This is from the Save Southend NHS Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/SaveSouthendNHS/. We make no apology for posting up these reports as the message that the NHS is being run into the ground and as a result, patients lives are at risk needs to be got across ahead of the march and rally on Saturday 27th January.

With great sadness, #SaveSouthend bring to you yet another in a long line of devastating reports from the coalface of emergency care. The following is written by a local frontline nurse and one with a considerable amount of skill, knowledge and experience. Is this REALLY what modern healthcare should look like in a first world country? #NHSCrisis #Southend #STP

“I leave shifts feeling at once decimated by the fact I can’t deliver the standard of care I feel I could and should to my patients because you are constantly running from case to case to keep on top of the workload – but at the same time elated by the standard of care we DO deliver under impossible burdens… AND we have newly qualified nursing staff that are working alongside the more experienced staff – their hearts and souls go into their care and they will all make excellent emergency nurses – assuming they don’t burn out first.

Then there are the doctors who work with us – ranging from some very junior to very experienced individuals who generally feel the same way – frustrated we can’t keep on top of the workload as we get exit block from the department.

We feel guilty that patients have to wait in the department for so long, we feel guilty that the ambulance crews can’t unload and head off to the next job – whose relative is left laying on the floor after a fall for hours because the crews can’t unload? Who is deteriorating and will then come to us sicker because of a delay in care?

And the support staff that help us juggle patients and keep the department afloat – porters, domestics, reception and clerical – we couldn’t do half of what we do without them. Your A&E has an amazing team that struggles daily to deliver high quality care – yet no other healthcare system in the world is trying to deliver the quality and quantity the NHS does on the level of funding it does…

The UK has 2.7 hospital beds per 1000 people – compared to 4.5 average in the rest of the EU. We have 2.8 doctors per 1000 people – EU average is 3.8. We have 8.2 nurses per 1000, EU average 9.4. The UK spends on average E3000 per person on healthcare – the EU average is E3304, though Germany, the Netherlands, France and Sweden all spend over E4000

If the Danes, Swedes, French and Germans can spend more on health care without apparently bankrupting the rest of their economy, why can’t we?”.

The team at #SaveSouthendNHS once again want thank and praise all of our NHS staff for the amazing care they deliver despite these most trying times. March with us on Saturday 27th January 2018 12pm assembly at Pier Hill for #OurNHS – the Government sanctioned Mid and South Essex STP are set to slash £30 million annually from Southend’s budget. Our voices MUST be heard. The NHS belongs to the people. Southend on sea requires a GENERAL HOSPITAL able to fully meet the needs of the local population.