Where is your evidence that the NHS has got worse? I started as a radiographer in 1973, apart from the huge advances in technology, we now have a culture that mean patients are informed, included in discussions/decisions of their treatment plans, patients can disagree with staff about their treatment. We have 2 week cancer referrals, one stop clinics. We have clinical audit, clinical governance evidence based practice.

In many many ways the NHS has improved and continues to improve.

I have also worked in private medicine, 14 years in total and it cant offer the scope that the nhs can - i dont think its any better.

MRSA, hm, we wear gloves and aprons and wash and clean religiously but how many visitors don't wash their hand? how many sit on the beds? put their feet on the beds, and dont get me on to the rubbish that is left lying around in the waiting room by patients. - and these people will be complaining about MRSA and dirt.

I didnt see the humour/irony in your original post, maybe it was socratic irony
- where you pretend to be stupid but are really intelligent (anyone see the irony there?)

Oh ! Right ! unbiased then, please accept my apologies...

Odd that so many employees of the NHS would want to be treated in their own hospitals then ?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...e_id=1770&ct=5

Canada Bob.

Ahh the Daily Mail - I was right after all

As one poster said - debate the opinion not the poster , keep it civil else the thread will be locked

Here's one for you then...

"Where has it got worse"... I went to Bolton Royal last year for an X-Ray and in the small talk with the technician I asked {in an attempt to break the ice} is this machine safe ? her response was, "Oh yea, it's safe, but I'm not sure how much good it is, it's older than I am" !!!

That stopped me in my tracks... she wasn't wrong the X-Rays didn't have the definition to show the condition I was in, so after speaking with one of the Radiologists at Bolton & my GP they referred me to the Alexandre hospital in Cheadle, where I paid over £2,000 for X-rays and a PET Scan.

In many ways the NHS may have improved, but many folks working in it and those subjected to it have less confidence in it than ever I can remember...

If the regimes are as strict {in all hospitals} as you claim for where you work then how come patients who don't get any visitors die from MRSA ?

As far as the humour was concerned, call it what you will, but at the end of the day I thought we'd quit burning folks at the stake because they don't share our values or in this case our humour.

Maybe I should add that what I posted is doing the rounds via e-mail, I read it, saw the irony and black humour in it, and thought others would see the same, how wrong I was, there's some rabid fascists in here...

Canada Bob.

Yes! I love it when a theory is confirmed! Daily Mail reader. So much for "you know nothing about me". Bob, we know lots about you. At this rate you are going to burst a blood vessel and be in your much-derided A&E. Tell you what, let's give it a go and see if we can tip you over the edge.

"... hear about them asylum seekers gettin' free houses free I tell you when there's good decent white folks working their fingers to the bone and then there's them Polish East Europeans comin' over here and taking our jobs my mate's a plumber and he can't get no work now it's a scandal i'll tell you what else is a scandal them cheely darkies getting free NHS treatment none of them pay taxes oh and don't get me started on taxes thousand pounds a year we each we pay to them Brussels EEC people an' they spend it tellin' us we can't have curved bananas and then them Human Rights people in Europe are the worse sayin' that we've got to let out all them terrorists it's a bloody liberty and how about that Charles Clarke lettin' go all them foreign murderers we should build more prisons overcrowding's too good for 'em..."

K.

It doesn't say where they would like to be treated. The question seems only to have been something like "does the hospital where you work offer the standard of care you would like to have?", if the staff could all answer "yes" then that would be some wonderful facility.

Yer not very swift are you KT, took that one hook line and sinker LOL !!!

Bleedin hell, you don't think that the Daily Mail was the only paper to report that survey do you LOL... Tell you what, find me someone who refutes it, even in Government ranks... yer a gobshyte letting me draw you on to that sucker punch LOL!!!

You're the easiest fish I've ever fried LOL !

Canada Bob.

Thanks again - I enjoyed that

Real life experience - me and my other half were visiting the UK back in April. We haven't paid anything into "the system" for 30 years. He had a stroke. He got absolutely top-notch treatment, is now almost fully recovered. He was released from the hospital in the UK without any mention of a bill - we are quite prepared to pay for all the treatment, and it's all covered on my extended health insurance anyway. We still haven't received an invoice - I thought they would mail it. Call me a fool if you like, but this really bothers me. It's just not fair on residents if anyone can just walk in and get medical treatment for free. It doesn't happen in Canada, that's for sure.

I know it looks like I am replying to myself - but just wanted to say I clicked in at random on this topic, and answered one posting. Then I read the thread, and wished I hadn't posted anything. These postings are hostile and juvenile, and I don't want to be associated with any of it.

Hi! Sorry about your partner's stroke - but glad to hear about the treatment he received.

Just wanted to let you know that as it was an emergency you do not have to pay. Emergency treatment is free to anyone who is unlucky enough to require it whilst visiting the UK.

More Daily Mail propaganda no doubt...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...097936,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...9-2214485.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...2-2173207.html

Then there's the £6.2 BILLION on this project...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...2-2136644.html

The politicians call it "health tourism". It costs the NHS about £100M per year. The Government is introducing an ID card system to stop it. The scheme will cost £19000M.

K.

technician? er no a radiographer if qualfied to take x-ray unsupervised.

comparing a plain film x-ray and a PETscan is a ludicrous thing to do, they can never offer the same definition, its just not the same things at all

AS for patients without visitors, first of all i wonder about the source of your information (again) where is the evidence for this? Secondly you are missing the point, if visitors to hospitals were as stringent about cleanliness as they rightly expect staff to be then the bugs wouldn't be so prevalent and hence spread.

i havent burnt you at a stake for your attempt at humour- i just didnt realise it was meant to be funny

I ask you again where is your evidence for your staement that the nhs is worse than it was? if its your impression then say it is merely an impression, thats fine its your opinion but please dont state it as a fact