Another NHS waste of money rant

In my experience of the NHS the front line service is excellent, but the admin around it is shockingly awful with millions wasted. But todays experience at local GP practice was astounding.

Background: Had my early 40's NHS healthcheck in July. Phone call a week later, cholesterol is a little high but not bad. You need to come in and see the Nurse for a special 20 minute appointment and we don't have many of those, usual slots are 10 minutes (can't have 2 back to back 10mins that wouldn't' work apparently).

So fast forward to today when the 20 minute slot happened (had to cancel one in the intervening time because wife was giving birth).

Started badly, when Nurse was 20 minutes late, but not because lots of appointments running late giving good patient care, no because they were having a staff nurse meeting! Well stop your f'ing meeting and see the patients that are waiting!

Then appointment was all of 30 seconds long. "Cut fat off your meat (presuming we're all still living in the 50's with pork chops, steak etc every night), try to avoid too many pre-pack meals and get some exercise regularly." End of conversation.

Heart disease/Heart Attacks are one of the main causes of death in Middle aged White Males like me, and if that's the quality of advice from a "specially trained Cholesterol nurse" then no wonder. I asked how about the 6 dietary steps on the heart uk website - she can't give advice on what foods to eat apparently. So nothing about Benecol (can't mention brand names apparently, but Branded expensive drugs are ok to dish out to other patients?), nothing about 25g of nuts a day, nothing about reducing dairy and replacing with soy based, nothing about more oats, nothing about more fish etc etc. Didn't explain difference between good and bad cholesterol which I had already researched.

So that was a pointless 2 hours out the office having cleared my diary. Could have put that advice in a letter or even email and saved everyone time and money.

That's shocking! However it isn't my experience so fortunately it probably isn't endemic of the service.

I had a similar thing a few years back, and I had to chase for the results for 4 weeks before someone spoke to me about it. I also had ever-so-slightly-high cholesterol so for the next two years I proactively aimed to reduce it with benecol, eating oats, usual exercise (plenty of walking and taking the stairs, etc.)

Last year I went for another health check – blood pressure fine but no bloods are taken at the GP centre anymore so had to book a separate appointment at a different location, which proved nearly impossible to find a slot. Eventually I got sorted, had the bloods taken and haven't heard a thing since.

I can only assume it's all OK. Either that, or I could be about to drop down dead at any moment because no one bothered to check the results and my cholesterol is off the charts? I have no idea but I really couldn't be arsed phoning them every day to find out :dontknow:

OP can I suggest you invest £10 in a Lloyds the chemist embedded in your local Sainsbury. They will for the princely sum of nine quid, carry out a cholesterol check, give you the hdl ldl split, probably measure your BP and never at any time mention medication.

I too had a cholesterol check in Jan of this year and was greeted by A brutal nurse who said I was at 6couldn’t wait to prescribe statins. She was most suprised when I asked the split, which she Scribbled down on a piece of paper. When 6 months later following Benecol type drinks, changed diet and loads of exercise, I met her with my two Lloyds checks, showing 4.2 and 4.4 she was taken aback. As a result I was Retested , no feedback!! Just signed off, no further visits.

Dont get me wrong my local practice is spot on , its the bumptious lower level staff who p..... me off.

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Originally Posted by higham5

OP can I suggest you invest £10 in a Lloyds the chemist embedded in your local Sainsbury. They will for the princely sum of nine quid, carry out a cholesterol check, give you the hdl ldl split, probably measure your BP and never at any time mention medication.

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What's the other £1 for?

Pretty shocking, and I've had similar in recent years. But... I'm actually pleased she didn't recommend swapping dairy for soya products.

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Originally Posted by Omegamanic

Pretty shocking, and I've had similar in recent years. But... I'm actually pleased she didn't recommend swapping dairy for soya products.

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Vanilla Alpro or Chocolate is quite nice on breakfast cereal. The only other milk I have is in tea and I'm sticking with milk.

Hard Cheese should be replaced with soft cheese where possible too, but everything moderation.

Good guide here:
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsu...healthy-eating

Why don’t you just go private?

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Originally Posted by Hooshabak

Why don’t you just go private?

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Because it was a free NHS healthcheck, so thought it would be painless to take advantage and then when they told me I needed a 20min return appointment, I thought they might be retesting, doing extra checks etc not just cut the fat off f'ing meat!

I'll go for private checks in the New Year.

am 63 the only reason I am working is to get the private health insurance, which to say I have given some stick over the last 5 years is a understatement !its the only way to go to get proper heath care,unfortunately there is no way when I retire I will be able to afford private health which is a bummer as that when I will need it most going on my past history ,

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Originally Posted by Mr Curta

What's the other £1 for?

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Referral fee for me, how else could I afford a batman?

I was a little high on my cholesterol in a recent health check and I changed my diet cut down on processed food , fatty foods ect but I also started to take Plant Sterol tablets a natural product . These were recommended to me by someone and they have done the trick .I'am now just under the at risk spectrum and the doctor has told me to keep going as its working very well. I really did'nt want to start taking Statins !

The NHS is fine if you take some sort of control over it. We all know that appointments are hard to get and all you get is a well rehersed speech from some overworked minion who needs to get you in and out in the allotted 10 minutes.

If you are diagnosed with high cholesterol, you know precisely what to do by referring to the NHS website, you don't need to make a personal visit.

Just over a month ago, I took a serious fall in Spain and dislocated my shoulder. I got a taxi to the local hospital and got the arm fixed and was out 2 hours later. The main problem was that this took place at 1.00am in the morning, so the staff and I were talking in sign language. I knew that I had to let the arm rest in a sling for 3 weeks and then slowly start doing some exercises to get the arm loosened up etc.

I got myself on the NHS website where every exercise required is listed and now I am recovering well.

I don't need to see a doctor and waste each others time.

Do you not speak Spanish mick?


mike

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Originally Posted by seadog1408

Do you not speak Spanish mick?


mike

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I can speak Spanish like six year old but discussing medical matters is way beyond my comprehension.

Sign language with a wrecked arm... The new Bear Grylls challenge

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Originally Posted by Mr Curta

What's the other £1 for?

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A bag of cheese and onion crisps afterwards.

If your 30 second appointment was with a cholesterol nurse, I'd suggest making a complaint. I'm sure the practice bosses would be interested in hearing your experience

Healthcare professionals often run late. One of those things I guess. But they are not often incompetent which sounds like this person was unfortunately

General health checks are of no proven value, so the whole exercise is moot.

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Health checks have little or no effect on the risk of death from any cause (high-certainty evidence), or on the risk of death from cancer (high-certainty evidence), and probably have little or no effect on the risk of death from cardiovascular causes (moderate-certainty evidence). Likewise, health checks have little or no effect on heart disease (high-certainty evidence) and probably have little or no effect on stroke (moderate-certainty evidence).

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https://www.cochrane.org/CD009009/EP...-and-mortality

We are a nation that are living longer but being less healthy than previous generations, that means the NHS is taking a heavy toll due to this.

I was up the hospital last week for a check up on a recent collarbone break (4 places, dislocated shoulder, etc), i was there 3 hours to have an x-ray and then a 30 second consultation to be told everything is going well, was i annoyed at the wait, not really, was it a waste of time, probably to some, but i did get a bit of peace of mind that it's going in the right direction, and in the waiting rooms i saw dozens of elderly people who needed more attention than i did, go to a hospital during the week and it'll really open your eyes to what the NHS is having to cope with these days.