two people were not paramedics. I was not placed onto a spinal board or a neck brace.
I was taken to a Hospital in A&E before a nurse said OK we need room and I was pushed into a toilet and left, now the morphine the doctor had given me was wearing off and I was in massive pain, 6 hours later a nurse came in to use the toilet and said who are you, what are you doing in here. I was pushed back out and a nurse said we have been waiting for hours for an accident at a refinery, and I shout it’s F*cking me I’m the one.
I was rushed to xray told I had broken legs broken arm broken, back perhaps spinal injuries the doctor said we are getting a bed ready for you we will put you on a morphine pump.
I was pushed back into A&E now I was screaming with pain, a nurse came to me and said stop your moaning this will teach you to drink, ten minutes later I was told to find my own way home, I said to the nurse both my legs are broken I need to have them sorted out, she said hold on I’ll get your record yes you can go home your xrays are clear, she gave me a leaflet on drinking. I was placed into a Taxi and sent home with two broken legs a broken back nothing in plaster and at the time nobody knew bleeding from the bowel. I had a fit in the taxi and the driver took me to another hospital, all hell broke lose with doctors screaming down the phone, it seemed they had got me mixed up took a drunk to the ward and sent me home.
I spent eighteen months in that hospital and had five major operations on my spine, not only that while half asleep the hospital solicitors had me sign a document saying I would not sue, that was thrown out when doctors said they had made a blunder. The fact is the fit I suffered in the taxi caused a bleed into my brain, and I cannot remember my child hood or my youth it’s like my life started at 39. I then had MRSA which nearly killed me because a doctor refused to clean his hands after seeing an old Lady with the bug, I spend another three months in ICU.
So count your self lucky, now I have to go through Labour new medicals and ESA, thanks a million.
Whilst I immediately sympathize with the story – provided that it is true, as I never believe unproven stories told on the internet – I don’t see what that has to do with Dr Cable’s point that the NHS seems to have put a very low priority on logistics.