Read on Twitter
A thread about this coming election, the NHS, and my experiences this year.
This year, I’ve had more first-hand dealings with the NHS than many other people my age will have done. I have been the recipient of some great care, but have also been party to a real in-depth look at the way the system is crumbling.
I was admitted to hospital in February after jumping in front of a tube train, and was in hospital for four months. Firstly at St Mary’s, which is a flagship NHS hospital—but more on that later. Due to the extent of my brain injury, I was transferred to a hyperacute rehab unit.
There are startlingly few such units which would have been suitable for me, and most units have space for around 24 patients at a time. Most patients are there for between 3 and 6 months.
I was given a choice of 3 units that they were able to refer me to. One member of the physio team at St Mary’s had worked in two of them, that’s how rare they are. I put Homerton as my first choice.
I was told that the waiting list for Homerton was 180 long, and that I’d be moved to a holding bay at Whipps Cross, likely for a few months with no therapies, and a prognosis of very slow improvement, if I wanted to go there.
So instead I opted for Northwick Park, where a bed had suddenly become available. The next thing I knew was, due to the sudden rush, they had to bring an operation on my arm forward at St Mary’s, before transporting me to Northwick Park the next day.
Northwick Park’s rehabilitation unit has been on the verge of closure for a while, I was told, as it’s so cost-ineffective: a 24-bed ward, with several administrators, 4 permanent doctors, a benefits advisor, and well over a dozen physios, speech therapists and OTs.
Not to mention the nurses and healthcare assistants—12 per shift. However, with the amount of care most patients required post-brain injury, with many unable to walk, this stretched the staff to the absolute maximum.
Staff were so stretched that sometimes free physios had to stay in a bay to make sure patients were okay. In the early days it could be days between having my teeth brushed.
I met someone recently who had done a week there as a “bank” HCA—the “bank” staff had to be borrowed from other wards when staff were short in the RHRU, which was frequent—and said no job he’s ever done has been nearly as exhausting as working on that one ward.
Funding deficiencies also meant that the ward used pen and paper for everything—drug charts, bowel charts, food and drink charts. St Mary’s hospital at least uses full computerisation for its drug charts.
But St Mary’s has problems too, despite being a flagship hospital. I was re-admitted there from the RHRU in May to remove infected metalwork from my arm. After seeing the consultant and being told I was to be admitted, it was an 8 hour wait for a bed.
Without any pain medication either. I was still in a good deal of pain then, largely from my broken pelvis and lower back.
I’ve had many visits back to the fracture clinic at St Mary’s. Increasing underfunding has led to such long delays in the clinic—as high as 135 minutes. The system is so completely stretched.
The Conservative party have, over the 9 years of their government, stripped so much funding away, made waiting times, especially in A&E, so much longer—and in hospitals, this can literally kill.
I was so fortunate to have been able to get a bed at the RHRU. Astoundingly lucky. It is a crying shame that so few units like that, which got me back into the world, exist—when there is an overwhelming demand for them.
The RHRU had patients from Milton Keynes, Sevenoaks, Southend. They once had a patient from Scotland. It’s in Harrow.
The Conservative party’s cuts, austerity, and plough towards privatisation could have lost me my whole year. I might still be in hospital now were it not through sheer luck that my care could move on quickly.
Don’t vote for the Tories. They’ll kill the NHS—and they might just kill you in the process.
I am voting Labour to get the NHS back on its feet, and thriving. I think you should vote Labour to get the NHS back on its feet and thriving, too. Just like I’m now back on my feet and thriving.
This ended up longer than I thought it would be, and I have a lot more to say.
Essentially: register to vote, then VOTE, and let’s get the Tories out and rebuild the most vital of our public services: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
Just found out I can’t attend the RHRU Christmas party where all the ex-patients can celebrate with all the staff who cared for them and brought them back to reality.
I have an appointment at another hospital on the other side of London at the same time. Now there’s irony.
I have an appointment at another hospital on the other side of London at the same time. Now there’s irony.
