I was a guest of the UK’s largest employer yesterday at the Fylde Coast NHS Treatment Centre on St. Walburgas Road (operated by Spire Healthcare). I did my foot in years ago and periodically it gives me quite a lot of pain, so it was decided by a consultant that I have a steroid injection in it (albeit after 5 years of going back to the GP to get a referral). My appointment was at 1.15pm which is where my nice timeline starts.
1.15pm
I arrived promptly and within a few minutes I was taken to my room at the hospital by an authoritative woman who I presume was some sort of manager. I was confused by this. I was under the impression that I would be in and out, with perhaps a short wait whilst they did general admissions procedures such as blood pressure. After all, how long can an injection possibly take?
It was a nice enough room, with a 32 inch plasma screen for company (thats where your tax dollars are going) but it did feel a bit like being in solitary confinement.
1.30pm
After 15 minutes of staring out of the window watching cars on Newton Drive a staff nurse called Pam came in, wheeling in a load of equipment which looked like a blood pressure monitor and some other stuff I didn’t recognise. On top of it all was a ton of paperwork. I was again a bit confused. Was all this crap necessary?
Pam issued me with one of those wrist bands with my name and date of birth on it then proceeded to do my blood pressure, blood oxygen level and temperature. My blood pressure was 126mmHg over 86mmHg which seemed fairly normal to me given that I hate hospitals and the (normally) officious staff and intimidating paraphernalia that accompanies them. But Pam – who didn’t seem to know what a smile was – said it was slightly high.
Given that (like many nurses it seems) she must have been well over 14 stone herself I thought it was quite hypocritical of her to make that comment since hers cant exactly have been low. Still, after repeatedly asking whether I had any allergies she proceeded to leave and said I wouldn’t be getting my jab until 3.30-3.45pm. She then said she wasn’t going to be the nurse looking after me anyway. Great.
1.45pm
After pacing about for another 10 minutes the consultant came in, Mr Tony McEvoy. I’d obviously seen him a couple of times prior to yesterday but was a little offset when he asked which foot it was that he would be injecting. I know these guys turn over quite a few people but I’d have liked him to have actually read my fucking notes beforehand because it was him that decided it needed doing. He whipped out a marker pen and drew a giant arrow on my foot then left.
At this point I had been at the hospital about 45 minutes with a further hour and a half before I would get my injection. So after playing about on my netbook (which I had plugged into my mobile phone and was using the internet – naughty!) for ten minutes and thinking about having a wank, I fell asleep.
3.00pm
Welcome to Dignitas
A middle aged red headed nurse caked in fake tan came in and woke me up. She said her name was Carol and then asked whether I was having a snooze. I don’t know if she was joking, blind or completely stupid.
She then asked whether I’d like some water: I said I was fine but she insisted and brought it anyway which raised my suspicions. I looked over at the tray. There was a bizarrely small glass and next to it was a plastic jug of what I presumed was ice water. On the tray were two straws. This immediately made me think of Right to Die.
Carol informed me that my injection would now not be until 4.30pm, meaning I would have been waiting 3 hours in the hospital. I sighed and fell asleep as she left.
Being left in this room was like being on death row but without being fed McDonalds.
4.30pm
Another nurse came in wearing surgical scrubs. She was fairly old, barrel shaped and about 4 foot tall - a complete contrast to me. She was very pleasant though. She again asked me for the 65th time whether I had any allergies before helping me get into my gown. Over this I wore my own dressing gown which raised the question of what the point of the other gown was, but still, after checking the paperwork we walked through to the theatre.
There was a large room with a lot of junk lying around and people milling about and in the middle there was another block: the theatre was a room within a room, if you like. Mr McEvoy appeared and strutted around waiting for the nurse to fill in yet more paperwork and after making a joke about the sign on the theatre door that said “theatre clean” being a good start, we went in and after a further couple of minutes I was being wheeled out again and back to my room by Mrs 4 Foot Tall.
On the way back I encountered Carol who was supposed to be looking after me. She exclaimed that she wondered where I had gone – although you’d think that the fact I was being wheeled around by a nurse would have told her all she needed to know. She then said she’d get me some food. Random.
After being in my room for a few minutes another lady appeared with a tray upon which there was a rack of brown toast complete with a selection of jams, honey and a cup of tea. Carol then turned up as I was decimating the toast and handed me some paperwork, said I could go when I was ready and that was that.
5.00pm
Jumped in the car and off home I went.
So what?
You might have found this little diary utterly boring, but it does illustrate a few issues relating to the NHS.
Firstly, and clearly, I was not happy that I had to wait 3 hours to have a procedure that took a matter of seconds. Why is it that we have to accept this time and time again? I saw an orthopaedic consultant named Mr Stephen Mannion at Blackpool Victoria and had to wait 3 hours there as well. I don’t mind waiting an hour or so because I understand things can come up or departments might be understaffed due to holidays, but whats the point in making appointments if they are going to be so wildly apart from the actual time you get what you went for?
Secondly, why was it necessary for me to have been given the attention of three nurses, a consultant and two other support/management staff? To me this is a monumental waste of tax money and nursing resources.
Why was it necessary for me to occupy a room at this hospital all afternoon given that I was only in there for a single injection that took a matter of seconds to perform? Why could my GP not have done it?
Why can’t there be a walk in-walk out clinic where able bodied people like myself can walk in, have their arranged treatment and walk out again?
Why is it that the nurses didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on with me? How is it that a patient can be taken from their room and undergo a procedure without the nurse under whose care they are supposed to be even knowing about it?
Why did they have to ask me the same yes or no questions a million times?
What was the point in me having to wear a gown if they were going to allow me to wear my own dressing gown – which has not been washed for ages – over the top?
How was I allowed to go into an operating theatre area without washing my hands a single time? There are dispensers of hand sanitiser in every room of the hospital yet not once was I asked to use one. I could have been carrying swine flu and MRSA on my hands for all they knew. Maybe someone in there now is suffering because I didn’t wash my hands.
Just goes to show though, even privately operated hospitals are a pretty loose ship. Someone said to me before I went, “don’t have anything major done at Fylde Coast”. I think I know what they mean now.
Jesus wept (whilst waiting to get treatment for the holes in his hands); at the NHS treatment centre.
I completely understand your disillusionment Phil, is this is Labour ‘saving’ the NHS (saving from what?) then I dread to think of the alternative. The NHS is a great institution that has been ruined by Labour with their obsession with targets, managers and bureaucracy.
To be honest I actually think the NHS has too much money.
I know the Fylde Coast is a private hospital but it’ll get a lot of NHS cash pumped in if its doing NHS work and there were more staff on there than patients by the looks of it.
Nurses were tossing about gossiping in big gaggles.
I don’t know what it’s like at BVH but I’d prefer NHS money spent on NHS facilities not pumped into a Chief Executive’s bonus or to pay consultants obscene amounts of cash.
I agree I work at BVH and it sounds a lot better than what you experienced but then again I don’t work in the same area. I agree completely money should be concentrated on doctors, nurses etc and facilities not managers, bonuses and jobsworths.
well said TB!
I think it’s poor management as well.
Obviously a privately operated place is going to have more staff per patient than a NHS facility but they were all being funded partially by the NHS for the time I spent there. And even then it was a crap experience.
If I had been sat at BVH in some communal execution chamber surrounded by a load of old fuckers for 3 hours I’d have said something to the staff.
Perhaps more theatres and more people that can churn out these quick procedures, or the facility for GPs to do simple stuff like this. But I’m showing my ignorance here as I dont know whether GPs are even allowed to do these things.
I am a theatre manager at a private hospital and you do, like most people, have little knowledge of the running of these places. Your last post states “Obviously a privately operated place is going to have more staff per patient than a NHS facility” on this you are wrong. Private hospitals follow then RCN and AFFP staffing structure just like the NHS so the staffing levels would be the same. Also the funding that the government gives the private hospitals is less then half of what they get paid for from self paying or insured patients. The figure the government pays the hospital is based on the cost it would take a NHS hospital to do the same procedure, worked out on a national average. What I am saying here is that if your procedure was done in a NHS hospital rather then a private one it would take no more funding out of the state healthcare funding pot.
To get back to the original point of the post, which I think was about time wasted for a simple 15-minute procedure. While I am not in anyway connected to the Fylde Coast hospital I am sure they have the same issues as I do. As you can imagine if with have a private patient coming for a procedure which we would charge £700 for when we get a NHS patient we, for argument purposes, get £380 how can we make a profit? The answer to this one is simple turn over of patients as you can imagine there are a lot of fixed cost within a hospital and theatre and even when it is not in use its still cost money. For example to increase revenue over NHS a standard NHS pain relief session take 8-10 patients in my theatres we do 18-22 patients per session.
The question you most be asking if the private hospital employees no more staff then a NHS one how can they more the double patient procedure in a session compared to the NHS? The answer to that is private hospitals has more managers per head of staff then NHS. Spending money on managers and employing managers have proved in the private sector to be cost beneficial. To drive this point home my hospital has 0% cross infection over the last three years, we have 0.1% infection rate with surgical procedures and running at 1/10th staff sickness then our nearest NHS hospital. How is this happening in the private sector and not the NHS simple the private sector employ and incentive managers. So it may be a unpopular stance but employing managers improves patients care and patients through put all figures prove this.
I bow to your greater knowledge on the staffing stuff but my main gripe was that I had to wait 3 hours in a hospital room for no apparent reason.
My appointment was at 1.15pm and I left the place shortly after 5pm.
To me this doesn’t seem particularly efficient – surely you must agree with that?
As for the not making a profit stuff – why do the likes of Fylde Coast take on NHS patients if it’s not worth it? That doesn’t make sense to me, but then I don’t have your knowledge of the field.
John has pretty much answered your question Phil. You waited 3 hour’s for a simple procedure, because there were paying customer’s in there too. Ergo turnover the paying customer’s quicker and make more money! It’s the same in any business, why see to “complimentary,” custom when you are going to make more money from paying custom. As for the private hosptial taking on NHS patient’s, I think it probably has something to do with the government. Shorter waiting list’s etc. My dad had an NHS procedure done at Fylde Coast and yeah he was there a while but I would rather he be there in relative comfort than stuck in some dull and dank ward with staff that are too over worked to give him the attention I as his daughter feel he deserves.
i accept that kris but why not just make my appointment at say 4.30 rather than 1.15?
The same thing happens in the NHS you all go in at the same time get all the paper work done and then wait until you name comes up on the list. Far better waiting in comfort then on a grotty NHS ward. I got private health care for me and the family and I wouldn’t do without it.
I hate Fylde Coast hospital. In fact the only reasons for going there is that it is generally cleaner than the NHS and you can choose your appointment time. Staff are the same as NHS. Private rooms might seem nice when you’re well, but actually being on a ward with others noticing if you take a turn for the worse is safer and most people I’ve been in with have been quite nice really. Making you wait and go back a needless number of times is just the same as are lack of co-ordination of appointment times – which for such a small concern as Fylde coast shouldn’t be happening. I do think it might be something to do with taking on so many NHS patients – some wearing their shellsuits and trainers just to make sure you know they aren’t paying and you are.
I’d recommend going to Beardwood hospital in Blackburn instead. If you’re in for an op though choose a school holiday if possible as it can get quite noisy which is not what you want to come round to, but it is efficiently run with generally very good doctors and staff. You certainly don’t wait around like Fylde Coast which is truly bad in my experience. Half an hour’s drive is certainly worth it for the difference in service – and for Phil it probably would have taken a lot less time overall.
Oh and my GPs receptionist told me they didn’t usually refer there – and was promptly informed that this was irrelevant and I could go where I wanted private or NHS (NHS being under patient choice GP’s can ignore sometimes).