Your voice, your choice: Wycombe Hospital announces ‘system failure’

“Why is no one talking about the systemic failure of the NHS?” asks Chris Rolph.

The 58-year-old discovered four broken sinks while trying to wash his hands after visiting his mother at Wycombe Hospital in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

“It’s not just about money, it’s about a lack of leadership,” he said, adding that politicians “only seem interested in saving money” and “are not brave enough to tackle the problem.”

Mr Rolph, who lives near Louth in Lincolnshire, regularly makes the long 175-mile journey to visit his 86-year-old mother.

“Anti-Bac cannot be used, you must wash your hands after contact,” he said.

He said the sink in his mother’s room was broken, the makeshift sink in the hallway had run out of water, the public toilets on the ground floor had been out of service for two weeks and when he tried the X-ray department on the first floor, there was no water.

Mr Rolph said: “In the meantime, I could have spread the infection to half the hospital.”

A hospital spokesman said “routine testing” had identified “a problem with the water in some parts of Wycombe Hospital.”

It is therefore recommended that taps and showers be “equipped with filters as a precautionary measure to create a protective barrier and ensure the safe use of water,” the spokesman added.

However, since it was not possible to equip all taps and showers with filters due to age, alternatives such as alcohol-based hand sanitizers and mobile wash basins were provided.

The spokesman said: “We are in the process of making the necessary repairs and taking water samples to check whether it is safe to remove the temporary filters and reuse the old taps and showers.”

The hospital apologized for the empty mobile sink.

Mr Rolph praised clinical staff who “worked hard to keep everything together”, but in another example of “systemic failure” he said they had not had access to his mother’s online notes containing her full medical history.

His daughter, a junior doctor working in another NHS hospital, told him this was not unusual, as she had to access “seven different IT systems just to look after the same patient”.

Mr Rolph works in education and compared the NHS to the school academy system, which “has accountability and can make changes quickly when problems arise”.

“I thought that was the plan behind the introduction of NHS trusts, it would enable people to make rapid changes,” he said.

“Instead, people can ignore failures without taking responsibility, and top leaders do not seem to be held accountable.”

“Why don’t the major parties talk about it?

NHS Trusts were introduced by the Conservatives in 1991 and expanded by the Labour Party from 2004 to provide greater autonomy and local accountability.

NHS Foundation Trusts were introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2004 to give communities and staff more say in the management of NHS services in their area.

This is how the parties want to tackle the problem (in alphabetical order):

The Conservatives are pledging to push through their programme for 40 new hospitals by 2030. They say they will increase NHS spending above inflation every year and recruit 92,000 extra nurses, 28,000 of them full-time, by the end of the next parliamentary term. They will bring care closer to people’s homes by introducing Pharmacy First, modernised GP surgeries and more community diagnostic centres.

Labour say NHS facilities are in a run-down state after years of neglect, so they have pledged to launch a new hospital programme. They say much of the care provided in the NHS depends on the effective management of services and that managers need support and accountability so they can implement professional standards and regulate NHS managers.

The Liberal Democrats plan to invest £1.1 billion a year in hospitals and other NHS infrastructure and equipment. They will also implement a 10-year plan to invest in hospitals and primary care, and to repair crumbling roofs, dangerous concrete and outdated buildings. They plan to invest an additional £8.3 billion a year in the NHS.

The Greens will spend an extra £8 billion in the first full year of the next parliamentary term, and a total of £28 billion by 2030. They believe this will help them reduce waiting lists year after year. They have also committed to spending at least £20 billion extra on building and repairing hospitals over the next five years.

Reform UK plans to save an extra £17 billion a year on spending on the NHS by lifting net zero targets. The company believes this will help end waiting lists within two years. To increase productivity, the company will employ logistics experts. Employers will be encouraged to offer private insurance. Patients will be given private treatment vouchers if they are unable to receive treatment within certain time periods.