24/01/2026
This isn’t a post to knock the NHS but it is my observations of some of the simple things that seem to be going wrong and it’s based solely on the last four days. I’m not looking to upset people either so apologies if I do. I’m also not looking to argue for or against the viability of the NHS.
It’s also a bit rambly and I make no apologies for that I’m scared. I’m scared for my daughter and I’m scared for myself.
On Wednesday I had a respiratory appointment and finally had a chest X-ray both of which I’ve been waiting a year for, in that time my left side symptoms (which I’ve had for two years) have been left to worsen. I was given no indication of next steps.
On Thursday I had a mammogram. It was cancelled four times in 2025 by the NHS, and I had to insist this month that I had to have it done due to the pain I am experiencing in my left breast. So it’s been finally done at my insistence and I will definitely be chasing the results.
In the early hours of Friday morning my daughter had to call an ambulance she was admitted to hospital at 5am. She was offered her first drink of any kind at 10pm. Yes seventeen hours!
She was asked if she wanted lunch about 1.30, explained she needed gluten free and was told they’d get something sent up from the kitchen. After we chased a couple of times she got two slices of dry bread, two apples, a yoghurt and a biscuit. It arrived at about 5pm. Twelve hours after admittance. This ‘snack pack’ was the only thing offered over 27 hours until breakfast this morning.
Her pain was off the scale. Her next morphine was due at 4pm she finally, got it at 10pm.
And needing a wee? Hooked up to an infusion drip for 24 hours, and heart monitor we had to manage the lot as best we could after each request to go to the toilet was talking between one and two hours.
This morning? In agony but still waiting for morphine.
What saddens me most is the lack of dignity for patients.
I don’t claim to know how to solve the problems the NHS have but I was taught customer service. I also run time management training courses.
First rule of customer service do what you say you will. If you promise someone a drink/pain killer/ assistance for the toilet and that can be done within minutes then have a system where it is done immediately.
It isn’t acceptable to promise you will do something/get somebody else and then walk away. How are we having accountability? How are we recording this? Because it happened over and over again yesterday.
Monitor pain relief. Have it on a wall board if necessary, but don’t leave it overdue until people, and there were many, begging for it. Rebecca came back from a CT scan shivering, feverish,bent double. Her pain relief was due and yet she got nothing for six hours. People come into hospital scared and psychologically challenged as well as physically pained. Are we not training staff to recognise that?
How many staff does it take to help somebody use an oxygen mask? Three. One to speak to the patient and two to stand back and watch.
Back to customer service, look at the patient, talk to them, and listen to them. Look at their body language you will see genuine pain. I didn’t see much looking going on yesterday. It was almost like staff couldn’t get away quick enough.
My observation was lots of staff, many of them at computers, and not much sign of nursing. It took five minutes to load my daughter’s notes, I watched the screen. What a waste of time! And during the twenty minutes they were left open on the screen the nurse went off several times to do other things.
Swallow the frog. Do the thing even if you don’t want to. I understand emergencies come in but these were nurses wondering off to do things they’d been asked for hours before.
I am neuro divergent. I train businesses to work with neurodivergent staff. I felt like I was sat in the middle of a giant ADHD brain. Little achieved, staff distracted left right and centre, everyone trying to remember but writing nothing down, little direct focus and little accountability.
Finally food is medicine. Please cater for things like gluten free. People don’t go gluten free out of choice, it’s so incredibly expensive for one thing, so if they do present as gluten free it’s because gluten is bad for them medically. It’s not hard to make a few gluten free sandwiches. Two slices of buttered bread and a slice of ham. People just want something to eat and drink without being made to feel like an inconvenience.
And inconvenience is exactly what I’ve seen this week. We seem to have lost the service in National Health Service, how do we get it back?
