Interesting look into a London trauma center during 2017 Westminster bridge attack

[Micael]

I came across this by chance, there was documentary filming ongoing at the St. Mary’s hospital in London during the 2017 Westminster Bridge terrorist attack. Quite interesting to see the UK approach to a major incident from inside a trauma center.

In three parts, but the first has the main response, patient arrival and such:

1. https://youtu.be/DRnbIW6G9B8

2. https://youtu.be/SKFLpxhu4Wc

3. https://youtu.be/XmvNQxvBoOw

[Rocket J Squrriel]

The documentary series is available on Amazon Prime and its very good.

It shows the good that NHS does. One episode showed surgery for babies that were born normal but with misshapen skulls that as the brain grows it won't fit correctly and will cause damage. How they use computer models to redesign the skull and then in a surgery lift completely off. Then its given to a tech in the OR to work on. When I saw it I at first thought it was a plastic model! He trims it, cuts pieces off to rearrange them, maybe adds plates, and puts it together again. All the while the baby's brain is exposed. The surgeon, instead of standing around doing nothing left the OR! He wanted to check on patients and grab a bite to eat before returning and putting the skull back into place.

It also shows the horror of the waiting lists. Like people coming in for a scheduled heart surgery and being told to go home because there isn't a surgical slot or that there is no room in the ICU for recovery. Might wait weeks to try again. These are ordinary surgeries, they are life threatening ones. Also shows when NHS told the hospitals to stop any adding to the surgical lists to try and remove the backlog. Of course it didn't and made it worse. One highly specialized surgeon told a hospital that he was sorry but that the date he was leaving was not going to change no matter the amount he was guilt tripped. His wife was in Arkansas working at a hospital for months already and he would join her. Money was a reason but the biggie was the sheer caseload. Essentially he would be in surgery all day, every day with no end in sight.

I recommend it all.

[Micael]

I’ve watched a few more episodes, it’s very interesting to compare it to healthcare here and spot differences.

One thing I found a bit surprising was in an episode where there’s been an arrangement where private providers would take some surgical cases from the NHS in an attempt to shorten long waiting times, and it’s treated as a sensitive and somewhat dramatic matter. Interviewer starts asking about ideological differences and whatnot. Here the public healthcare system buys tons of procedures and surgeries from private providers all the time and it’s quite undramatic. A lot of primary care is private as well, but you as a patient pay the same regardless.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

I got the impressions they were acting like it was a betrayal of NHS to ask for help from the private side. Its not just this series but also other things that give me the impression that the needs of NHS might at times come before the needs of the patient.

[Craiglxviii]

I got the impressions they were acting like it was a betrayal of NHS to ask for help from the private side. Its not just this series but also other things that give me the impression that the needs of NHS might at times come before the needs of the patient.

Not really. The private healthcare providers operate their clinics/ practices within NHS hospitals, and doctors and consultants etc. can work on both sides of the fence, as it were.

[Bernard Woolley]

The NHS will, if you have been on a waiting list long enough, pay for patients to go private. Which NHS Scotland did for me back in 2020. My surgeon was the same NHS consultant who had done the last surgery in an NHS hospital.