Underfunding and understaffing does not excuse individual incompetence.
A very close relative of mine has been failed by the NHS for essentially my entire life time. Being offered treatments that have only made his situation worse, and being treated by incompetent staff time and time again.
(For the record most staff are brilliant, and I love the principle of the health service. But I can't ignore the amount that just are terrible).
I'll give some past examples before getting on to what has made me write this today:
- had wounds dressed with primary dressings the wrong way around, leaving them to stick to the wounds. We had to remove these as district nurses refused to come until their allocated time days later. I have never seen him cry before this day.
- had nurses dress his wounds but not covering them all, leading to bandage to stick directly to the wound. Again unacceptable and painful
- Time and time again had wounds dressed at a DEDICATED clinic who completely ignore infection protocol, this just last year leading to sepsis.
I could go on and on....
But now on to why I am writing this.
He is currently in hospital, and has been for essentially six weeks. I say essentially, because he was wrongly discharged twice in this period before returning days later. The first discharge was admitted to be a mistake by the discharge team on the ward he was on....
Throughout this spell in hospital many things have happened that are alarming and I believe dangerous. But we will focus on the main / worse things.
1, Information not being passed on to staff during hand over. At the moment he cannot really walk. He is normally fairly mobile but because of his current illness his knees completely buckle. This information is important because he's a big guy who is not easy to get up if he falls. I should add he is extremely delirious as a result of infection so doesn't know where he is etc. despite this staff try to get him up etc, despite it apparently being in his notes to not do this. But some staff claim they were not told about this or other parts of his current condition. So which is it? Information not being passed on? Or staff not bothering to read the information? This is extremely dangerous for him and the staff.
2, Another wound dressing story! A nurse of this ward dressed his wounds so badly that almost every member of staff came over to see it the day after. The one seemingly in charge saying that 'a toddler could do a better job'. That's good and all, but it's him who has to suffer. So why is this happening?
3, perhaps the reason I'm typing this now the most, he can't swallow at the moment because he's essentially forgotten how to do it. So why is a nurse trying to force medication into him and making him choke in the process. This all happened when my mum was in the room. Not only was she pleading with this nurse to stop but the patient himself was showing visible signs of being scared despite the delirium. Yet she carried on until my mum got me to come to the hospital and stop them. This just is not safe. How can you essentially choke a patient who evidently can't swallow when their family is telling you to stop? Why are they not listening? When confronted with this they couldn't explain it. I offered two possible explanations, either the nurse is incompetent or doesn't care. I was of course called rude for this etc, but I have overheard these staff describing other staff on this ward as 'not wanting to do any work' etc, which when confronted with they didn't really have an answer.
I could go on and on. Fundamentally I am worried about him being there on his own because I just cannot trust the quality of care. My conversations with the staff were overheard by other patients on the ward who all seemed to agree with me unprompted.
I understand the health service is under pressure and the principle is great. But that isn't an excuse for individuals being negligent.
The NHS was founded upon the idea that you will not be treat according to your ability to pay. Unfortunately I don't think this is true of the NHS anymore. You indeed are treated accordingly to your ability to pay. Once we began accepting below minimum standard care with the excuse of underfunding and understaffing this principle died. If you've got money you can afford care that meets the minimums, if not you are rolling a dice on the NHS. You may have a brilliant experience with the many brilliant staff. Or you may have a terrible experience and your condition worsened by the growing number of incompetent staff the service emoloys.