Andrew Kay: Who cares?
Much of the last two months has been spent in visiting my mother who, at the age of 81, has had two small but not insignificant strokes. And thank you to all her well-wishers, she’s doing well, better than we might have hoped in fact. So much so that she is now Facetiming me at all hours of the day from her hospital bed.
Spending so much time in various medical institutions makes you very aware of not only your own mortality but also how much very hard work goes into the NHS. This in turn makes you wonder how so much can be going wrong in the service, and there is little doubt that there are things that are sadly wrong.
What I saw was an amazing amount of genuine care and hard work from medical professionals who, despite cuts and shortages of staff, still seem to be able to get on with things. I would like to say, that over the last few months I never once saw anyone sitting about and doing nothing.
In truth they are busy way beyond their hours with many members of the nursing staff still on the wards well beyond their given hours and some doctors too. If there are shortcomings then I can only think that they are in the area of administration. I’m coming to hate the word administration as much as I hate the phrase Human Resources, sorry, human resources, they certainly do not merit capital letters.
One area that I paid particular interest in was the catering. Mum is still on liquid feeds, but at given times each day, huge trolleys of food are delivered to the wards, laden with steaming foil trays which contain the meals for the patients that they have ordered the day before.
“Now something says wrong to me here. I mean, why would we pay a medical professional to serve food?”
This food is then plated and dispensed by ward staff, often medically trained ward staff. Now something says wrong to me here. I mean, why would we pay a medical professional to serve food?
Well, of course it’s partly because we expect to be fed whilst in hospital, but why I do not know. After all, it’s not a hotel. It’s once again this sense of entitlement that is spreading through society – but surely this is wrong.
Hospital catering is pretty grim but at the same time a miracle given the budgets they work with. Surely if catering was not part of the NHS remit it could be managed better with people opting to buy meals or have their families bring their meals in, with of course a provision for those who are not able to choose these options.
I certainly don’t want my meals out served by nursing professionals so why would I want that if I had to stay in a hospital? Could a professional catering company not do a better job if they were allowed to charge sensible prices for the food they serve and cut down on the appalling waste that I saw on the wards too? Whole trays of uneaten food were going to waste on a regular basis.
Bill Smith has written here about his misgivings about the structure of the NHS, based on his experiences when his mum was unwell, and now I add mine.
The NHS is something that Britain should be able to be proud of, and in many ways we are.
But surely, by expecting the institution to run what borders on being a hotel or holiday camp for the sick and elderly, we are missing the point completely. Why not remove the financial strain from medical care budgets by changing the way the service is offered? Who knows, it might even result in a reduction in the need for administrative staff too, a double whammy in terms of savings!
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