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The whole process worked beautifully. He was diagnosed quickly and effectively. He was assessed further at the local hospital who referred on to the Regional Centre where he was well looked after, nursed excellently, and when he came to see me, he and his wife were delighted.
He is an ordinary working-class bloke from Dullsville, who has been looked after.
His care, I reckon, would have cost around £200,000. He knows that. We, the healthy, paid for him to have his treatment.
This is the NHS that I joined as a Junior Doctor 36 years ago.
I get a bit fed up of politicians and journalists telling me that the NHS needs reform.
It blinking well doesn't. What it needs is aforesaid politicians to go away and do something else with their time. I'd rather they dredged their moats, or tended to their duck houses.
Leave us alone.
20 comments:
100% correct JD, it works when left alone, but on the other side the NHS Complaints system needs to be changed so that patients and their reletives can get the justice they deserve when "it" goes wrong.
No problems with that, either, Angus
Of course the NHS works,
But They can't make obscene private profits out of the taxpayer/patients
without "reform"
That's all well and good, JD. Brings a tear to the eye. But hard cases, be they good or bad, make bad law. One isolated success in the NHS means nothing. The NHS badly needs reform. You and others (Grumble) can keep you head, ostrich like, in the sand just as Ed Balls can successfully be a deficit denier.
Brain tumours or whatever are glam medicine. Try the care of the mentally ill which has never been good in the NHS and now is appalling. And PLEASE don't mention Fatty Fry and trendy old "bi-polar".
Realist
Hear hear, Jobbing Doctor. The NHS works - not perfectly - but it works.
The bankers got us into this mess. And although Cameron and Osborne seem to have identified the disabled as the "new Jews", the NHS does try its best for us.
Well said. I got diagnosed with MS last year and have nothing but praise for the team that looks after me. My neurologist treats me like a person, my nurse rings to see if I'm ok and I can ring and see someone whenever I need to.
Lansley's plans to open the 'market' to private providers is an abomination that will leave us with a system like America's. Anyone who wants that can always go there
Realist ,
If you think NHS mental health care is bad , try the USA
Do you really think adopting a US Market system is going to be better for the care of all the mentally I'll .
Realist - there is no money in the mentally I'll unless you are thinking of celebrity retreats for those with sex addiction as part of mental health. Not very realistic at you. I have experience of the US system and they can keep it.
jd
a minority of patients getting acceptable treatment doesnt prove much
come with me ill show you a more representative nhs, ill take you round basildon, coventry, sunderland and so on
the nhs is crap stop defending it, it is not the dream you hold on to
My experience of the NHS is pretty good - much better than the US and its weaknesses, like mental health, wont get any better. End the purchaser/divider split is what I say - sadly cannot see
anyone chanting that on a march!
As usual, the last two commentators refer to the shortcomings of the US system. However it has been proved in continental Europe that a mix of public and private provision delivers better outcomes than the NHS and this is what the Government is aiming towards with its reforms of the NHS.
david said...
please don't repeat this governments lies regarding patient outcomes.
The NHS is being carved up for American healthcare corporations, so guess what system their imposing on us ?
Quoted you in my latest post.
The Cockroach Catcher
Betty
I don't suggest a wholesale change to the US system. That would be even worse than what we have. But there is some good in the US system just as there is much good in ours. But the NHS, for all it's good intentions, is failing to deliver unless you have a glam condition like heart disease and, for example, breast cancer. The JD is well meaning but cannot see beyond his champagne-socialist beliefs. The care of the elderly and the mentally ill in the UK, to give but two examples, is appalling. I'm sad that the JD is taking his knee-jerk Ballsian approach to the problems. There is a Tory government in power therefore everything they suggest is bad. Trouble is, the JD has no concrete proposals and seems to have forgotten about all the problems in the NHS about which he used to write.
Realist
Realist - it's time to wake up and get real.
What you'll be getting from the Tory government is an American style system. You only have to look at the US to see that the care for those with mental illnesses here will be even more appalling as there's no money to be made from it.
GPs will be under pressure to commission the cheapest provider of mental health care - cheap doesn't necessarily equate with good care.
Improving care for people with mental illnesses doesn't have to involve cutting up the NHS for privatisation.
Anyone who believes that the NHS doesn't need radical reform should read this blog:
http://militantmedicalnurse.blogspot.com/
No, Militant Medical Nurse is not about reform: it is about proper qualified staffing with decent nurse:patient ratios.
JD.
Reform, like freedom or progress is always a good thing. But words like these are often twisted by politicians to mean very little.
Heres hoping you're about to retire. This entrenched opposition to change along with childish verbal tantrums casts you in the same group as nimby's and jobsworths.
Where's your backbone? Where are you ideas for improvement? Do you really think the NHS doesn't need reform?
I watched my father die in a filthy surgical ward on christmas day at his local hospital. He too had cancer - no efficient 2 week service for him, no transfer to a hospital that could serve his needs, no fantastic nursing care, not even decent pain relief.
Your old fashioned picture of a family doctor on his rounds, serving his patients is a thing of the past. it is broken, it does need fixing and the hard economic facts are that non clinical managers and policians can't do it - they're not qualified. i want a forward thinking go-getting gp that I can be proud of.
I lived in Britain for fifty years, then moved to the United States. If all those who criticize the NHS so volubly would only spend a few years over here, particularly while suffering from disease, their attitudes towards social medicine would soon change. Few here can afford the horrendous policies necessary to cover medical costs. The elderly are especially vulnerable. No, the NHS is not perfect. Sometimes it can be downright dreadful for a few, but it'll not improve by privatization, because money will be siphoned off into the coffers of the corporates that will run it.
I hope you don't mind, but I used your post on my own blog, as an example of how social medicine can work. If you're not happy, I will certainly remove it. You can check it out here:
http://sparrowchat.com/2011/02/a-message-to-americans-about-socialist-medicine/
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