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Status:
"“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”"
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Great Britain
27,177 posts, read 13,461,836 times
Reputation: 19472
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow
Here's a fact...
It means that many people, who needed an NHS bed, simply could not get one, as someone was occupying it.
Too many users and not enough servers.
The NHS is going to have to have more investment coupled with greater efficiencies, one of the key problems in relation to beds has been oner is known as bed blocking, this is where elderly patients can not be released from hospital due to a lack of social care and residential places.
Bed blocking is not an issue in many private health care systems where people are often kicked out as soon as possible in order to free up beds and increase revenues.
The NHS is going to have to have more investment coupled with greater efficiencies, one of the key problems in relation to beds has been oner is known as bed blocking, this is where elderly patients can not be released from hospital due to a lack of social care and residential places.
The Government has identified this as a problem and extra money was announced in the Chancellors speech the other day.
Bed blocking is not an issue in many private health care systems where people are often kicked out as soon as possible in order to free up beds and increase revenues.
Mr Hammond also pledged £100million for triage in A&E departments to deal with overcrowding.
He said: “Experience has shown that onsite GP triage in A&E departments, can have a significant and positive impact on A&E waiting times."
But as doctors and nurses are being stretched to breaking point, figures show how the NHS is struggling.
Most of the problems have arisen because of the amount of people using the system.
Status:
"“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”"
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Great Britain
27,177 posts, read 13,461,836 times
Reputation: 19472
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow
Mr Hammond also pledged £100million for triage in A&E departments to deal with overcrowding.
He said: “Experience has shown that onsite GP triage in A&E departments, can have a significant and positive impact on A&E waiting times."
But as doctors and nurses are being stretched to breaking point, figures show how the NHS is struggling.
Most of the problems have arisen because of the amount of people using the system.
Supply & demand...
The demand is greater than the supply.
Mr Hammond also announced a £2 Billion increase in relation to Social Care and Council Tax is to be further increased by Local Authorities to increase Social Care in the form of residential homes or Community Support.
Triage just identifies urgent and non urgent cases, which is why it is receiving a financial boost.
A&E departments increasingly just (also known as emergency department or casualty) deal with genuine life-threatening emergencies and not minor injuries.
Less severe injuries can be treated in seperate urgent care centres or minor injuries units (MIUs).
The NHS now makes it clear that the A&E is not an alternative to a GP appointment. If your GP practice is closed you can call NHS 111, which will direct you to the best local service to treat your injury. Alternatively, you can visit an NHS walk-in centre (WIC), which will also treat minor illnesses without an appointment.
The NHS has been setting up local walk in centres for several years now in order to restrict A&E Deprtments to the most serious and urgent cases thereby elevating pressure, as already mentioned a second useful methid of freeing resources is investment in Social Care where people can be supported in the Community or in Residential Care (Including Nursing Care) rather than taking up space in NHS Hospitals.
Both are good ideas and both free up much needed resources.
Last edited by Brave New World; 03-12-2017 at 07:31 AM..
to be fair, in the USA they most likely having a longer travel time partly due to scale...
But the big thing to note is that in the UK, many folks use ER like it is a GP doctors office. They go in with something that requires 2 stitches and sit there for 8 hours. God only knows why they do it. meanwhile those with 'real" urgent needs are bumped past them dozens of times.
also worth nothing people go in with chronic conditions that are not time sensitive they too screw the system up. I know some countries with cheap public healthcare now have high charges to visit ER rooms to help get these people out.
Many folks use the ER for non- emergencies in the US, too. One can easily wait 8 or more hours to be seen by a doctor, given other higher priority patients. Those in mental/ emotional distress and experiencing suicidal ideation often wait the longest. Most ERs are prepared for life/ death physical situations, no emotional trauma.
No MD is sitting around waiting to do a psyc evaluation in an ER and not all hospitals have psychiatric departments.
An ER can resemble a nursury school in the middle of the night, especially on weekends. Parents panic when their children wake up sick in the middle of the night. Common ear infections are painful. Most of these situations are not life and death.
If they can't afford to fly to the USA for expedited treatment, then they wouldn't be able to afford American healthcare anyway.
Actually they can skip NHS and pay out of pocket. An acquaintance that lived in London could wait no longer for gall bladder surgery so paid for it herself.
The only thing I said was, that the system is overwhelmed and not enough revenue to staff qualified personnel. When revenues are too low to pay for it all as promised, you wait & wait & wait & wait.
Taxes are already so great, even 100% tax will not pay for it.
Years ago, I heard from people in my profession in the UK, had to wait 9 months to a year to see a specialist. (For knee surgeries
Is Medicare failing, because of money? I know what I went through with my elderly dad 5 years ago was a nightmare with Medicare. Then even Tri-care started denying treatment.
Don't get me started. Once on medicare, government surely owns your ass.
How about you really address a shortage of qualified staff then: make colleges free for anyone including the medical field.
As if our population will decline... it will only keep growing.
50+/- countries have Universal Healthcare. No two do it the same way. Some are single payer and providers may be public, private or a combination. Some are entirely private pay- insurers. Most are a mix.
Some require employers to subsidize and some do not.
All systems are tweaked annually and periodically reformed.
What they have in common is that all have an equal right to healthcare, are mandated to participate and governments subsidize the cost of low/ no income people.
Populations are aging within the first world. Many of the diseases that routinely killed people 65 years ago, are now treatable and curable. People are living longer and doing so with chronic conditions. There's a cost associated with the advances of medicine and technology.
People in the first world, especially the US, are getting fatter every year and are more vulnerable to otherwise preventable disease.
Mr Hammond also announced a £2 Billion increase in relation to Social Care and Council Tax is to be further increased by Local Authorities to increase Social Care in the form of residential homes or Community Support.
Triage just identifies urgent and non urgent cases, which is why it is receiving a financial boost.
A&E departments increasingly just (also known as emergency department or casualty) deal with genuine life-threatening emergencies and not minor injuries.
Less severe injuries can be treated in seperate urgent care centres or minor injuries units (MIUs).
The NHS now makes it clear that the A&E is not an alternative to a GP appointment. If your GP practice is closed you can call NHS 111, which will direct you to the best local service to treat your injury. Alternatively, you can visit an NHS walk-in centre (WIC), which will also treat minor illnesses without an appointment.
The NHS has been setting up local walk in centres for several years now in order to restrict A&E Deprtments to the most serious and urgent cases thereby elevating pressure, as already mentioned a second useful methid of freeing resources is investment in Social Care where people can be supported in the Community or in Residential Care (Including Nursing Care) rather than taking up space in NHS Hospitals.
Both are good ideas and both free up much needed resources.
Then comes time to pay that bill and the people ask. Who is paying the additional £2.1 Billion.
Tax increases? Bloddy-ell!
Call the EU for a bailout! Merkel! Miss Merkel, remember us?
It always looks great on paper when dealing with "other peoples money"
I live in one of the best areas in the country for healthcare expertise, availability, and access. I, nor anyone I know of, had to wait beyond a week for appointments or for surgeries. Joint replacements are the only surgery with a waiting list as they are in high demand and not urgent but that wait is usually only a month or two.
I suspect that when insurance companies contract with healthcare institutions, it is actually the insurance companies that put the brakes on access and delivery of care. I have seen insurance companies require a long course of physical therapy, etc. before they will approve payment for surgery. I have seen surgeries cancelled the morning of due to denial of payment from insurance companies.
Insurance companies require patients to literally jump through care delaying hoops in order to get their care.
A few years back, my parents were in a car accident. My father was killed immediately and my mother was in an intensive care for two months and hospitalized for a total of six months. She had a very good insurance plan at the time. The insurance company just refused to pay stating some nonsense about the extent of her hospital stay outlasted the extent of her injuries. She was in an intensive care on a ventilator at the time. The hospital put a lien on everything she owned. We had to fight the insurance to pay for what they were supposed to pay. A total time consuming pain in the ass!
When I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer, I thought I was lucky because two of my local cancer centers are both in the top 5 in the US for cancer care. They have WHOLE TEAMS of people in billing to work with/fight insurance companies.
From diagnosis to treatment, it was 2 months. Let me remind you: I was stage IV. My cancer had begun to grow so rapidly in my chest that it was getting harder and harder to breathe, and my heart was constantly racing. I could feel the tumors in my underarm and above my collar bone growing. I did not get the treatment my world class oncologists wanted me to be on because my insurance company denied it. My insurance fought back on every. single. scan. to the point where my oncologist had to put me on a reduced level of follow up maintenance BECAUSE OF MY INSURANCE. My insurance would cover sperm and embryo banking, but not egg banking and as a single 23 year old, I didn't have $14,000 to throw down in advance to save my fertility.
Flash over to Canada, the UK, and Israel. People on my cancer support forum with my same diagnosis, and even less severe cases, got into chemo in a matter of weeks. They ALL got the superior form of chemo as standard. Some got fertility preservation. None had to work full time through treatment in order to maintain insurance or afford copays.
Friends in other countries (I have lived in the UK, Iceland, and Mexico) could not understand why I was working full time when my full time job should have been fighting cancer. On top of that, before and after work I would spent hours fighting with my insurance companies to cover what they were contractually obligated to cover, and had to go over every bill with a fine tooth comb. That's pretty near impossible to do with the fatigue and cognitive impairment of chemo while balancing trying to remain productive at work so I wouldn't lose my job. All for less effective treatment that didn't even take advantage of my oncology team's expertise.
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