The NHS is broken

Every news story about the shockingly shit state of the NHS and care system in the U.K. could be written about my family - including this one shared by a friend in the US.

I stand by our NHS workers and am sharing our story to illustrate how bad things are already.

In April, my 90 year old Dad waited 9 hours lying on the cold hall floor (all night) with a query mini stroke. He was then waiting outside A&E in an ambulance for 30 hours to get a bed.

After a lengthy stay and a frustrating lack of progress, he was finally deemed medically fit and able to be discharged. This time there were no carers available in the community and he couldn’t be safely looked after at home, so he had to be kept in hospital blocking a bed.

Rather than wait for carers, we had him discharged and my Mum tried to manage at home on her own. He soon fell again and the final time was a serious fall. On that fateful night in July when I dialled 999, it was a category one - query stroke and response time is supposed to be 10 minutes. We live just half an hour outside Cardiff, the capital of Wales but waited 1.5 hours for a first responder to come (after 3 more desperate calls). It was a further hour by the time they could get an ambulance to us. Of course he didn’t have to wait for a bed in A&E that night. The fall was fatal and he died the following morning.

After decades of neglect under Tory rule, the NHS is on its knees. The people we trust to care for our loved ones are sending a very clear message to the government but the Tories refuse to negotiate with nursing and ambulance unions about their pay and working conditions.

How much more arrogance can our country take? How many more people have to lose their loved ones before they will respond?