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    #26
    "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

    As far as I remember. This isn't a new mess. That, and a level of debt which was a multiple of the places entire annual budget iirc, is why people were looking at extreme solutions.

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      #27
      "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

      Tubby Isaacs wrote:
      England (per Nuffield) outperformed Scotland who got rid of their market ages ago.
      Having done quite a bit around health inequalities, comparing England en masse with either Scotland or Wales doesn't shed much light on quality.

      You may as well compare exam results between Eton and an inner city comp in Glasgow.

      Compare Wales with health services serving the poorest areas adding up to three million people in England, or Scotland with the health services serving the poorest eight million in England and they shape up.

      Comment


        #28
        "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

        They also study the North East of England specifically to be more comparable to Scotland and Wales. NE England had added an extra year on to life expectance since 1990 (when they'd been about the same).

        But Scotland was (in overall terms) catching up England overall lately, so perhaps abolishing the "market" is helping that.

        An interesting thing is that the "Blairite" Scottish Labour abolished the "market" as early as 2004, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and all. Whereas "lefty" Wales did it in 2007.

        Comment


          #29
          "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

          Janik wrote: As far as I remember. This isn't a new mess. That, and a level of debt which was a multiple of the places entire annual budget iirc, is why people were looking at extreme solutions.
          One thing I can't understand is why it wasn't just accepted that Hitchingbrooke had been stuck for ages with a very difficult financial situation for ages.

          Saying it's unsustainable is a decision of internal management accounting (non-TonTon division). I can see why they don't want to be too generous, because they're worried that every other trust sees that and thinks it can overspend.

          But even so. Surely in some cases, you just accept that the trust has been trying and give it more money. See also the "nothing we can do, it's got a bad PFI" logic.

          Comment


            #30
            "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

            Fish pissing in the sea:

            Remember old Empty's song and dance about his "cancer drugs fund"? Complete with nasty dig v Wales for not having one?

            Well, guess what's coming?

            http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/10/cancer-drugs-fund-waste-of-nhs-cash-david-cameron

            Yep, it's being massively cut back. Turns out there are other awful health conditions too, and putting cancer in a separate category isn't fair.

            One thing to be thankful to the Lansley Bill, I suppose. At least stuff like drug funding is (eventually) in the hands of people who know what they're talking about.

            Comment


              #31
              "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

              Tubby Isaacs wrote:
              Yep, it's being massively cut back. Turns out there are other awful health conditions too, and putting cancer in a separate category isn't fair.
              Which is precisely why the Labour Welsh Government has resisted setting up a separate fund for cancer drugs.

              Oh, sorry, you've got MS. No money for drugs for you. Better start smoking and hope you get a fast-acting lunch cancer. Then we can treat you.

              The idea of a cancer drugs fund is all about political spin and spunking money in the direction of big pharma for zero ROI.

              Comment


                #32
                "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

                Indeed. You can't get much lower than that, can you? Load of false hope for cancer sufferers.

                Mrs Tubby is a Welsh Labour councillor and very alert to this sort of shit. Particularly nasty was the stink around Avastin, which Wales wasn't supplying when England was.

                Obviously, people who need Avastin want it. So lots of "if I were English, I'd bot be dying" for years and years. Strangely, the media never get round to finding people who need something else instead of it.

                Fast forward to last week, England.

                Lo and behold!

                http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2901367/Anger-fund-cuts-six-breast-cancer-drugs-Thousands-women-denied-chance-medication-sparking-fierce-condemnation-campaigners.html

                Six breast cancer drugs deemed to offer ‘insufficient value for money’
                The drugs are eribulin, Avastin, Kadcyla, Afinitor, Tyverb and Perjeta
                This will see thousands of cancer patients denied 'last chance' meds
                With shit hitting the fan in England, hopefully the Wales-bollocks will be less effective in the General Election.

                Couple of right awful Welsh Tory MPs, for a start, though of course Cameron and Hunt are really after English votes.

                Comment


                  #33
                  "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

                  Here's Cameron in November, publicly taking a big petition about "equal access to cancer drugs" in Wales.

                  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-30137020

                  What a shithead he is. He'll probably mention his son in a minute.

                  Comment


                    #34
                    "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

                    I don't blame the patients. If I had cancer I would want anything I thought would keep me alive.

                    But the way the Welsh Tories have gone on and on and on about it. Bloody Andrew RT Davies asking every freaking week in the Assembly about whether there will be a cancer drugs fund just so he can issue a press release to say Labour don't care about cancer patients. It shouldn't surprise me the scumbaggery in using human tragedy to score political points, but it just gets tiresome after a while.

                    Comment


                      #35
                      "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

                      Yes, the desperate people you can understand. But politicians exploiting them are despicable.

                      Alun Cairns is another nasty bit of work, operating from Westminster. Very handy for planted questions.

                      He mucks those up pretty effectively though.

                      http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhrzuy_how-not-to-ask-a-question-in-the-commons_news

                      Mrs Tubby lives in a safe Labour seat and has chosen Cairns as the one she'd like to work against. There was some pretty stiff competition.

                      Comment


                        #36
                        "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

                        The joys of privatised ambulances...

                        Comment


                          #37
                          "Bear shits in woods" NHS news

                          London Ambulance Service not doing brilliantly either.

                          http://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/ambulance-bosses-fear-999-response-times-crisis-is-damaging-patient-care-a3215091.html

                          56% of most urgent calls made in target period of 8 minutes. Either Johnson's traffic is fucking it up, or Hunt's ambulance service.

                          Wales, that Tory punchbag, manages 72%. Despite having lots of poor people with ill health living in remote locations.

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Day off for me today as I’m recovering from an unexpected hospital visit yesterday, from 6.30pm to 1.15am, first time in over 16 years (funnily enough, the last time I had to go to a hospital was for the same thing).

                            I had just got home yesterday past 5pm when I felt a searing pain both in the lower back and groin area (I had felt a dull pain there for a few days, eg when urinating, but didn’t think much of it and I’ve been very busy since last Friday and away for most of the weekend so no time to go to see a GP, plus seeing one atm in the UK can be a problem, certainly with my surgery, unless it’s urgent, which wasn’t my case. It was a minor pain, I thought it was a dicky stomach or something minor, I took Paracetamol. My wife, a pharmacist, sussed out that it wasn’t that minor and urged me to see a GP on Monday but I ignored her advice hoping that it would pass).

                            Within 5 minutes, the pain really intensified (to rolling on the floor and screaming levels). I managed to phone my wife who’s very good with those body things, she told me to call 111 and take Tramadol in the meantime, which I did (we always keep strong stuff at home, just in case. I've had kidney stones in the past and other nasties too, such as anal fissures, you need those pretty pronto when that happens, trust me). These painkillers take a while to work but the pain abated after (a very unpleasant) 45 mns, it was an on-off sort of pain, lots of trips to the toilet to urinate, or tried to anyway.

                            At that stage, we both immediately suspected kidney stones, or a nasty kidney infection or a urinary tract infection. I had a kidney stone incident in 2002, woke up in agony in the middle of the night. For 20 mns, I was writhing in pain and screaming (it’s often likened to giving birth, not sure how valid the comparison is but it certainly is very painful) and was rushed to hospital after we established it probably wasn’t a stomach cramp or something (where I was seen straight away and eventually passed the stone, and that was that). But yesterday the pain was different in its distribution (if that’s the right word), it was intense but not as intense as in 2002 and it was intermittent, so while I thought it might be another episode of kidney stone I also thought that it might be something completely different.

                            Anyway, just after talking to my wife (or trying to, the pain was excruciating at times and couldn’t even sit, I could barely speak) I phoned 111. They advised me to see a GP asap but I couldn’t drive, my wife wasn’t there obviously and I didn’t particularly want to go to my surgery anyway, wait for an hour probably etc. to be told in the end to go to hospital. I wanted to be seen in a hospital straight away. The 111 operator told me that a GP would call me back in a hour, so at about 6.15pm. I wasn't happy with that but there's not much I could do about it. I wanted them to send me a shiny ambulance really, but nope, the woman operator was reading and responding from a script and she refused. I think they only send the heavy cavalry if the pain assessment is at least 8/10, and I’d naively said to her that mine was about 4/10 and that I had just taken strong painkillers, so she clearly assessed me as non priority, bottom of the pile. OK, fair enough, resources are stretched and all that but I still cursed her name.

                            The GP did phone at 6.15, 1 hr to wait was bloody long but thank god the Tramadol that I’d taken an hour before had numbed most of the pain so I was able to actually have a convo with that GP, he diagnosed a number of things to do with kidney mainly and asked me to pick a referral letter at his surgery to take to Cramlington hospital, my wife had arrived by then and drove me there (a referral letter is not necessary in this case but it helps the hospital staff to, inter alia, triage people on arrival, there's 2 triage processes AFAIU, the 1st one when you arrive at reception, and the 2nd one when you're seen by a triage nurse).

                            I was drowsy and even with the Tramadol I was in pain (on and off) and had to lie down on a long soft bench in the waiting-room. Got there just past 6.30 pm. I naively thought that I would be seen within an hour as I was in pain and it wasn’t that busy, maybe “only” 25 people in the waiting room (and some of them obvs. would have been accompanying s.o else). But I waited, and waited… (the problem with taking strong painkillers is that while it’s great as it dulls the pain you tend to underrate your pain when they ask you to self-assess your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, so I’d given the 111 doctor a pain mark of 4/10 and ditto to the reception lady at the hospital, besides the pain was fitful so it was difficult to assess but in hindsight I should have said 6 or 7/10, maybe I’d have been seen more quickly).

                            Anyway, after waiting for 1h30 a triage nurse saw me at about 8pm. I was honest and told her I’d taken some Tramadol at 5pm, you’re not supposed to, it’s strong stuff and certainly not your average painkiller (it’s a prescription drug), has side effects etc. I was still in pain so she offered me a Diclofenac suppository but of course I declined her offer. I don’t do suppositories, and I really couldn’t see my weak self playing the contortionist to insert that thing up my Khyber Pass, which I said to her (not in those terms). She went to see a doctor (she disappeared for 10 mns, they probably had only 1 doctor for the whole ward) and came back with liquid morphine, good strong stuff that I gulped down. She said that a doctor would see me “hopefully before 11pm”… I was half gone by then but worked out that it meant another 3 hrs of waiting… So yet another looooooong wait, more and more people in the main waiting room, maybe 50 at that point, it was getting very busy and a bit manic at times. A violent woman was escorted out by 4 burly security men. We saw the police escorting 1 man to a ward etc. I was so knackered by then, I’d hardly slept the night before, I was in pain and fed up.

                            I was drinking a lot of water to try to flush out the damn stone, so I must have gone to the toilet 25 times while at the hospital. At one point I sat on the bog for 15 mns drinking and dribbling piss. By then, we sort of knew that it was a renal thing, either kidney stones or a kidney infection but more probably the former. One of the symptoms of kidney stones is: “Needing to go to the bathroom more urgently or frequently than usual is another sign that the stone has moved into the lower part of your urinary tract. You may find yourself running to the bathroom, or needing to go constantly throughout the day and night.

                            I was eventually seen just before 11pm, I was ecstatic to be seen. Once we got into the inner-sanctum of the hospital, it was much better. It wasn’t a doctor who saw me but a nurse, a high level nurse (she gave us her exact title, I can’t remember what it was as I was pretty dazed by then but she was a highly qualified nurse) which is abso fine, top nurses are often just as competent as doctors and communicate better IME and in my wife’s experience (she deals with medical people on a daily basis – in her line of work she has to liaise with nursing homes, GPs, nurses, surgeries, hospitals, drug rehab clinics etc.).

                            The nurse made a bit of a hames of taking my blood, she didn’t manage to put the contraption properly, blood spurted out all over me and her desk. It resembled a gory scene from a horror movie, we made comments to that effect and all had a good laugh! Which was needed as I was tense and my blood pressure was sky high, 180 over 85 (it’s usually about 115 over 75, so well within the healthy range). But she was good and an excellent communicator, and that’s very important. She explained the procedure, reassured me, took time to answer my questions comprehensively etc. (you do panic a bit with problems vaguely in that area, especially when in your 50s like I am, with the pain I imagined it might be cancer, something serious to do with the old intestines or somesuch shit). She took 3 samples of blood, a urine sample and sent me to the scanner area for a CT scan of the kidney. I was still in pain so she gave me a cocktail of 3 tablets.

                            Anyway, the results to all the tests arrived in dribs and drabs until past 1am and were explained by another nurse, 1.30 hr’s wait in total to get all the results which was fine as by then they’d given me a bed in an individual room with nice staff who’d come and talk to you and bring you water or tea (for my wife). Very calm atmosphere in this modern ward, a world away from the waiting room.

                            The upshot is that I passed a 5mm stone (or they think I passed it anyway, they can't ascertain it but today I'm fine so touch wood, this bloody stone's gone!), and I was lucky as the nurse said that from 6-7 mm they either operate or blast the damn thing with ultrasound. Some stones can be as big as 20mm.

                            We got home past 1.30am to find that our dog had shat and weed on the carpet but I was mightily relieved.
                            Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 05-12-2018, 16:33.

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Good god.

                              Please take care of yourself.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                The thing is ursus, I try to eat more healthily in general, especially now that I am in my 50s, but when you look at the NHS site about what causes kidney stones (apart from not drinking enough water, my case) you find this:

                                Diet

                                If your kidney stone is caused by too much calcium, you may be advised to reduce the amount of oxalates in your diet. Oxalates prevent calcium being absorbed by your body, and can accumulate in your kidney to form a stone. Foods that contain oxalates include:

                                • beetroot
                                • asparagus
                                • rhubarb
                                • chocolate
                                • berries
                                • leeks
                                • parsley
                                • celery
                                • almonds, peanuts and cashew nuts
                                • soy products
                                • grains, such as oatmeal, wheat germ and wholewheat
                                I love most of the healthy foodstuffs listed above and eat plenty of them, especially asparagus, rhubarb, leeks, celery and berries (we are given plenty of raspberries and we pick our own backberries in August/September, tens of ice-cream sized containers – to eat on their own or in crumbles), we make soups with leeks and parsley etc. But then you find out that if you eat a lot of these supposedly good stuff, nasty things can happen. It sucks.

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  That list makes me sad (we are also a berry-intensive household).

                                  Though I also drink excessive amounts of water.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    I need to drink far more water than I do, I think I'll starting drinking tons of tea.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      That sounds grim, Perou. Glad that you seem to be on the mend.

                                      Your list does make me feel better about an All-Bs bread, bacon, butter and beer diet.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        Christ PF, glad you got over it! The GLW (who is a CNS - clinical nurse specialist) reckons you were seen by an ANP, advanced nurse practitionner....

                                        Soignes toi bien camarade!

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          I’m still shuddering reading that PF. Am convinced my insides are picture in the attic fucked while my outsides still look youngish and healthy. About to experience the joys of day surgery in the not quite free at the point of service, not quite as shit as English NHS, possibly worse than Scottish and with charges Irish public system tomorrow. 80 quid to be knocked out cut up and sent home the same day. Shiteing it.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by Pérou Flaquettes View Post
                                            I need to drink far more water than I do, I think I'll starting drinking tons of tea.
                                            Make it decaf is my advice.

                                            Comment


                                              #47
                                              Thanks everyone, I'm fine, the nurse was right, I must have passed the stone as no pain today (I never doubted her but I wasn't 100% sure that the bastard had vacated my body, I should have brought a fine kitchen sieve with me to the hospital when urinating - would have caught the 5 mmm stone -, I fear that it was hiding somewhere in a meander of my internal waterworks waiting to pounce again).

                                              Originally posted by Moonlight shadow View Post
                                              Christ PF, glad you got over it! The GLW (who is a CNS - clinical nurse specialist) reckons you were seen by an ANP, advanced nurse practitionner....

                                              Soignes toi bien camarade!
                                              Thanks. And don't forget to ask for a Bescherelle for Xmas (http://la-conjugaison.nouvelobs.com/...be/soigner.php).

                                              Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                              I’m still shuddering reading that PF. Am convinced my insides are picture in the attic fucked while my outsides still look youngish and healthy. About to experience the joys of day surgery in the not quite free at the point of service, not quite as shit as English NHS, possibly worse than Scottish and with charges Irish public system tomorrow. 80 quid to be knocked out cut up and sent home the same day. Shiteing it.
                                              £80 for an operation in Ireland? Wow, who do they employ?

                                              Originally posted by Toby Gymshorts View Post
                                              Make it decaf is my advice.
                                              Ah, I've just asked my better half and she says that her tea has very little caffeine in it and that decaf tea is not very tasty.

                                              Comment


                                                #48
                                                It’s a statutory charge for any day procedure. Obvs doesn’t cover the cost of the op, but still doesn’t feel right. Either have universal health insurance or take it from general taxation. This halfway house shit is the worst of both worlds. (Ok it’s far from US horrific, but still don’t sit right, may the ghosts of Nye Bevan and Noel Browne shit in the mouths of the Irish medical profession and churchy hospital running bastards).

                                                It’s 80 quid a night for “bed rent” each night you are admitted as well PF (unless you have private insurance or are poor enough for a medical card). Think it’s 120 for a and e as well (though I seem to have been waived that after my 4 nights and subsequent bill in the Hotel Mater in September-maybe cos they made me sleep in a chair till I was admitted to a ward 24 hours after presenting- and this was with me apparently having serious and potentially Life Changing as they say Cellulitis- an eighty year old woman with a possible stroke also spent most of the night waiting for a bed or trolley). You don’t have to pay up front but the system still feels disgusting. Just like the 60 euro or thereabouts charge for a GP (which you do have to pay upfront and surely contributes to folk on tight finances not reporting till they are falling apart).
                                                Last edited by Lang Spoon; 05-12-2018, 21:03.

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  Herself recommends decaf green tea. Hmmm.

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                                    It’s a statutory charge for any day procedure. Obvs doesn’t cover the cost of the op, but still doesn’t feel right. Either have universal health insurance or take it from general taxation. This halfway house shit is the worst of both worlds.

                                                    It’s 80 quid a night for “bed rent” each night you are admitted as well PF (unless you have private insurance or are poor enough for a medical card). Think it’s 120 for a and e as well (though I seem to have been waived that after my 4 nights and subsequent bill in the Hotel Mater in September-maybe cos they made me sleep in a chair till I was admitted to a ward 24 hours after presenting). You don’t have to pay up front but the system still feels disgusting. Just like the 60 euro or thereabouts charge for a GP (which you do have to pay upfront and surely contributes to folk on tight finances not reporting till they are falling apart).
                                                    OK, thanks, I'd heard before that medical costs are expensive in Ireland. Does everyone pay the €75 charge to see a GP? (even the poor I mean?) You don't get anything reimbursed if you have a private health insurance? That private insurance, is it like a US type one (very expensive) or a French Mutuelle type of (complementary) health insurance? (about €120-€150/month for a very good one)

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