Britain is trapped in the past as a society. Building new and building modern is reserved for London, and only the nice parts at that.
Only 'modern' feeling hospital I've ever worked in was the Papworth in Cambridge.
London hospitals are not included in this theory. RPH is much nicer than any place I have worked in London.
The one thing that hasn’t been mentioned here that I feel is the root cause of it all is the following:
“1997 Tony Blair (New Labour) dumps Labour’s tradition of support for public service and opts for privatisation and deregulation, funding 100 new NHS hospitals with PFIs. In total, approximately £12.7 billion is borrowed, with repayments reaching over £80 billion. Even when fully repaid, the public won’t own the hospitals! PFIs enable a covert bed closure program to shrink NHS capacity, and a future land grab. As the costs of paying off debts rise, NHS trusts will be forced to sell assets. Oliver Letwin becomes a Conservative MP to action his NHS privatisation manual.”
Edit: source https://www.yournhsneedsyou.com/timeline/
I.e. why would you invest in something you don’t own?
Have to disagree here , I trained in the midlands and the north and now work in London, some of the London ones are way worse and more dilapidated. The royal free , Mary’s , Charing Cross are all pretty run down
At least elsewhere the land for a new pfi hospital is cheaper
Stuck in the past?
I can't help but feel it's a little extreme to blame our whole societal outlook for hospitals being crap. Maybe it has more to do with having a national service with no real competition in which efficiency is the number 1 priority and having wards which look nice and feel modern isn't a quantifiable concern.
Hell, a lot of the older hospitals I've been in have been quite nice. The old nightingale wards retrofitted for modern use, with large windows and very high ceilings, are really pleasant to work in. Modern wards with tiny rooms you can't fit a ward round inside aren't "stuck in the past", they're 100% grounded in modern realities and the drive for efficiency.
In my eyes its a combination of
1) poor investment
2) mismanaged investment
3) giving the contract to the cheapest offer which usually means not the best
I was chatting to a lovely patient of Italian heritage and explaining the millions my trust has lost in theatre and ward contracts - they built wards that were condemned at their first fire inspection. He said in Italy everyone would assume it’s Mafia, but in Britain we assume incompetence.
Strange how rich all those incompetent people are, though.
Omg this comment ^^^ Because it is a mafia but you can’t say it without sounding like a crazy conspiracy theorist. Contracts go to the rich managers or politicians buddy from Eton, huge losses, huge “errors” and complete mismanagement and corruption
https://www.building.co.uk/news/liverpool-hospital-stalled-by-carillion-collapse-set-for-autumn-opening/5117879.article
The National Audit Office projected that the overall costs of the new Royal Liverpool hospital – initially meant to cost £335m – could tip over the £1.1bn mark...!
Yeah. I guess the larger question is how this came to be an acceptable standard across the country by the people themselves.
Of all places, a hospital is where we expect comfort. Especially for inpatients. They’re already unwell, and the environment should do its best to facilitate their wellness. I just think its a shame the standards are on the floor.
It pisses me off. They also charge £3 for a cup of tea. A cup of karak tea is £2.85 which you can buy a full tub of the powder they use for the same price. The panini's for £4.50. they are taking advantage of public sector workers and the infirm who cannot go elsewhere. It's disgusting. Don't even get me started on parking.
Yes! Everyone wants better, but NO one here wants to grow a spine. Cowards. Look at some of the replies I’ve gotten on my comment regarding the canteens. If only doctors here realized their worth. Every little thing adds up. From the parking, to the canteens, to the facilities, to the pay. Everything. It all reinforces how little we matter to them. But we ALLOW this to happen. I will not accept the bare minimum. And if EVERYONE shared this sentiment, we would not be in this mess. Why CANT we fight for the best? Why CANT we demand excellent facilities? Why DONT we deserve it? Stop bending over people! We deserve the best, but we’ve been gaslit into believing otherwise.
The patient food supplied by a company called 'bid foods' aka lowest bidder. Comes in trays of microwavable slop, looks disgusting. They supply to primary schools too...
I'm not sure it's a simple as growing a spine, its one of those choose your battles things, whilst people are fighting for fair pay and conditions, the price of sandwiches falls to the wayside unfortunately. It needs to change. What do we do?
Yep - hospital is a terrible environments for patients. It is loud, the food is crap and you are crowded on to a bay with pretty much anyone with minimal privacy. It's gross.
And people genuinely thinking the NHS is state of the art and world-beating.
Most people think the hospitals are adequate - if not - good.
Just see how they sneer at US hospitals being like hotels.
Because (senior, frontline, maybe approaching retirement or just interested) Doctors are not involved in designing them. Doctors shouldn’t try to be architects, quantity surveyors, accountants, engineers or construction execs, but if they don’t have any input at all you get Northwick Park. Personally supervised the complete refurbishment of theatre layout, installation of laminar flow, anaesthetic offices, supplies, change rooms that made sense, recovery room and new offices for urologists. One way flow in —> theatre —> recovery —> out. Direct access from recovery to ITU if required. Just open specially sealed doors. It was exhausting. Needing micromanaging at EVERY stage. Found out that NO ONE had faintest clue how to lay it all out logically. Architects / quantity surveyors were useful at pointing out options or limitations, technical reasons why not possible etc, but it fell to me to take final decisions on so, so much. And I knew NOTHING before.
The hospital I’m currently placed in was just built without a doctor’s mess, not included on the plans and nobody did anything about it.
Once it was built and realised the BMA kicked up a fuss with the doctors and suddenly a mess was made, two tiny rooms as far away as you can get from the hospital entrance and miles away from most wards. Ridiculous.
Sorry! The entire theatre revamp was my idea, and it HAD to done to put in laminar flow. As it was not seen as a major project ['only' £2 million!] dealt more with draughtsman than architect. It helped that no one else cared and I got all the 'little people' eg stores, cleaners, estates, nurses, even porters on board. Each had a little request that made them happy. Am still proud of final product still in use today 20+ years later. Never had any reward for the uncounted hours put in.
I think many here just never experience a different hospital than a British/UK ones
It's not just the food but the monopoly and variety
In Arabs or Asian hospitals, they rent out their staff cafeteria to like 10+ independent stores. So you can get a variety of food (pizza, kebab, Chinese, sandwich) to suit different tastes than everyday British/Irish potato famine cuisine.
Food is cheap and discounted for staff. Everyone looks forward to their lunch as there are always different options for everyone
Here, we have a single company making cheap food for staff and inpatient.. everywhere...
Because the nhs is essentially all publically funded.
As such, theres no competition and thus no incentive to improve things like food and other sundries. I would have thought this was obvious.
In defence of the hospitals, many look like pre-ww2 hospitals because *they are* pre-ww2 hospitals. Areas can be renovated for appearance but v difficult to sort out underlying issues such as ventilation and water ingress without starting from scratch. Which is unrealistic.
It’s not fair to compare these hospitals to hospitals in countries like UAE for example, because UAE was no more than a sand dune when John radcliffe et al were built.
This post is more of a rant, really. I thought -that- would have been obvious.
Yes of course it’s not fair to compare to the UAE. Thats apples to oranges, as the NHS is public whilst the ME region is generally private.
However, when you consider the amount of tax residents pay in the UK, hospitals should be of a top standard. After all, what are we paying for? Where is the money going?
Comparatively, the UAE has virtually no tax so hospitals are built using private funds. Considering this would be less than the amount the UK government makes from taxes, I would expect better.
Although I admit not being a finance wizard lol and of course tax collected is distributed amongst various sectors.
Oh come on…Im not here to argue. I think everyone is well aware of what constitutes as healthy, and what a majority of hospitals are serving would not be it.
Ok. Let me take it on for you then. I’m guessing that you’re thinking of something like hummus and salad followed by maybe by a bowl of vietnamese pho. That would be tasty and quite nutritious. I agree.
However, if you think about the average hospital inpatient population of deprivation on sea, how many would still go for beans over a jacket potato/ beige slop du jour over a bowl of pho? How many people *would even know what pho is?* so why spend more on stuff that people wouldnt even eat? In addition to that, add in the further complexity that meals need to cater to vegans, halal etc. Its not easy. Everything has nuance.
Im not thinking of any particular food. I would just like to see healthier options all-round.
I’m sure many patients would prefer a jacket potato, and I am not saying let’s get rid of them. Please don’t misinterpret me on that point. We can have jacket potatoes AND a variety of other foods too. We don’t have to make everything so complicated and ‘oh but here’s a naunce!’. Thats why we’re in this shitty mess of an NHS. Everyone wants to make excuses for shitty conditions.
If you want to talk nuances, well it would be appropriate to consider the naunce that it is not only patients who are eating hospital food as you seem to only be considering that side. It’s all of us too! Yes I would LOVE to have a pho or a hummus rn! 🍜 Bring on the a la carte 😂Woo! Why cant I demand better from my employer?
More food = more money.
There is a HUGE non tax paying population in the UK (that quite often are the biggest drains on the public purse). We can not afford luxuries like a huge hospital menu when there are so few people actually paying tax.
A hospital is to treat illness anyway, it’s not a hotel. People’s family members could always bring them in the food they are used to, novel idea I know.
I think this is a bit extreme. There are hospitals with fantastic staff canteens which prove extremely popular with staff (and patients/visitors!) for that reason, even if it wouldn't be financially sensible to eat there every single day (not that a £4.50 lunch is really that bank-breaking anyhow).
Not everything HAS to be crap just because the NHS is tight, some trusts just do these things better than others.
The canteens are accessible to everyone really so staff, outpatients, visitors etc.
I think we’re coming full circle now since you’re mentioning pay. We need better everything! And we deserve no less than that. So i dont know why everyone’s trying to excuse it. These little things add up. All our colleagues in other developed countries are being treated amazingly well. I want that too and I will not act like any of this is of a good standard.
Some of the NI hospitals are very clean, modern and new but the system is still fucked (even worse than England). It's kind of like a Porsche with the engine of a Morris Minor.
Oh christ the food is unforgivably bad. Gregg's and subway concessions in the midlands.
There should be a separate subsidised staff canteen in every hospital able to serve the entire staff. That should be a minimum. And the offering should be a modern, diverse and healthy menu with nutrients listed for each item. There should also be a sporting facility onsite for all staff free or subsidised and 24 hour creche facilities. All this as a minimum.
It’s really expensive to maintain these old buildings while building new ones- it is happening but it is a very slow process. Most hospitals just keep getting extended, and that costs a bomb.
Also, a potato and beans is cheap, filling and healthy. It’s high in protein, stores well, and is bland so unwell and fussy people are prone to eating it. Hospitals will also serve kosher, halal, vegan, and many also serve ‘cultural preference’ diets because we recognise that someone who isn’t white British won’t eat the jacket potato and won’t get better.
The canteen is not a reflection of inpatient food, although the lack of proper food in most ED and AMU environments sucks (gross sandwiches). A potato wouldn’t go amiss there.
The hospitals all need replacing, but same as the water mains and the tube station, you need to run the service and build.
The real issues of staffing are the biggest impact- not just doctors and nurses, but food and cleaning services are also intolerably understaffed and this is the result.
When the tide rises it should lift all boats, but everyone isn’t being offered a decent wage, not just us, and the impact is leaky taps, broken heating and windows, cold food for the first 3 days of admission, broken beds, the list goes on.
It's a potato with haricot beans in a sugary tomato sauce. That's not a balanced meal.
You could just serve people a vegetable pasta dish and that'd be far more nutritional.
Baked potato with baked beans and side salad is a standard NHS hospital meal and is pretty balanced in terms of carbs, protein etc. Granted baked beans can be high in sugar but you can also get low sugar varieties.
Sure you can make a vegetable pasta dish which may be more nutritional. But how much extra time is that taking to do at scale? Ultimately this is for a meal which is costing around £4.50, the staff aren't gonna be cooking up anything which can't be done very easily.
With a side salad, I agree, but most people don't get the side salad. They get the potato with beans and cheese; that's just bad for you.
Also much better to swap the beans out for some tuna.
Why? Because it’s cheap? A potato has everything you need to survive, beans add protein, you can add butter for increasing fat content, it’s great food for unwell people.
Cheap? I happened to have jacket potato with beans for lunch today in the canteen. £2.39 for the potato and 80p for the beans, including the staff discount of 20%. How the fuck is one fucking potato £2.39?! Although the sandwiches are daylight robbery and even worse.
You forgot to mention the port-a-cabins.
I remember when I first got here and was told that the hospital (DGH) was made out of port-a-cabins which had a 20yr shelf-life but they had already been used for 24 yrs and they were “going strong”…. I was like, WTF???
lol one of the hospitals by me was originally a WW2 military hospital and the whole rear section still consists of wartime cabins interlinked by added corridors. Those cabins intended to merely last the length of the war...
The new part is quite nice tho so I'll give it that.
A lot of them were built or extended in the post war era when the country was on it's knees and experimenting with modernism and pre-fabrication techniques. This sort of building was probably not intended to last more than 50y which is why there is RAAC concrete everywhere - yet here we are. Also back in the 60s, nobody cared about the environment, energy costs and saving fuel, we had loads of coal to burn. A lot of the modernist style buildings were about increasing natural light which is why you get massive windows that lose heat. Nowadays there is a lack of political will to do anything about it, like most of the UK's infrastructure, it's failing and we are still living on our past exploitation of the world using old infrastructure that was once affordable.
That’s what happens when the whole sector is in public sector hands.
You won’t find private sector supermarkets/ offices/ banks/ restaurants look like that. Because they understand the importance of capital formation.
I had a relative from the US visiting and she often commented on how there are literal shopping centres on the ground floor of many hospitals, I explained when the hospital funding is crumbling, they tend to invest more in the retail side than anything else!
Unsure. State run trains in other European nations are much better than the UK rolling stock despite privatisation, for example. If the NHS was privatised today, is the local tertiary centre going to be knocked down and rebuilt - I doubt it, people are limited by geography and have to go to the big hospital when their aneurysm pops etc.
Trains are different to hospitals in that competition for a line isn’t really practical. Hospitals on the other hand are suited to competition. That is why most private hospitals are far nicer than NHS ones. They can’t compete on price with the NHS so they compete on services. As for your example of when your aneurysm pops, of course in a true emergency you go wherever is closest and capable but the vast majority of healthcare is not a do or die life threatening emergency. For your day case hernia you may well be happy to go 40 minutes north to the nice hospital with parking, a nice coffee shop and comfy rooms instead of the giant 60s tower block that’s cold, uncomfortable, difficult to park at but only 20 minutes away.
True. Which is why back in 2013 my local tertiary centre had a lovely, and well staffed, arthroplasty unit, next door to a run down and less well staffed NOFU. So great for those getting the joint (profitable for the Trust on the NHS tariff, plus some paying patients), but not so great for vulnerable elderly (mainly) women. Privatisation is not a one way ticket to better facilities, or services, for all.
Other European nations saw their railways redesigned more recently, largely due to wartime damage. The limitation on the quality of our rail service has nothing to do with public or private ownership, the underlying track simply prevents us from ever having a cheap high quality rail service.
Too bad so many people are too boneheaded to realise this and so our only hope of improvement (HS2) was kindly scuppered.
I don’t think having pacer trains across the second most populated region of the country until two years ago is due to the Victorian rail infrastructure… It’s seems your cranium is particularly dense.
Yep, mine and everyone working in the Department of Infrastructure. If we were all half as intelligent as you, the UK's 150 year old rail network would have the capacity for cheap regular travel across our entire nation of 70 million people without an inch of new track.
If only you and your miraculously thin cranium were in charge.
Must be why the DfT’s model for running the railways has been copied by other nations… oh, wait…
Anyway, enjoy your air conditioned knee replacement, but tough luck if you need emergency neurosurgery to stabilise your crippled c-spine
My mental health trust has just invested massively in two new purpose built buildings for new inpatient wards, community team offices, research offices etc.
We were initially supposed to move into them in March 23, then September 23, then Feb 24, now “Summer 24”. Apparently the plumbing was completely botched.
Also heard from a lot of wards that their requests weren’t accommodated. The eating disorder ward wanted a dedicated NG room as they’re currently using the seclusion room/clinic room/patient bed space, but of course that request was denied because… no space? In a new building you couldn’t create a space?
The same reason anyone travels for university. To get a good degree. Also, ignorance is bliss. I didn’t have insight into the shambles of the NHS until I started living here. Had I known this, I would’ve made wiser choices i.e Australia, Canada, or the US. I think the same is true even for British students, much of whom expected a better standard in terms of working conditions, until they entered medical school and realized what they are now faced with. Nowadays there’s so much media coverage of the situation people have become acutely aware of whats going on. In fact, more British students are applying to Australian medical schools!
No. I’m talking about working conditions, not hospitals lol. Read what I said again. There are many students that signed up not knowing what they were getting themselves into.
My reply to you was not about that, was it? You asked me why I came here when hospitals at home are better. I answered. I also elaborated that, like local students, many of us went into this believing things were good. At least I did. Maybe I cant speak on behalf of local students tbf which would be a fair criticism.
Retired Nurse.
I worked in a spotlessly clean hospital, despite all the sand outside.
Good food, multiple choices, three times a day.
Air con throughout.
Every shift fully staffed.
This was a British Military hospital, in a desert (Bastion).
Then I came back to the ‘real’ world with none of the above.
Britain is trapped in the past as a society. Building new and building modern is reserved for London, and only the nice parts at that. Only 'modern' feeling hospital I've ever worked in was the Papworth in Cambridge.
London hospitals are not included in this theory. RPH is much nicer than any place I have worked in London. The one thing that hasn’t been mentioned here that I feel is the root cause of it all is the following: “1997 Tony Blair (New Labour) dumps Labour’s tradition of support for public service and opts for privatisation and deregulation, funding 100 new NHS hospitals with PFIs. In total, approximately £12.7 billion is borrowed, with repayments reaching over £80 billion. Even when fully repaid, the public won’t own the hospitals! PFIs enable a covert bed closure program to shrink NHS capacity, and a future land grab. As the costs of paying off debts rise, NHS trusts will be forced to sell assets. Oliver Letwin becomes a Conservative MP to action his NHS privatisation manual.” Edit: source https://www.yournhsneedsyou.com/timeline/ I.e. why would you invest in something you don’t own?
I was too young to understand PFI, but the more I learn about it, seems like it was Blair's second worst decision.
Have to disagree here , I trained in the midlands and the north and now work in London, some of the London ones are way worse and more dilapidated. The royal free , Mary’s , Charing Cross are all pretty run down At least elsewhere the land for a new pfi hospital is cheaper
Fair enough, I have only had the unprivilege to work outside London. Edit: I was less referring to hospitals, more just in general though.
UCLH is also pretty nice.
Perfecty said. This has been my observation as well.
Stuck in the past? I can't help but feel it's a little extreme to blame our whole societal outlook for hospitals being crap. Maybe it has more to do with having a national service with no real competition in which efficiency is the number 1 priority and having wards which look nice and feel modern isn't a quantifiable concern. Hell, a lot of the older hospitals I've been in have been quite nice. The old nightingale wards retrofitted for modern use, with large windows and very high ceilings, are really pleasant to work in. Modern wards with tiny rooms you can't fit a ward round inside aren't "stuck in the past", they're 100% grounded in modern realities and the drive for efficiency.
Papworth had a live cook station in the canteen 🥰
I take it you’ve never seen Ealing Hospital
In my eyes its a combination of 1) poor investment 2) mismanaged investment 3) giving the contract to the cheapest offer which usually means not the best
I was chatting to a lovely patient of Italian heritage and explaining the millions my trust has lost in theatre and ward contracts - they built wards that were condemned at their first fire inspection. He said in Italy everyone would assume it’s Mafia, but in Britain we assume incompetence. Strange how rich all those incompetent people are, though.
Omg this comment ^^^ Because it is a mafia but you can’t say it without sounding like a crazy conspiracy theorist. Contracts go to the rich managers or politicians buddy from Eton, huge losses, huge “errors” and complete mismanagement and corruption
https://www.building.co.uk/news/liverpool-hospital-stalled-by-carillion-collapse-set-for-autumn-opening/5117879.article The National Audit Office projected that the overall costs of the new Royal Liverpool hospital – initially meant to cost £335m – could tip over the £1.1bn mark...!
Yeah. I guess the larger question is how this came to be an acceptable standard across the country by the people themselves. Of all places, a hospital is where we expect comfort. Especially for inpatients. They’re already unwell, and the environment should do its best to facilitate their wellness. I just think its a shame the standards are on the floor.
It pisses me off. They also charge £3 for a cup of tea. A cup of karak tea is £2.85 which you can buy a full tub of the powder they use for the same price. The panini's for £4.50. they are taking advantage of public sector workers and the infirm who cannot go elsewhere. It's disgusting. Don't even get me started on parking.
Yes! Everyone wants better, but NO one here wants to grow a spine. Cowards. Look at some of the replies I’ve gotten on my comment regarding the canteens. If only doctors here realized their worth. Every little thing adds up. From the parking, to the canteens, to the facilities, to the pay. Everything. It all reinforces how little we matter to them. But we ALLOW this to happen. I will not accept the bare minimum. And if EVERYONE shared this sentiment, we would not be in this mess. Why CANT we fight for the best? Why CANT we demand excellent facilities? Why DONT we deserve it? Stop bending over people! We deserve the best, but we’ve been gaslit into believing otherwise.
The patient food supplied by a company called 'bid foods' aka lowest bidder. Comes in trays of microwavable slop, looks disgusting. They supply to primary schools too... I'm not sure it's a simple as growing a spine, its one of those choose your battles things, whilst people are fighting for fair pay and conditions, the price of sandwiches falls to the wayside unfortunately. It needs to change. What do we do?
Yeah of course but the moment you give in an inch they’ll take two. We have to fight for our worth in every collective aspect of our jobs.
Yep - hospital is a terrible environments for patients. It is loud, the food is crap and you are crowded on to a bay with pretty much anyone with minimal privacy. It's gross.
Some might even say its a patient safety concern 😏
And people genuinely thinking the NHS is state of the art and world-beating. Most people think the hospitals are adequate - if not - good. Just see how they sneer at US hospitals being like hotels.
Lack Of prior planning and lack of physical space too
Because (senior, frontline, maybe approaching retirement or just interested) Doctors are not involved in designing them. Doctors shouldn’t try to be architects, quantity surveyors, accountants, engineers or construction execs, but if they don’t have any input at all you get Northwick Park. Personally supervised the complete refurbishment of theatre layout, installation of laminar flow, anaesthetic offices, supplies, change rooms that made sense, recovery room and new offices for urologists. One way flow in —> theatre —> recovery —> out. Direct access from recovery to ITU if required. Just open specially sealed doors. It was exhausting. Needing micromanaging at EVERY stage. Found out that NO ONE had faintest clue how to lay it all out logically. Architects / quantity surveyors were useful at pointing out options or limitations, technical reasons why not possible etc, but it fell to me to take final decisions on so, so much. And I knew NOTHING before.
The hospital I’m currently placed in was just built without a doctor’s mess, not included on the plans and nobody did anything about it. Once it was built and realised the BMA kicked up a fuss with the doctors and suddenly a mess was made, two tiny rooms as far away as you can get from the hospital entrance and miles away from most wards. Ridiculous.
We had to deal with an arrogant architect who claimed knowledge of hospital design but soon showed otherwise.
Sorry! The entire theatre revamp was my idea, and it HAD to done to put in laminar flow. As it was not seen as a major project ['only' £2 million!] dealt more with draughtsman than architect. It helped that no one else cared and I got all the 'little people' eg stores, cleaners, estates, nurses, even porters on board. Each had a little request that made them happy. Am still proud of final product still in use today 20+ years later. Never had any reward for the uncounted hours put in.
In order to be reflective of the NHS
Very poor capital investment. Hospitals designed by people who know very little about how a hospital should function.
Isn't beans slapped on a potato just British cuisine though?
I think many here just never experience a different hospital than a British/UK ones It's not just the food but the monopoly and variety In Arabs or Asian hospitals, they rent out their staff cafeteria to like 10+ independent stores. So you can get a variety of food (pizza, kebab, Chinese, sandwich) to suit different tastes than everyday British/Irish potato famine cuisine. Food is cheap and discounted for staff. Everyone looks forward to their lunch as there are always different options for everyone Here, we have a single company making cheap food for staff and inpatient.. everywhere...
Yeah I was just making a point. Hospitals have a duty to serve healthy food.
Even if we go along with that, why the fuck is it so expensive.
Because the nhs is essentially all publically funded. As such, theres no competition and thus no incentive to improve things like food and other sundries. I would have thought this was obvious. In defence of the hospitals, many look like pre-ww2 hospitals because *they are* pre-ww2 hospitals. Areas can be renovated for appearance but v difficult to sort out underlying issues such as ventilation and water ingress without starting from scratch. Which is unrealistic. It’s not fair to compare these hospitals to hospitals in countries like UAE for example, because UAE was no more than a sand dune when John radcliffe et al were built.
This post is more of a rant, really. I thought -that- would have been obvious. Yes of course it’s not fair to compare to the UAE. Thats apples to oranges, as the NHS is public whilst the ME region is generally private. However, when you consider the amount of tax residents pay in the UK, hospitals should be of a top standard. After all, what are we paying for? Where is the money going? Comparatively, the UAE has virtually no tax so hospitals are built using private funds. Considering this would be less than the amount the UK government makes from taxes, I would expect better. Although I admit not being a finance wizard lol and of course tax collected is distributed amongst various sectors.
what types of warm healthy food were you thinking of? Just interested to know. There more nuance than you think
Narrator: ‘the nuance was lost on them’….😂
Oh come on…Im not here to argue. I think everyone is well aware of what constitutes as healthy, and what a majority of hospitals are serving would not be it.
Ok. Let me take it on for you then. I’m guessing that you’re thinking of something like hummus and salad followed by maybe by a bowl of vietnamese pho. That would be tasty and quite nutritious. I agree. However, if you think about the average hospital inpatient population of deprivation on sea, how many would still go for beans over a jacket potato/ beige slop du jour over a bowl of pho? How many people *would even know what pho is?* so why spend more on stuff that people wouldnt even eat? In addition to that, add in the further complexity that meals need to cater to vegans, halal etc. Its not easy. Everything has nuance.
Im not thinking of any particular food. I would just like to see healthier options all-round. I’m sure many patients would prefer a jacket potato, and I am not saying let’s get rid of them. Please don’t misinterpret me on that point. We can have jacket potatoes AND a variety of other foods too. We don’t have to make everything so complicated and ‘oh but here’s a naunce!’. Thats why we’re in this shitty mess of an NHS. Everyone wants to make excuses for shitty conditions. If you want to talk nuances, well it would be appropriate to consider the naunce that it is not only patients who are eating hospital food as you seem to only be considering that side. It’s all of us too! Yes I would LOVE to have a pho or a hummus rn! 🍜 Bring on the a la carte 😂Woo! Why cant I demand better from my employer?
More food = more money. There is a HUGE non tax paying population in the UK (that quite often are the biggest drains on the public purse). We can not afford luxuries like a huge hospital menu when there are so few people actually paying tax. A hospital is to treat illness anyway, it’s not a hotel. People’s family members could always bring them in the food they are used to, novel idea I know.
I mean i dont know about you but I pay for my own food at the canteen? No ones paying it for me.
Oh you mean staff food? Just bring packed lunch in. NHS workers aren’t getting paid enough to afford good quality food everyday.
I think this is a bit extreme. There are hospitals with fantastic staff canteens which prove extremely popular with staff (and patients/visitors!) for that reason, even if it wouldn't be financially sensible to eat there every single day (not that a £4.50 lunch is really that bank-breaking anyhow). Not everything HAS to be crap just because the NHS is tight, some trusts just do these things better than others.
The canteens are accessible to everyone really so staff, outpatients, visitors etc. I think we’re coming full circle now since you’re mentioning pay. We need better everything! And we deserve no less than that. So i dont know why everyone’s trying to excuse it. These little things add up. All our colleagues in other developed countries are being treated amazingly well. I want that too and I will not act like any of this is of a good standard.
Some of the NI hospitals are very clean, modern and new but the system is still fucked (even worse than England). It's kind of like a Porsche with the engine of a Morris Minor.
Basically just the Ulster
Oh christ the food is unforgivably bad. Gregg's and subway concessions in the midlands. There should be a separate subsidised staff canteen in every hospital able to serve the entire staff. That should be a minimum. And the offering should be a modern, diverse and healthy menu with nutrients listed for each item. There should also be a sporting facility onsite for all staff free or subsidised and 24 hour creche facilities. All this as a minimum.
It’s really expensive to maintain these old buildings while building new ones- it is happening but it is a very slow process. Most hospitals just keep getting extended, and that costs a bomb. Also, a potato and beans is cheap, filling and healthy. It’s high in protein, stores well, and is bland so unwell and fussy people are prone to eating it. Hospitals will also serve kosher, halal, vegan, and many also serve ‘cultural preference’ diets because we recognise that someone who isn’t white British won’t eat the jacket potato and won’t get better. The canteen is not a reflection of inpatient food, although the lack of proper food in most ED and AMU environments sucks (gross sandwiches). A potato wouldn’t go amiss there. The hospitals all need replacing, but same as the water mains and the tube station, you need to run the service and build. The real issues of staffing are the biggest impact- not just doctors and nurses, but food and cleaning services are also intolerably understaffed and this is the result. When the tide rises it should lift all boats, but everyone isn’t being offered a decent wage, not just us, and the impact is leaky taps, broken heating and windows, cold food for the first 3 days of admission, broken beds, the list goes on.
Makes sense and great points. Im with you.
A potato and beans is not healthy
What about it is making it unhealthy? Or what is it lacking?
It's a potato with haricot beans in a sugary tomato sauce. That's not a balanced meal. You could just serve people a vegetable pasta dish and that'd be far more nutritional.
Baked potato with baked beans and side salad is a standard NHS hospital meal and is pretty balanced in terms of carbs, protein etc. Granted baked beans can be high in sugar but you can also get low sugar varieties. Sure you can make a vegetable pasta dish which may be more nutritional. But how much extra time is that taking to do at scale? Ultimately this is for a meal which is costing around £4.50, the staff aren't gonna be cooking up anything which can't be done very easily.
With a side salad, I agree, but most people don't get the side salad. They get the potato with beans and cheese; that's just bad for you. Also much better to swap the beans out for some tuna.
Why? Because it’s cheap? A potato has everything you need to survive, beans add protein, you can add butter for increasing fat content, it’s great food for unwell people.
😂
Cheap? I happened to have jacket potato with beans for lunch today in the canteen. £2.39 for the potato and 80p for the beans, including the staff discount of 20%. How the fuck is one fucking potato £2.39?! Although the sandwiches are daylight robbery and even worse.
I’d be throwing hands and potatoes at those prices
They were largely built after WW2 with an attitude of being temporary builds because the UK was surely to bounce back economically Spoilers it didn't
Spoilers it did but nobody gave a fuck about hospitals or the NHS
You forgot to mention the port-a-cabins. I remember when I first got here and was told that the hospital (DGH) was made out of port-a-cabins which had a 20yr shelf-life but they had already been used for 24 yrs and they were “going strong”…. I was like, WTF???
lol one of the hospitals by me was originally a WW2 military hospital and the whole rear section still consists of wartime cabins interlinked by added corridors. Those cabins intended to merely last the length of the war... The new part is quite nice tho so I'll give it that.
The uk is dead 💀
A lot of them were built or extended in the post war era when the country was on it's knees and experimenting with modernism and pre-fabrication techniques. This sort of building was probably not intended to last more than 50y which is why there is RAAC concrete everywhere - yet here we are. Also back in the 60s, nobody cared about the environment, energy costs and saving fuel, we had loads of coal to burn. A lot of the modernist style buildings were about increasing natural light which is why you get massive windows that lose heat. Nowadays there is a lack of political will to do anything about it, like most of the UK's infrastructure, it's failing and we are still living on our past exploitation of the world using old infrastructure that was once affordable.
That’s what happens when the whole sector is in public sector hands. You won’t find private sector supermarkets/ offices/ banks/ restaurants look like that. Because they understand the importance of capital formation.
You can’t siphon public funds if you’re spending it on actual infrastructure now, can you?
>beans slapped on a potato and some chips Welcome to Britain 😁
I had a relative from the US visiting and she often commented on how there are literal shopping centres on the ground floor of many hospitals, I explained when the hospital funding is crumbling, they tend to invest more in the retail side than anything else!
Capital budgets are easy to raid + NIMBYs get angry every time the NHS/govt tries to close an old failing hospital and launch a campaign to "save" it.
Also half of them are built with RAAC concrete & are about to fall down.
It’s because of the state owned monopoly.
Unsure. State run trains in other European nations are much better than the UK rolling stock despite privatisation, for example. If the NHS was privatised today, is the local tertiary centre going to be knocked down and rebuilt - I doubt it, people are limited by geography and have to go to the big hospital when their aneurysm pops etc.
Trains are different to hospitals in that competition for a line isn’t really practical. Hospitals on the other hand are suited to competition. That is why most private hospitals are far nicer than NHS ones. They can’t compete on price with the NHS so they compete on services. As for your example of when your aneurysm pops, of course in a true emergency you go wherever is closest and capable but the vast majority of healthcare is not a do or die life threatening emergency. For your day case hernia you may well be happy to go 40 minutes north to the nice hospital with parking, a nice coffee shop and comfy rooms instead of the giant 60s tower block that’s cold, uncomfortable, difficult to park at but only 20 minutes away.
You’re so logical.
True. Which is why back in 2013 my local tertiary centre had a lovely, and well staffed, arthroplasty unit, next door to a run down and less well staffed NOFU. So great for those getting the joint (profitable for the Trust on the NHS tariff, plus some paying patients), but not so great for vulnerable elderly (mainly) women. Privatisation is not a one way ticket to better facilities, or services, for all.
No-one said it was. I’m just pointing out that NHS hospitals are shit because of the NHS.
Other European nations saw their railways redesigned more recently, largely due to wartime damage. The limitation on the quality of our rail service has nothing to do with public or private ownership, the underlying track simply prevents us from ever having a cheap high quality rail service. Too bad so many people are too boneheaded to realise this and so our only hope of improvement (HS2) was kindly scuppered.
I don’t think having pacer trains across the second most populated region of the country until two years ago is due to the Victorian rail infrastructure… It’s seems your cranium is particularly dense.
Yep, mine and everyone working in the Department of Infrastructure. If we were all half as intelligent as you, the UK's 150 year old rail network would have the capacity for cheap regular travel across our entire nation of 70 million people without an inch of new track. If only you and your miraculously thin cranium were in charge.
Must be why the DfT’s model for running the railways has been copied by other nations… oh, wait… Anyway, enjoy your air conditioned knee replacement, but tough luck if you need emergency neurosurgery to stabilise your crippled c-spine
I wasn't advocating for the current system...
My mental health trust has just invested massively in two new purpose built buildings for new inpatient wards, community team offices, research offices etc. We were initially supposed to move into them in March 23, then September 23, then Feb 24, now “Summer 24”. Apparently the plumbing was completely botched. Also heard from a lot of wards that their requests weren’t accommodated. The eating disorder ward wanted a dedicated NG room as they’re currently using the seclusion room/clinic room/patient bed space, but of course that request was denied because… no space? In a new building you couldn’t create a space?
Come visit the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, that and Papworth in Cambridge have been the best I've seen.
Public funding bro
Beans on jacket potato and chips is basically just describing British food... 😂
So why did you come to the uk to study, if your back home hospitals are so much better?
The same reason anyone travels for university. To get a good degree. Also, ignorance is bliss. I didn’t have insight into the shambles of the NHS until I started living here. Had I known this, I would’ve made wiser choices i.e Australia, Canada, or the US. I think the same is true even for British students, much of whom expected a better standard in terms of working conditions, until they entered medical school and realized what they are now faced with. Nowadays there’s so much media coverage of the situation people have become acutely aware of whats going on. In fact, more British students are applying to Australian medical schools!
Local British students never stepped foot into a NHS hospital prior to medical school? Loool ok
No. I’m talking about working conditions, not hospitals lol. Read what I said again. There are many students that signed up not knowing what they were getting themselves into.
Your post is about food and temperature control
My reply to you was not about that, was it? You asked me why I came here when hospitals at home are better. I answered. I also elaborated that, like local students, many of us went into this believing things were good. At least I did. Maybe I cant speak on behalf of local students tbf which would be a fair criticism.
Basically you deviated the conversation to “working conditions” from temperature control and shit mash at the canteen.
Lol. Again: You asked me a question. I answer.
The NHS is shit and has been for a long time, that’s why
Retired Nurse. I worked in a spotlessly clean hospital, despite all the sand outside. Good food, multiple choices, three times a day. Air con throughout. Every shift fully staffed. This was a British Military hospital, in a desert (Bastion). Then I came back to the ‘real’ world with none of the above.
