Sunday 17 June 2018

Does the NHS really understand Dementia

Many people struggle with daily problems, while trying to manage the ever changing, things in life like technology which they may or may not understand.

While many people with dementia have someone to look after their needs and explain things to them, I do wonder how many of them really understand technology, or things like computers and the internet. Many people with dementia don't have full time or live in carers, so they at a disadvantage to others, but how many doctors take this on board.

This is also largely disregarded by many officials within the NHS and other services, but we are being forced to do everything on line, whether you are competent to do it or not, and now we hear, that we are going to be forced to do online consultations with doctors rather than getting an appointment  at the doctors surgery.

I don't understand this, and in all honesty I can't see this saving a doctors time at all, because it still takes time to talk to a doctor in the surgery, but surely it is better  to do this face to face, where a doctor can see your problems.

Many people don't understand how to use things like web-chat etc or skype, but we are now being asked to do this rather than getting an appointment. I confess that I don't like it neither does my wife, and we have tried this at times when trying to talk to our family at Christmas.

On top of this we are being forced to do on line prescriptions etc, something I don't do because I don't understand what medications I am on or what they are for, so it's no good me doing this.

However recently we have noticed that there seems to be a lack of doctors around the surgeries and more of these are using nurse practitioners rather than doctors. While some of these may be good at their job, I find them to be rather stressful as they don't seem to understand or take on board your problems. We used to have one who was brilliant, but she sadly left.

Sooner or later NHS England and the NHS have to realise that going on line is not the answer to the problem, it may end up with more people going to A&E to get the support they need.
There are too many people using A&E these days and I do feel that this can only make matters much worse.

Not too long ago we used to have a lot of brilliant officials working within the NHS, who knew all about Dementia etc, but as with everything else these days, they were lost or made redundant, to be replaced by people trying to reinvent the wheel.

Let us hope things change before it's too late.

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I always say that we may have this illness, but we are all so different.

This is my own daily problems, but I would gladly share anyone elses, if they send them in,

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