{"id":34537,"date":"2019-11-29T12:30:47","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T12:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=34537"},"modified":"2019-11-29T12:30:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T12:30:47","slug":"the-news-says-the-nhs-is-in-crisis-but-whats-it-like-to-be-in-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/the-news-says-the-nhs-is-in-crisis-but-whats-it-like-to-be-in-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The news says the NHS is in crisis, but what&#8217;s it like to be in it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Hospital care and A&amp;E targets to see each patient within four hours have been missed over the past three years, however it is now at its worst level on record.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The news prompted the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats to criticise the Conservative\u2019s treatment of the NHS. However, Boris Johnson has dismissed the claims, saying the poor records are instead a result of \u201chuge demand\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Editor\u2019s Picks:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/london-bridge-shut-down-after-gunfire\/\">London Bridge shut down &#8220;after gunfire&#8221;\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/the-brothers-of-grime\/\">The Brothers of Grime<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/greta-thunberg-whats-the-big-deal\/\">Greta Thunberg \u2013 the 16-year-old activist, now author of the year<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/how-historically-accurate-is-the-crown\/\">How historically accurate is The Crown?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s worth noting that despite the demand, most patients are still seen on time for their appointments. However, as the years have gone on, more people are on the waiting lists and targets are not being hit.\u00a0 From the perspective of the public and sensationalist news outlets, the NHS is crumbling and has limited days left. But what is it like when people are working in that environment?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hannah* has been working as an NHS healthcare assistant for the past two and a half years, and knows first hand what it is like to be short-staffed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI was working a night shift when we were just one or two staff down, as we did the morning jobs, a patient got up and fell.\u00a0 Luckily they were okay, but it was scary to think that if we\u2019d just had the right number of staff it probably wouldn\u2019t have happened.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With short staffing I have to deal with things that maybe I\u2019m not best suited for.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been hit, felt up and had things thrown at me. It\u2019s nothing I can\u2019t deal with, but I find it more tricky to look after a minimum of six patients if I\u2019m having to deal with aggression\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked if Hannah had considered giving up her job as a result of these experiences:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAbsolutely not.\u00a0 I love my job and I love helping people, and if everyone who had a bad day quit then who would be left?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the NHS is in as big of a crisis as it\u2019s made out to be, but at the grass roots level we can see the impacts of budget cuts and understaffing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">*names have been changed for anonymity<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Words by Eleanor Smith | Subbing: Hannah Wilson<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hospital care and A&amp;E targets to see each patient within four hours have been missed over the past three years, however it is now at its worst level on record. The news prompted the Labour&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":34538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,67,82,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-health-fitness","category-lifestyle","category-top-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}