I couldn't find an appropriate thread.

After decades of centralising healthcare services it now looks like the NHS realise that local is better.

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Waiting lists are coming down although not quick enough. As the writer points out one of the many delays is caused by the conflict between routine and emergency operations.

Setting up units in shopping centres or supermarkets away from the hospital allows routine procedures to be done away from the pressures of emergency healthcare.

Often it's not about staff but operating theatres a routine procedure is bumped for an emergency operation (quite right) leaving the medical staff and patient twiddling their thumbs.

Having multiple smaller hubs is the model to go for many procedures.

The next task they need to address is elderly bed blockers who should actually be in nursing homes rather than hospital beds.

None of this is new pre 1970's this is how the NHS operated, cottage hospitals and nursing homes for people who need to have an eye kept on them until they are fit enough to be discharged.

One more point

Tbh atm it’s the only way you can see a doctor. The local quacks seem to think covid is still rife and they don’t have to open fully. A joke really. I’ve got an abscess that burst and have an appointment at the wound clinic next Friday ! Did get antibiotics from
A and E last Tuesday though and keeping it covered. The point is if the quacks was open I wouldn’t have needed to go to hospital.

We simply don't have enough GPs this isn't going to turn around quickly probably at least another 5-10 years to train them. In the meantime the best the NHS can do is to use their resources as best as possible.

Senior nurses dealing with cuts and bruises and the like.

We should also have drunk tanks manned by police and medical staff and fine the individuals heavily.

One more point

Some very rightminded ideas here. 'Whatever works' in my view, whether that's utilising shopping centres and the like, or taking a more forthright approach to drunks clogging up A&E of a weekend.

My wife is a nurse. She already does a lot more than deal with cuts and bruises. They are now generally dealt with by HCAs (health care assistants). Senior nurses run wards and departments. My wife carries out procedures that only a few years ago would have been done by a doctor.

What is not generally known is the number of private clinics being established which get the bulk of their work via NHS contracts. These tend to specialise in common problems which have long waiting lists. One here deals exclusively with cataracts and offers a maximum 2 week appointment for treatment from referral.

Another large local surgery is expanding and building an operating theatre on site capable of quite significant surgery. They already have a small one.

None of this will address the staffing issues, though, so we will need to continue to recruit heavily from overseas for the foreseeable future.

Bed blocking has been a problem for decades and for which there is no quick, easy or cheap solution. A huge building programme is needed and, if to be done by the private sector, the financial incentives need to be in place. Too often local authorities squeeze down the rates they pay to the point where it is uneconomic for care homes to accept funded clients, even if they have the space. Add to that the length of time all the admin takes and this is not a simple issue. If the NHS start to run "cottage" hospitals again, for rehab, or recovery for the elderly prior to returning home, then again a huge building programme is required which will take many years, and a lot of money, to arrive. Same if local authorities run their own care homes again. They were stopped, and the homes sold to the private sector, when it became apparent that it cost more to place a client in their own homes than in a private one. Unions got their members higher pay in council run homes, thus they were always fully staffed. Care work is poorly paid, and the results are obvious.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.