Winter comes around every year, it’s no surprise.
But every year our health service takes a bitter blow from the season.
I’m passionate about our NHS - the luxury of a free at the point of delivery health service is one I do not take for granted.
I’m thankful to the medics who assist me, my family and you all when we really need it.
I once really needed it, from an understanding GP to being directed to A&E and into theatre - they all provided the medical care I needed and discharged me without a penny to pay.
Nationally our hospitals were this week told to cancel all routine operations to deal with winter pressures and emergency issues.
One medic in the Midlands apologised and said he was ‘heartbroken’ by the ‘third world’ service he felt they were offering in his overcrowded A&E.
I have no doubt he and others like him do the best with what they face.
Locally, our Accident and Emergency departments were overwhelmed.
They had already avoided planning routine operations knowing what may be about to hit them.
And they had plans in place to deal with pressures, such as expanding assessment facilities and drafting in more doctors and nurses to the frontline of A&E and inpatient areas.
But it wasn’t enough - a virus spread onto wards and it meant they were battling a virus difficult to beat.
So how do we fix our health service during winter?
Most importantly, it needs more cash.
No matter what any government pledges there will always be a financial struggle of what to fund, how, when and what it can be spent on.
And I think we the public need to help them and be more considerate about how we use our health service.
One of the troubles facing our local hospitals this week was people with Norovirus turning up.
It’s a diarrhoea and vomiting bug and I don’t know a single person who would think that is an accident or an emergency.
Unpleasant? Yes. Makes you feel wiped out? Yes. But for the majority of people without other ailments it’s a ‘stay in bed and drink plenty of fluids’ illness.
But some people with Norovirus did turn up at hospital and spread the virus in the worst possible place - in a place where people with other illnesses or poor immune systems are already more vulnerable.
We need our medics to be well and healthy, not put at risk of being bogged down with the bug too.
I also think we need a culture change in how we think.
When you go abroad and feel ill who do you turn to? A pharmacist, that’s who.
But in this country we seem to use them mainly to pick up a prescription written by a GP or other medical profession.
On Christmas Day I spotted a number of spots on my two-year-old’s hand. It didn’t look like chicken pox, which he’s yet to get, or anything I recognised.
A quick search of Google and with regular monitoring I was at a loss.
The spots were not shifting, nor was he getting any more. But he was putting his fingers in his mouth and I was concerned about infection.
So on Boxing Day I popped into my local pharmacist who, while not there to diagnose, happily took a look and gave guidance and it was reassuring.
That’s what I needed - reassurance from someone more educated in this way that I shouldn’t worry but monitor.
It cleared up in days without troubling any other part of the NHS.
I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the 111 service - on the few occasions I’ve call it felt like a box ticking exercise. But, then again, my reason for calling didn’t lead to anything that later led to seeing a GP.
Our NHS is one of the biggest employers in the world, it’s staffed by people who go over and above what is expected.
It’s a national treasure we all need to have a hand in protecting, fighting for and championing. Help our doctors do that.
