NHS under-resourcing is leaving patients in pain
This blog is written by a Just Treatment supporter who wishes to remain anonymous.
I was recently admitted to a hospital ward following a bout of pneumonia on top of other long-standing issues. What I saw and experienced concerned me greatly. I saw lowered levels of capacity with consequences for myself, other patients, and all the brilliant NHS staff. I fear that things are going to get worse for all.
We all know that staff are doing their best under difficult circumstances where they are regularly under-resourced and understaffed. They don’t always have the capacity to give patients the time that they may need when it may be needed, and one consequence is that patients can spend more time in pain than is necessary.
I am not taking a dig at staff working in the NHS. They are not to blame. They do their best, but underfunding and under-resourcing by the government is putting them under immense pressure - and we need to address it now.
Like many of those in the beds around me, I was in a lot of pain. I needed the pain medication that my GP had prescribed to me just prior to my ending up in hospital. It took 24 hours from them agreeing that it had just been prescribed and confirming that I could have it, to the time I actually received it on the ward. That was a long time to be without the correct pain relief, but I was even more worried watching some of those around me. I also had a problem with my own medication taking regime not fitting with the ward drug round times; it led to me having to inject anti-coagulants in hospital and at home.
Despite the best efforts of staff, there were practical issues in dealing promptly with patients in pain. Without enough staff to dispense medication as and when needed, many were in great pain when they should not have been. There seems, in the calculation of what staff are needed on a ward, that it may be acceptable that medication may be given later than at optimum times.
When you are in a considerable amount of pain, you just want it to end, but making any decisions about end of life care needs to be done carefully, with great time taken to explain and re-explain options and consequences to patients who might find it difficult to make a clearheaded decision.
I spent two days opposite one man who vociferously expressed his wish to die as soon as possible. I saw how he misinterpreted what had been said to him, how he chopped and changed his mind depending who he was talking to and what pain medication he had been given. Others saw him in snap-shots albeit long and compassionate ones, when professionals constantly tried to explain things to him. He was very seriously ill and one option was not to risk any operations but to let his disease take its course. He would be supported and that would include pain medication – yet he too was to experience issues getting medication on time.
The delays in obtaining medication continued for me at discharge, whilst staff on wards and in the hospital pharmacy were working flat out, they were clearly doing so with the bare minimum levels of staffing and that had widespread consequences for patients.
The treatment of pain is a high priority for NHS staff and of course the patient. The best available treatment, in a timely fashion, should have a high priority in determining staff levels which should reflect timely dispensing and not a 'we will get around to it as best we can' approach. The giving of medication, pain-killing especially, is a field that can have great positive outcomes, and seriously wrong ones.
If we do not invest in the NHS and increase staffing levels we are leaving thousands of vulnerable patients to suffer in pain without the quality level of care that they need and deserve. If the government actually cares about the wellbeing of both NHS patients and staff, they must act now to deliver additional funding.