HOLMSEY: The NHS needs some serious treatment

By Press Release Nov 20, 2022

If you think you’re having a heart attack, driving yourself to the hospital is probably not a good idea. Just a few weeks ago, late one Saturday evening, I called 111 and described my symptoms. I was offered an ambulance, but knowing how stretched they are, made my own way to A&E. On arrival, there was no hanging around, no silly questions, just swift action from efficient nurses and doctors. They checked my blood pressure and pulse, took bloods and did X-Rays. Hurrah, you say – how brilliant our NHS is -particularly when (at the time) our hospital was open only for life-threatening emergencies.

Spoiler alert, I survived; after spending the night at St Mary’s, I left on Sunday morning feeling a lot better. It was probably just a false alarm, I’m not looking for sympathy; I’m telling you for more important reasons. Those wonderful people who looked after me were agency staff. The lead nurse was caring, beautiful, and lives in East London. She was working here because she’s an angel and presumably likes the excellent pay offered. Thank goodness her colleagues felt the same way because had none of them done so, who exactly would have been looking after us that night?

I’m not certain that every single member of staff in A&E was an agency worker, but I suspect they were. It begs the question,where were the local staff, and why do hospitals not operate 7 days a week, as promised by disingenuous politicians? St Mary’s staff car park empties quite early on Friday afternoons, as most departments knock off for the weekend. Regardless of colour or accent, the people we meet when we’re ill could hail from Southampton, London, Portsmouth or Wroxall; you can never assume they are local.

Britain’s NHS has always depended on people from abroad. Many Island nurses are recruited in the Philippines and have been for decades. Morally, I have a problem with this, I’m grateful that they come, but if these wonderful hard-working people are here nursing at St Mary’s, they’re not looking after patients in the country that spent time and money training them.

When staff can’t be found to cover a shift, the NHS trusts turn to agencies, and this can cost up to £2,500 for a nurse and over £3,000 for a doctor. Nationally, the cost of agency staff rose 20 per cent last year to £3 billion, a whopping £600 million more than the previous year. I don’t blame the workers; many are under pressure. Agencies often pay nurses three times more than they would get working directly for the NHS, and with living costs as they are, it’s no wonder some make that choice. The agency bosses rake in a small fortune.

In my experience, price gouging is commonplace in the NHS, trusts tend to overpay for pretty much everything. With nursing strikes looming on the mainland, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if some of ours decide to go over there and do some shifts. With 47,000 NHS nursing vacancies, nurses can choose where and when to work. The RCN union is demanding a 17 per cent pay rise, and Rishi says that would add £9 billion to the cost of running the health service. It’s abundantly clear that brainless penny-pinching politicians have trained far too few nurses and doctors for many years.

As with most things, this was an avoidable mess. As the cost of everything rises, £30 billion was cut from public spending yesterday. The NHS is meant to be protected from the cuts, but because everything is in such a mess, many of the 7 million people waiting for treatment could be hanging around forever.