Not normally overly political, but is anybody else completely shocked at the news the Red Cross volunteers are having to step in to help the NHS?
When you think of the Red Cross, you think of war-torn regions, refugees, humanitarian crisis etc. To think, in the day and age, this government is not intervening with additional funding, and instead allowing this to happen. The mind boggles…. What a disgrace Jeremy Hunt really is.
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Vulpes Vulpes says
As soon as that £350m a week comes on tap, there’ll be no problem.
Carl says
Have an Up.
retropath2 says
Red Cross volunteers used to run many of the visitors canteens in hospitals, them, the WRVS and St Johns have never been far away from the frontline.
Kaisfatdad says
I know what you mean, Native. I feel equally shocked when I hear about how many food banks there are in the UK nowadays.
But Retro makes a good point. Charities have a long tradition of helping out at hospitals. Now I think about it, the hospitality services at Stockholm hospitals are provided by volunteers (from I think the Red Cross). They provide a valuable service and boost awareness of the charity they support.
But of course it all depends what the Red Cross volunteers are doing. If it is anything medical, the the NHS is in trouble.
Moose the Mooche says
There are signs in Co-Op supermarkets these days cheerfully telling us what items are “Perfect for Food banks!” Thus, like Children In Need, these things get normalised.
Native says
It just slightly irritates me that we are generally perceived as world leaders, and we have our MPs passing judgment on other countries, yet the reality is we have people dying in corridors or having to queue at food banks to survive.
Vulpes Vulpes says
….sleeping in shop doorways, pan-handling pennies in shopping centres, carrying their sleeping bags over their shoulders during the day, begging to get into a hostel each night….
fortuneight says
It’s not that the Red Cross are helping out. It’s what they have seen and the fact they have chosen to speak out that matters here.
A member of my family works in a large hospital in the north of the UK. On their way home one night last week they were asked by a nurse in some distress to help get an old lady out of bed as she had been bed bound for several days and was uncomfortable and upset. Together they moved her to a chair.
The next morning the same relative saw the same nurse – still on duty, having worked on because a colleague had been sent home too sick to work. The old lady was still in the chair as no-one had been available all night to help move her back.
Patients needing physio couldn’t receive any as the physio room had been filed with beds to try and relieve the pressure on A&E. Ditto other treatment rooms. The canteen was struggling to cope with the demand for food – patients with families visiting regularly were offering food to others less fortunate. It’s a picture replicated in dozens of other hospitals.
Needless to say the official line is that the Red Cross are wrong, and plans are in place. Well, that’s all right then eh?
pencilsqueezer says
At the heart of this is the gross underfunding of social care. A truly first class care system that includes the NHS requires considerably more money and some joined up thinking.
Prevention is better than cure. Well funded social care would prevent and alleviate a great deal of the stresses on the NHS and would in all likelihood over the long term cost less financially.
One thing it would certainly provide is a much needed lifting of the unnecessary suffering of some of our most vulnerable fellow citizens.
Marwood says
Mrs May ‘does not accept’ the view presented by the Red Cross. Assume she doesn’t accept that people are dying in corridors, either.
Kaisfatdad says
For those of us abroad who haven’t been following this story:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-british-red-cross-hospitals-volunteers-land-rover-winter-pressure-emergency-a7514526.html
It does sound grim. With the current weather conditions, I imagine there are many hospitals throughout Europe who are feeling the strain. I had to pay a visit to a Stockholm A & E department just before Xmas to get some blood tests done for a winter bug I’d caught.. I bought an Ian Rankin novel on the way there and got a lot of reading done: I was there six hours. It was bursting at the seams with patients waiting to be attended to. Impressively both staff and patients managed to maintain a good humour.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
Interesting to read about your experience. Whilst the NHS is underfunded, some would have us believe that if you rolled up to a hospital anywhere else in Europe you would be in and out in 5 minutes.
Kaisfatdad says
The grass is always greener and the hospitals always more efficient, eh?
Very pleased to provide some perspective on the current NHS crisis.
Despite the length of my wait, I did not feel hard done by. The GP who had referred me had warned me in advance that I would be waiting rather a long time. I was in no pain or danger and thus was definitely a low-priority case and had no problem with more serious cases being given priority. The other patients I spoke were also calm and patient: our turn would come.
The staff were cheerful and efficient and did not give the impression of being at the end of their tether. There was a lot to do but they were getting through it.
Perhaps I’m being a little Pollyannaish but I don’t feel disillusioned about Swedish healthcare.
retropath2 says
Learnt on the news today that the only other countries who have targets for speed of A/E assessment are Canada, NZ, Oz and Sweden. Clearly related to numbers of AWorders