The NHS is really good!

[dan]

Based on my very small sample of one.

On monday morning I went in to Kidderminster hospital to have a small operation on my throat as i've been sounding like i've got a sore throat for several months. I had a camera up my nose a few weeks ago that determined I had something on my vocal chords, not cancerous but requiring a better look with a camera down the throat.

I was told to arrive at 7:30am and got called in straight away to be told what was going to happen, I was first on the list but plans can change, however all being well I should be in at 8:30. Sure enough at 8:30 I was led into a room full of doctors and nurses, I lay down on a bed while a doctor asked me what I did for a living, I started to say 'I play with cars....' and the next thing I knew I was waking up after the op

I was a bit sick after I woke up but all of the staff were amazing, they looked after me incredibly well and after a couple of hours I was feeling well enough to eat a yoghurt and go for a piss, so they let me out. I was home by half eleven.

I had a small infected piece of something or other cut off my vocal chords so at the moment I sound like death cooled down, although I feel mostly fine. It surprised me how much a general anaesthetic knocks you about, I spent all day yesterday watching the curling as I just didn't feel like getting up, but now i'm back at work.

I appreciate I was probably lucky to be first on the list and no other emergency got in my way, but bloody hell when you need them and you're in the system the NHS are bloody amazing. Please don't vote reform

[Jobbo]

Glad it went well Dan, and I echo your comments wholeheartedly. You'll be eating cornflakes again in no time I'm sure.

[dinny_g]

I've found Hospitals NHS are awesome - it's your "Local Practice" NHS that are shite these days, again, on my experience.

General Anaesthetics are amazing and weird things. Never had one myself but my son needed to be put under when he was 6 or 7 to have some cosmetic work done on a huge cut he had under his chin. I'm sitting in a chair in the "outer room", with a good solid hug holding him tight and trying to reassure him as they administer the drugs through a thingy on the back of his hand. The anaesthetist goes "Right everyone, are we ready" as 2 nurses gather round us. I, like a fool say "It's OK, I got him" but when the drugs kicked in, and ALL of his muscles gave our, I would never have been able to hold him. It took 3 of us to keep him upright. He couldn't have weight more than 3 or 4 stone at that point.

I guess your core muscles are always there, even when your sleeping and I had lifted him into and out of the car, into bed etc. with no issues. But under GA, with every muscle relaxed, he became a dead weight I couldn't hold.

It was mad really

[Mito Man]

Yep GPs and A&E are what lets it down, once you're booked into hospital it generally goes pretty well.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I could tell you plenty about how terrifyingly shit it is, and how amazing it is. And it should not be such a tale of two extremes.

Glad you got sorted so quickly though!

[V8Granite]

Its so down to the staff its hit and miss.

My Dads heart attack, miracle workers and the reason he's still here.

My shoulder, amazing surgeon, all went smoothly.

My Gran, left her to die in filth till my Mum intervened.

First kid, waste of spaces nurses.

Second kid, angel nurses.

I think every ward needs a strict Matron and then we would have amazing healthcare.

Dave!

[Barry]

I could tell you plenty about how terrifyingly shit it is, and how amazing it is. And it should not be such a tale of two extremes.

Glad you got sorted so quickly though!

I have similar experiences, when it goes well they're great, when something breaks the cycle it's a nightmare getting things back on track.

[MikeHunt]

Hope you recover back to normal soon pal.

[GG.]

Glad your op went well and hope you get well soon.

Sadly not my experience of NHS hospitals in South London - Kings in particular. They've treated some of our friends and their kids on several occasions recently and the care in each case was poor to negligent (in acute care).

Neonatal care also incredibly stretched and poor from my experience with our son's birth. I think its most noticeably in high density areas where provision becomes inadequate to deal with a large population.

When you compare it to private medical provision there's absolutely no comparison - a combined system like Germany is the only sensible way forward if you look at it unemotionally (and no I'm absolutely not in favour of the US system which is like the wild west (I never ceased to be amazed when I see complex biologics for autoimmune diseases being marketed direct to consumer on US television )).

[Gavster]

As a side note, I bloody love GA. The ‘how long will I last’ when your arm goes cold at the start, then absolute nothingness. I wake up afterwards absolutely off my tits and have a proper laugh with whoever I’m with, honestly it’s a blast and proper lols. Usually feel crap the next day though once all the swelling etc has kicked off.

[Matty]

Good news - hopefully you've retained your singing voice.

"Can I still sing?"
"Of course you can"
"Well I couldn't before"

But agreed with the NHS, they've been fabulous for my family, and my recent/brief checks have been professional and easy, but I've got mates who haven't been as fortunate and don't speak as highly. Still, I'd rather that gamble than the US healthcare system.

[Rich B]

As a side note, I bloody love GA. The ‘how long will I last’ when your arm goes cold at the start, then absolute nothingness. I wake up afterwards absolutely off my tits and have a proper laugh with whoever I’m with, honestly it’s a blast and proper lols. Usually feel crap the next day though once all the swelling etc has kicked off.

There’s a rare condition in my family (malignant hyperthermia) where the sequence with GA isn’t quite so great. it goes - “injection goes in, then your whole body basically overheats so much you die”…

Not so great!

[jamcg]

As a side note, I bloody love GA. The ‘how long will I last’ when your arm goes cold at the start, then absolute nothingness. I wake up afterwards absolutely off my tits and have a proper laugh with whoever I’m with, honestly it’s a blast and proper lols. Usually feel crap the next day though once all the swelling etc has kicked off.

There’s a rare condition in my family (malignant hyperthermia) where the sequence with GA isn’t quite so great. it goes - “injection goes in, then your whole body basically overheats so much you die”…

Not so great!

My wife has hypermobility and for some reason it means she needs about a third more GA than a normal person so her recovery out of it is always a little longer

[Marv]

Good news - hopefully you've retained your singing voice.

"Can I still sing?"
"Of course you can"
"Well I couldn't before"

But agreed with the NHS, they've been fabulous for my family, and my recent/brief checks have been professional and easy, but I've got mates who haven't been as fortunate and don't speak as highly. Still, I'd rather that gamble than the US healthcare system.

Who carried out Dan's surgery, Dr Zauis?

NHS is indeed a magnificent yet precious thing, sad that successive governments seem so determined to run it down into privatisation.

[V8Granite]

As a side note, I bloody love GA. The ‘how long will I last’ when your arm goes cold at the start, then absolute nothingness. I wake up afterwards absolutely off my tits and have a proper laugh with whoever I’m with, honestly it’s a blast and proper lols. Usually feel crap the next day though once all the swelling etc has kicked off.

There’s a rare condition in my family (malignant hyperthermia) where the sequence with GA isn’t quite so great. it goes - “injection goes in, then your whole body basically overheats so much you die”…

Not so great!

My wife has hypermobility and for some reason it means she needs about a third more GA than a normal person so her recovery out of it is always a little longer

Overheating and starting to die must be an annoying side effect

I struggle with it, Dentists can't give me enough to take away the pan so you grin and bear it. When my shoulder got done I counted to 10, told them my favourite football team and was talking about some other bollocks till I finally went under.

Also, local
Anaesthetic when that doesn't take effect, hence my "The snip" story

Dave!

[Gavster]

As a side note, I bloody love GA. The ‘how long will I last’ when your arm goes cold at the start, then absolute nothingness. I wake up afterwards absolutely off my tits and have a proper laugh with whoever I’m with, honestly it’s a blast and proper lols. Usually feel crap the next day though once all the swelling etc has kicked off.

There’s a rare condition in my family (malignant hyperthermia) where the sequence with GA isn’t quite so great. it goes - “injection goes in, then your whole body basically overheats so much you die”…

Not so great!

It is always unfortunate when you get a bit of death as a side effect

[Explosive Newt]

The NHS is great when it's a siloed, protocolised thing. List of people needing one operation which will only take a set amount of time, conveyor belt of patients, one being put under while the next is being woken up, team of people doing the exact same thing every day. It's simple process management learned from the manufacturing industry and it works very well. The private sector is the exact same except the pillow is softer and the waiting room has a pot plant so your perception of quality for essentially the same care is higher.

What is harder is delivering acute/emergency/unscheduled care and especially in a resource poor environment. Long list of punters who could have anything wrong with them and could need any combination of resources. This is hard to get right / do in a cost-effective manner, which is why the private sector doesn't touch it, and why stories of bad acute care experiences abound.

[Holley]

The private sector is the exact same except the pillow is softer and the waiting room has a pot plant so your perception of quality for essentially the same care is higher.

You forgot sandwiches! When my wife needed an endoscopy, Nuffield offered me a nice sandwich whilst I waited in her room. Well worth the £400 per month for our family health plan.

Of course there's the speed issue. She also needed shoulder surgery last year and it was a 12 month wait via the NHS but was booked in privately the same month.

Although (again with Nuffield) she was supposed to stay overnight but nurse seemed overly keen to get rid of her the same day. Just gave me a goodie bag full of drugs, a quick briefing on what was for what and out the door. Still have the morphine at home if anyone needs it

[Mito Man]

I’d go private just to have my own room. It’s really rough when you’re semi dying and there’s 5 other people there but usually one abusive cunt, a few bedbound people who just shit themselves, one person projectile vomiting everywhere and then at night you’ve got machines above all 6 beds all beeping and nurses coming in for observations.
It just becomes an endurance marathon to maintain sanity

[GG.]

Yes that's rather a material point that was omitted... if you cannot get the care at all due to a massive waiting list or GPs that won't refer you or a desire to reduce costs or not send you for scans because the MRI machine overcapacity, etc. etc. it is not "the same barring a pot plant" is it? Delays in receiving healthcare obviously correlate with outcomes , particularly in progressive diseases so that is a huge difference.

That is all part of the analysis of the adequacy of the system, not just the care once you've been allocated a slot. It probably also should be dropped into conversation that the total bill for clinical negligence in the NHS is now the same size as the entire annual UK defence budget.