Society of Radiographer rep
I work in a major trauma hospital as a radiographer, mostly in A&E.
It’s not possible to write about the state of the health service without mentioning what is happening in Gaza. We have been left stunned by the targeting of hospitals, with health workers losing their lives trying to save others and as the electricity and other supplies run out having to choose who is treated and who is not.
For many of us it brings back memories of the height of the Covid crisis when hospitals ran short of oxygen and ventilators in intensive care, and doctors were forced to make similar decisions. Although we are not having bombs dropped on us, working in A&E can feel like working in a war zone.
I’ve worked in the NHS for over 20 years. Back when I started, we were also demanding more resources, more staff, shorter waiting lists and an end to private companies leeching off our NHS. Since, we’ve made huge strives forward in technology and treatment, but Labour and Tory governments have failed to give us the funding we need to take full advantage of these steps forward.
In my field of imaging, we can take a major trauma patient from helipad, to resus, to a scanner in a matter of minutes to diagnose what would have been a fatal injury, and then onto successful surgery. Many more of these traumatically injured patients are saved today than in the past.
Chaos
But round the corner from resus in the rest of A&E, the picture could not be more different. It looks like chaos and must feel that way to patients.
When I first started there were always empty bays ready for new patients. Now the corridors between are full of patients on trolleys. These patients are still monitored, but dignity and proper care are a real struggle. We come down and collect patients for imaging and usually have to find another space to put them back into.
We try to reassure patients, but many are fearful of what may be wrong or for other family members they would normally look after, and the long waits just make this unbearable. It’s incredibly stressful and mental health provision is a struggle. Nurses wear body cameras because of the increasing violence and aggression. As we pass, people call out for help, and we lend a hand where we can, but everyone is so busy.
Targets
Governments like to bring in new targets to make it look like they are doing something, but the maximum four-hour wait, introduced in 2004 with no extra resources, is simply used as a rod to beat us with. Many of our patients are on emergency trolleys for ten hours or more.
When I did my training, anyone with a broken hip, common in the over 65s, would be seen, X-rayed and diagnosed within the hour, and transferred to an orthopaedic ward to have surgery the following day.
Now it might be several hours before we are asked to X-ray, and hours more hanging around in A&E. Final transfer is made to any ward that has space, regardless of specialism, because we are always in ‘black alert’ – which means no beds for new admissions. Surgery is delayed for an average of five days. Recovery is far less certain in these circumstances.
In the first quarter of 2012, only 15 patients in England waited more than 12 hours for a bed. In just two months last year, 158,000 were waiting at least this long to be transferred to a ward.
Many are forced to pitch up at A&E because they can’t get to their GP, or because they have been on waiting lists for so long that their chronic conditions have become acute, unbearable or even life threatening. Is it any wonder that staff morale is at rock bottom? We know what it’s like to give our best and still fall short of the care we want to give our patients.
The strikes this year have been as much the conditions we work under as on the issue of pay. Back in 1948, the British Medical Association was among the loudest critics of the NHS, now its members are on picket lines with nurses, ambulance crews, physios as well as radiographers.
Breaking point
People are at breaking point with vacancy rates for radiographers at 12.7%, similar to other staff. Everyone is overworked. Nine out of ten patients need X-rays, scans and therapeutic services. But the Tories’ Autumn Statement offered nothing new for the NHS.
They claim an expansion of staff training but it is too little too late, and without proper funding or grants. Universities are already struggling to fill places on current courses as – surprise, surprise – people are not attracted to taking on massive debt only to be poorly paid and overworked.
£2.3 billion has been promised for New Community Diagnostic Centres but with no funding for staffing them! This brings memories of the Nightingale centres under Covid which were fully equipped but with no nurses!
Labour under Starmer
And there’s also rising anger at the Labour frontbench. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting demands more involvement from the private sector because we have a “broken system” in the NHS, and he thinks “we can’t continue to pour money into the NHS,” despite less spent on diagnostics than other European countries.
Clearly, he’s been talking to profit-driven big companies not health workers, because private healthcare is generally chaotic and inefficient. His claim that we don’t embrace “cutting-edge treatments and technology” is nonsense and insulting. What holds us back is gross underfunding.
The Tories have offered the consultants some concessions but nothing for junior doctors or radiographers still in dispute.
We will now be going into the next pay round in Spring 2024. It was strike action which forced concessions last time. No one has any confidence in the pay review body.
This time we need to be ready and organised for a united fight for real pay restoration. We will need to make sure members are prepared for further strikes, with a lead from the top to organise meetings with members and reps to get the vote out.
We need coordinated action by all health unions, setting our own emergency staff cover for strike days, not those imposed by the government’s minimum service levels.
We are the NHS, we know what’s needed: decent pay, safe staffing levels and a massive increase in funding to provide the services people need and to fully fund our training.
