A National Treasure, Tarnished: Can Britain Fix Its Health Service? | Hacker News Reader

A National Treasure, Tarnished: Can Britain Fix Its Health Service?

nytimes.com

15 pointsmonero-xmr7 comments

I worked for this NHS trust about 15 years ago as my first job after university.

One thing not mentioned here is how poorly run the administration is. Getting a process changed was an absolute nightmare and the place had very high levels of nepotism. Most managers had kids that worked there too for instance.

I ended up leaving after a couple of years and after working in finance and tech, I’ve never seen anything quite as poorly run.

Hopefully large scale reform, particularly on the hospital administration level will occur. For the sake of my friends and family still in the Romford area.

Lack of space seems like the more fundamental problem in britain, not only in hospitals. Maybe britain can recover the lost art of construction?

The article states they’ve tried cutting funding for employees and facilities repeatedly because of “austerity” and budget cuts to get to the current situation. They made public spending choices to get here in national and local government. It’s not lack of knowing how to build things, the situation is snowballing from long response times to GP to people resorting to using emergency rooms for first contact with healthcare providers American style.

A hospital bed isn't a bed - any idiot can buy beds in bulk from any hospital supplier.

A hospital bed is a package that consists of the bed and the long list of stuff needed to support that bed, which includes all the staff (doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, allied health professionals, admin staff, cleaners, porters, food preparation, etc etc) -- and all of these staff are in short supply in England.

> Fifteen hours after she was taken out of an ambulance at Queen’s Hospital with chest pains and pneumonia, Marian Patten was still in the emergency room, waiting for a bed in a ward. Mrs. Patten, 78, was luckier than others who arrived at this teeming hospital, east of London: She had not yet been wheeled into a hallway.

https://archive.is/OSuEZ

This is a classic example of the press surreptitiously highlighting a problem with NHS employees because technology used by the NHS is still working properly, constantly being updated for health care providers around the world to buy if they so wish.

There might be a problem with the NHS estate, ie buildings, but take that up with the builders and building managers.

It was the Royal Devon and General Hospital (Wonford) that was the first major structure in the UK that had concrete cancer.

http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_organisations/rde.php#:~....

No mention of how keyhole surgery, an updated method of surgery has reduced the need for beds, hernia operations in the 70's used to be a week long stay in hospital but today is a half day out patient procedure; better diagnostic testing and drug development has reduced the need for surgery; there are many improvements in medicine and healthcare and its being seen globally.

All this article highlights is that medicine has changed, the UK boomer population hump is now of that age where they need the NHS more than most and for decades have not held repeated govt's to account, perhaps indirectly highlighting that democracy doesn't really work.

But the need for health care has changed, gone are the days for needing massive hospitals with huge numbers of staff and beds, the trend for care in the community has been around since the 80's. Thatcher pioneered care in the community to prop up your house prices, so are we witnessing a generation of people or group of people who want to stay in hospital for as long as possible, like a previously undiagnosed form of Munchausen disease?

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