The grumpy thread

[Cavcraft]

Keep an eye on the NHS, that's going the same way now, too. You're not a patient anymore, you're a sort of customer who's job it is to complain endlessly that someone didn't answer your bell because you wanted your pillow fluffing up/newspaper passing to you/you want to go for a fag despite the fact others around you are seriously ill. Then you can complain endlessly to the papers and Facebook about your appalling 'treatment' and put complaints in about the staff resulting in them not being able to do their job because they're stuck in a meeting with their bosses explaining why some sad bastard complained. 

[Parky]

Back to work today after two weeks off decorating the house and doing proper work. I don't think I have ever felt so miserable at the prospect of returning to work ever. Time for new job methinks

[myglaren]

In what way? I've never known anyone else have problems with Dropbox.

I've had a dropbox account for years and never any bother with it but my son opened one to host his wedding photo's and it has never worked for him - I can access it but he and his wife can't.

[beko1987]

I had a dropbox once, but couldn't upload pics to forums so just ignored it really

[dugong]

Dear chuggers,

 

Yes, I am so skint that I can't donate to your charity, and by the way you spoke to me, I wouldn't give you anything even if I had the bread. If that makes me a horrible person (you didn't say so, but your face gave it away), then so be it. GET IN THE QUEUE.

[chaseracer]

Dear chuggers...

Ah feck, have they been let loose again?

[MrDuke]

Keep an eye on the NHS, that's going the same way now, too. You're not a patient anymore, you're a sort of customer who's job it is to complain endlessly that someone didn't answer your bell because you wanted your pillow fluffing up/newspaper passing to you/you want to go for a fag despite the fact others around you are seriously ill. Then you can complain endlessly to the papers and Facebook about your appalling 'treatment' and put complaints in about the staff resulting in them not being able to do their job because they're stuck in a meeting with their bosses explaining why some sad bastard complained. 

 

Meanwhile, in other trusts, there are actually seriously ill people who kept pressing their bells because they needed, umm... food. Or some help crawling to the toilet before they pissed/shat/puked all over the floor. Or some meds to help the pain from their [insert major internal failure here] subside enough to sleep. Except the (admittedly minimal) nursing staff are too busy sitting at their desks shuffling papers and bitching about the management to actually go and, y'know, nurse them. The sad thing is, these patients will never go on Facebook or to the local rags to complain, because they're either incapacitated or dying, or both. And they're not a tiny minority either.

[chaseracer]

Or so the Daily Fail would have Middle England believe, while helping the government set up one of the biggest thefts of public assets in history...

[MrDuke]

I wouldn't know, I don't read the Daily Fascist. I did work in a large hospital recently, however, where I spent several nightshifts on the emergency admissions ward.

[Bobthebeard]

Meanwhile, in other trusts, there are actually seriously ill people who kept pressing their bells because they needed, umm... food. Or some help crawling to the toilet before they pissed/shat/puked all over the floor. Or some meds to help the pain from their [insert major internal failure here] subside enough to sleep. Except the (admittedly minimal) nursing staff are too busy sitting at their desks shuffling papers and bitching about the management to actually go and, y'know, nurse them. The sad thing is, these patients will never go on Facebook or to the local rags to complain, because they're either incapacitated or dying, or both. And they're not a tiny minority either.

How sad and awful that this is what we have become as a Great* Country. Both this and Cavette's post being true in my experience. My wife was, up until recently a non exec director of our local NHS Trust. Even she is now sad and upset by the relentless slide into the abyss by the NHS. She did her best, but the 'system' rolls on regardless. Still fat salaries and massive pensions to the Management.

 

Edit. Non exec Directors being not salaried and not in any way pensioned! Just there to put a brake on those that are..

[hairnet]

Dear chuggers,

 

Yes, I am so skint that I can't donate to your charity, and by the way you spoke to me, I wouldn't give you anything even if I had the bread. If that makes me a horrible person (you didn't say so, but your face gave it away), then so be it. GET IN THE QUEUE.

question that makes them go away rather quickly

 

do you donate to the charity you chug for??

[hennabm]

My experience of the NHS earlier this year showed the comments from MrDuke to be entirely correct.

 

I saw several occasions where a patient pressed the buzzer for help and before help arrived had shat themselves or the like.

One guy was in a great deal of pain and wanted help. We timed how long it took for someone to arrive - 17 minutes.. The guy could have died, which he nearly did down to a mistaken diagnosis. But that's another story.......

 

The logbooks for each patient at the end of the bed is a complete fabrication of events to suit the bosses. I was supposed to get my last meds around 10pm each night. This was recorded in the log as to when the meds were given. However on a couple of occasions because of the shortage of staff, I didn't get my meds until nearer midnight. Did the log show this - you bet it didn't. The log showed just after 10pm, the lying ..... I don't blame the nurses as they are so hard pushed with so few of them to cover the ward.

 

It is the system created by the government and bosses to show that the NHS is working. Like f*** it is.

Instead of sending bilions overseas for Indian rockets etc, howabout spending a little more on the NHS to improve patient care.

[chaseracer]

...One guy was in a great deal of pain and wanted help. We timed how long it took for someone to arrive - 17 minutes...

 

You did what...?

[Bobthebeard]

My experience of the NHS earlier this year showed the comments from MrDuke to be entirely correct.

 

I saw several occasions where a patient pressed the buzzer for help and before help arrived had shat themselves or the like.

The log showed just after 10pm, the lying ..... I don't blame the nurses as they are so hard pushed with so few of them to cover the ward.

Whilst true, and fair enough. We all have our own experiences of being in hospital. In my most recent experience of being there, there was several nurses (on night shift) in an office all chatting about Strictly and Corrie. The patients pressing buzzers just annoyed them and interrupted the 'conversation.'

I was only in for a minor thing that resulted in an overnight, so was in a position to observe all this without being in pain/distress thankfully.

[Cavcraft]

All this 'top ten hospital' nonsense doesnt help, as said above this sort of thing is open to fiddling and abuse.

One of the issues is that the nurses are on the front line so cop all the shit when (from what i ca see) its rarely their fault, theyre just the easiest to blame or have a go at.

I would last probably two hours tops working as a nurse as i wouldnt fancy being abused, spat at kicked and punched by people and expected not to sit down in 12 hours or have my dinner.

Thank God people do care enough to do a pretty much thankless task for fairly crap money and still come back for more.

[Bobthebeard]

All this 'top ten hospital' nonsense doesnt help, as said above this sort of thing is open to fiddling and abuse.

One of the issues is that the nurses are on the front line so cop all the shit when (from what i ca see) its rarely their fault, theyre just the easiest to blame or have a go at.

I would last probably two hours tops working as a nurse as i wouldnt fancy being abused, spat at kicked and punched by people and expected not to sit down in 12 hours or have my dinner.

Thank God people do care enough to do a pretty much thankless task for fairly crap money and still come back for more.

A good and fair point well made. I have no idea what a nurse gets paid, though I can well believe that it is crap! A thankless job. Just how much do they get paid? Apart from not enough of course!

I heard the salary for a nurse working in a hospital is around £21,000 PA. Though that could be bollocks of course.

[myglaren]

Only been hospitalised once and only for a few days but have to say my expectations were miles out.

 

The nurses and ancillary staff were all first class.  The surgeons too although I was out for the most part.  Follow up care - about six months - was also first class.  Everything on time or earlier.  I always make a point of being early, in case there is an unforeseeable hold up and was very frequently leaving the hospital before my actual appointment time.

I have nothing but praise for the RVI in Newcastle.

I'm currently being treated there as an outpatient and the experience is exactly the same.

 

Second hand experiences of Teeside, Whitby and Scarborough hospitals though are completely the opposite.

[chaseracer]

I was in and out of Stafford and Cannock hospitals - including A&E - between 2007 and 2011.  No complaints at all.

 

Yep.  You read that right.

[cort16]

The NHS is one of the best things about this country. Sure it has it problems but find any origanisation that size that doesn't.

The government likes to give them a hard time (as with the BBC) because they want reasons to shut them down or downsize them so they can let their mates run much shitter versions of the same thing but make profit the no 1 priority rather than the patients.

[Spiny Norman]

Like everyone else, I keep hearing about how shit the NHS is and how people are left to die in the bins out the back, but the only way I ever form opinions is from the 'suck it & see' school and I have to say that every time I or any of my family or friends have needed any kind of healthcare, it's at least been competent and fairly efficiently delivered, and often it's been quite a lot better than that.

 

Several members of my family work, or have worked in the NHS in both care and admin sides and the overwhelming opinion is that they'd just like to be left alone to do their jobs without all the fucking about that every government in the last 50 years has felt compelled to do.
IF the NHS is in a state , don't go blaming it all on this government, or even the last one. It's been used as a political whipping boy for decades, same as the trains and the education system.

[scruff]

I gave up with it after too many crap posts blocking my wall and a AS forum member told me to fuck off and called me a cu*t on there.

 

Who was that Trig? 

[hairnet]

friends missus is a nurse and even when she started 30 years ago she was doing quite nicely

 

frequently enough that she paid for their holidays away to places - and he ran a diy shop

 

shes now a theatre nurse - runs the whole shebang apart from the surgeons

 

they are not as poorly paid as made out - even if the hours they work are phakt (a lot)

 

they are indeed angels

[Bobthebeard]

IF the NHS is in a state , don't go blaming it all on this government, or even the last one. It's been used as a political whipping boy for decades, same as the trains and the education system.

How true! Well said.

[RedSparrow]

Did a shit ton of translating / proof reading for a Czech guy who is trying to set up an online shop to sell products in the UK. The deal was I would get 5% of all takings for a year.

Fine, until he added the prices. He seems to be under the impression that people in the UK are rich and stupid. Literally everything can be found on ebay for much less than he wants to charge. Some items are 4 times what other people are charging. I tell him this but he is adamant that people are thick enough to pay 4 times the price from a company no-ones ever heard of.

I suggest he gives me a (greatly reduced) flat fee and I withdraw from the agreement. He declines and says my work is worthless until people buy things from the site. Which will probably be never.

That's the last time I agree to something through trust and without a proper contract.

[MrDuke]

I was in and out of Stafford and Cannock hospitals - including A&E - between 2007 and 2011.  No complaints at all.

 

Yep.  You read that right.

 

That's the thing, though - Mrs_Duke spent time in Liverpool Women's Hospital for a major op a few years back (she won't go near our local one anymore), and both she and I had nothing but praise for the staff and conditions there. When people form opinions about "The NHS" they seem to forget that the individual trusts are more like completely independent organisations - the only thing they really share is the funding.

 

I didn't mean to sound like I was having a pop at nurses in general, either - even in the trust where I worked there were plenty of genuinely good ones. Unfortunately, there were also an awful lot who couldn't be arsed concealing the fact that they hated nursing, and would rather be doing anything else. And don't get me started on the whole bastardised, management-oriented infrastructure which siphons off massive amounts of cash long before it can be spent on trivial things like patient care.

[brickwall]

All I have to say is that I've seen both sides of the NHS: very, very poor and beyond excellent. I saw really shit nurses and some that could not do enough and deserve so much better.

[vulgalour]

Beige Princess seems to want front ball joints now.  Thankless cow.

[Caffiend]

A C5 overtook me on the A1(M) this morning. That's not the grump. Finding myself admiring it and wondering whether I should at least try one is.

 

In my defence, it was 5.30 am and I'd only had a small tea, insulated-flask-mug of coffee-for-the-stupidly-long-commute hadn't been broken into yet.

[sporty-shite]

friends missus is a nurse.....

 

they are not as poorly paid as made out - even if the hours they work are phakt (a lot)

 

they are indeed angels

 

£21-£28k pa. Not exactly a Kings Ransom for a job which requires a degree plus additional training. A job with HUGE responsibility. That's proper responsibility, by the way, for peoples lives, not just a bit of budget or something. 

 

I will openly acknowledge that there are bad nurses out there, who shouldn't really be in the job, and are probably holding out for a management position. But for every one of them, there are many, many good nurses (and nursing assistants*), who will go above and beyond what is expected of them in order to provide a good standard of care.

 

*<£8 per hour, the same as domestic staff, and less than admin workers, and I bet none of them have had to cut a ligature off. 

[The Moog]

Fucking Yodel.  Something I have ordered has the misfortune to be delivered by them, Cue text message saying that it will be delivered sometime today before 9pm. Excellent just 12 hour window.

 

Check just now and apparently they tried to deliver it 45 minutes ago but couldnt get access. Erm we were in, in the house, the one on the label, we werent playing hide and seek and we had left the drawbridge down and the dragons tied up. So why couldnt you access it? Fuckstick