YP Letters: Retired NHS consultant '“ Bed closures mean hospital staff's hard work is for nothing

THE doctors and nurses in the NHS have been well trained to do the job. They also have all the equipment to help and cure their patients. The only thing they have not got is the number of beds in which to place their patients. For some reason that I do not understand, half of the hospital beds have been closed by the management, this has meant that the nurses that ran those wards have lost their jobs

Now surprise, surprise, we have insufficient nurses and beds for the sick and elderly.

These patients over 75 are called ‘bed blockers’. I find this very offensive because I am in my 80th year. I started working in the Health Service in 1966 and have seen, and been involved with, the improvements in the treatment of patients. I have seen them live longer and happier lives. The elderly are then blamed for having, and living with, multiple diseases that some doctors find difficult to deal with.

All the closed beds on wards in the hospitals must be reopened so that seriously-ill patients can be admitted in a timely fashion and so that the A&E departments can be cleared for the next lot of ill patients.

The present A&E department can be likened to a bicycle that has lost its chain. The doctors and nurses are working like fury, but getting nowhere.

Social care for the elderly has completely broken down. Care homes are closing because the councils do not have enough money to give carers a proper salary.

We must adopt a separate tax for our care in old age when we become infirm.

There are now insufficient nurses in hospitals and care homes. In order to solve this acute problem, we must go back several years when 17 and 18-year-old teenagers were enrolled into the NHS as pupil nurses, SEN and SRN. These young teenagers can rapidly assist the qualified nurses on the wards where they will be taught how to care and speak to the sick and elderly. Some will want to work in care homes, where they must have a good salary commensurate with the importance of their job.

General practice must be reordered so that medical centres again look after their patients 24/7. An open door policy is not a bad idea. No more waiting lists. GPs could again do domicilaries for the seriously-ill and dying patients, this could all be organised on a rota basis between several practices.

Finally massive efficiency savings could be gained by a reduction in NHS managers. Most are incompetent and have run the NHS into bankruptcy.