You speak for all the public I take it?
Doctors are repeating the mistakes of the miners strikes - Telegraph
- Thread starter rcoobc
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You speak for all the public I take it?
Fantastic effort from the junior doctors today. Backing them to the hilt.
Yeah they should just suck up and kill people accidentally though unsafe working hours instead.
Jesus wept.
Depends, maybe they should be able to claim for a second home like MPs do?
Seems fair to me.
Seeing as we are all writing messages of support, i would like to offer my best to the doctors on duty. Now before anyone's hackles start twitching, i am not taking an indirect shot at the their colleagues on strike. Simply, it is they putting in the most important effort of all today.
I have been attending such clinics at St Thomas' since 2001, and i can probably count on one hand the number of occasions in which the wait has been less than an hour (often it falls between 90mins and 3hrs). The hospital is one of the best in the country, the receptionist diligent, so where lies the problem? It must be terribly inefficient for doctors and patients alike, as well as creating a level of uncertainty with other duties.
NHS Trust were in trouble before prior to 2010 you realise. Hunt is an idiot and should have been sacked many months ago, but it would be foolish to suggest that the financial pressure arrived with his appointment. And what you and some others here need to accept, is that a Labour government would have an NHS budget £6-8bn smaller.
As i see it we have three necessary challenges to overcome: reducing the costs of procurement, properly embracing preventative policies, and finding even more money for the health pot in general.
I have been attending such clinics at St Thomas' since 2001, and i can probably count on one hand the number of occasions in which the wait has been less than an hour (often it falls between 90mins and 3hrs). The hospital is one of the best in the country, the receptionist diligent, so where lies the problem? It must be terribly inefficient for doctors and patients alike, as well as creating a level of uncertainty with other duties.
NHS Trust were in trouble before prior to 2010 you realise. Hunt is an idiot and should have been sacked many months ago, but it would be foolish to suggest that the financial pressure arrived with his appointment. And what you and some others here need to accept, is that a Labour government would have an NHS budget £6-8bn smaller.
As i see it we have three necessary challenges to overcome: reducing the costs of procurement, properly embracing preventative policies, and finding even more money for the health pot in general.
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Yes but not thanks to the junior doctors. The strike is part of a negotiation. That's fine, but when it drags the health and lives of innocent byatanders into it its gone too far.
... You literally just agreed that it hadn't?
Well considering that junior doctors' work is, as you imply, often a matter of life and death, perhaps they should be able to work reasonable hours and be well-rewarded for performing such a vital job?; that would benefit all parties.
Polls are showing support is eroding.
Well I just did a poll in this office and it shows 100% support so take that as you will.
(Guardian)
Good one. When the feck has any doctor in this whole debacle demanded more money or working for less hours? The current contracts are tough, but do-able. I wouldn't mind the pay-cut if it wasn't for the increasing hours. Honestly, comments like yours anger the shit out of me because it's such an ignorant view on it.
People who are angry at the doctors because they are striking - fair enough, but to say that we're demanding more money is fecking stupid and completely false.
We spend 5 years at medical school - our debts are sickening. What was the point in going through all that if we're just going to work stupid hours and not being paid the suitable amount for that work?
For once, we have to be selfish about it. I can't wait to spend my "day off" recovering from the night shift from the night before. What a time to be alive!
Agreed. Although the Doctors shouldn't have let the government goad them into industrial action only after they had stockpiled coal.
Sounds like you've bought into Hunt's spun BS.
The proposed contract isn't fair nor is it safe, that's why they're protesting out there en masse. It isn't a case of them wanting more for less. They're not MPs.
If there's any deaths it's on Jeremy Hunt.
Can't strike today as I'm on emergency cover on the children's acute unit. Great, when everyone gets 2 days off, I'm working, pfffft!
The existing contract isn't all that safe either, from what i can gather. How long has it been in place for, does anybody know?
It's been *shit since 2009 EWTD *Shittage may vary
You seem oblivious to the fact that it's the government that are putting patient lives at risk with the reduced safeguards and longer hours. They aren't complaining about the hours because they're after more recreation time (although knowing how many hours they put in (it isn't a 9-5, clock off job), I wouldn't begrudge them that). It's because they're already stretched with the existing conditions. It's the government putting lives at risk with the unsafe hours, implicating patient safety and demanding additional services without providing funding to cover them.
They're already scrapping the nursing bursaries and we're seeing falling numbers of students.
On what grounds do you oppose the policy?
http://www.nursingtimes.net/roles/n...urse-bursaries-with-loans/5090805.fullarticle
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Hunt on the news this morning was the epitome of one hateable dude. Good luck to the doctors and hope you get a fair contract.
It seems counter productive. There's a nursing shortage as it is and it's predicted to get far worse. By removing the bursary and introducing loans you're disincentivizing people from taking up the profession, as they fear they will be laden with debt, with a relatively poor wage (I think it's starting at £21k?)
It's this government's approach to public services that will reduce numbers not student loans. Nursing is one of those where there's always more applications than places. Besides they wouldn't even repay any of the loan at the wage you've listed.
If a loan based system allowed for more places then it'll produce it's own benefit in increasing numbers and saving money with a reduced burden on agency staff
Agreed. Unless @Phil Jones Face has reason to belief that the structure of repayments is harsher than usual, the positives could outweigh the negatives in this instance. It also bears some difference from the junior doctors contract, is that organisations external to government have been asking for reform.
Junior doctors should leave the island in masse. It did work in Malta during the 80s. The system went in shock, the government ended up bringing 'doctors' from third world countries and the deaths increased to an exponential level. It took the Malta labour party 25 years to return to government after that.
I've no issue with that. The new contract isn't fair I agree and I would be pissed off if i were them. But don't pull emergency care. If there are deaths resulting from it, they are on the doctors who walked out.
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No, they are on Hunt, he's the one living out his Thatcher fantasy. He could have negotiated at any time
Public increasingly blame government in junior doctors dispute
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/27/public-blame-government-doctor-dispute/
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/27/public-blame-government-doctor-dispute/
Somewhere at Number 10 there's a guy frantically rummaging through a pile of notes and saying "I don't get it, usually when we throw shit at people the public buy our lies. What's changed?"
The tories can't wait for the first death that they can attribute to the strike. It'll be all over the media and they'll do their damnedest to turn the public against the junior doctors.
My flatmate is a junior doctor and the guy goes to work all day, 12-16 hours straight, comes back, goes to bed, then gets up and does it all again. When he does get some time off, he spends most of it studying. It's inhumane, the burden on these people.
My flatmate is a junior doctor and the guy goes to work all day, 12-16 hours straight, comes back, goes to bed, then gets up and does it all again. When he does get some time off, he spends most of it studying. It's inhumane, the burden on these people.
I went to a miners' picnic weekend when I was about 17 and going through that sixth form snob phase of thinking I'm going to get a degree and walk into some awesome job and be rich for the rest of my life.
We sat and listened to some old, union bloke - I can't remember his name for the life of me - and he was stressing that the incoming Tory (Coalition) government would bring about an assault on the working class like never seen before. He said there would be major strikes throughout the public sector and that the vulnerable (disabled) would be squeezed. He really, genuinely believed what he had to say was true.
Of course, I passed it off as some sentimental, old-fashioned rubbish from a man that was living in the past. It's only now, now that bit older, that I fully appreciate just how right he was.
The junior doctors are completely right in what they are doing, arguing about working conditions they know a hell of a lot more about than Jeremy Hunt. If they are made to break then we will rue not backing them to the very end. Sadly, I fear that public support will cave and so will the current opposition to the incoming contract.
We sat and listened to some old, union bloke - I can't remember his name for the life of me - and he was stressing that the incoming Tory (Coalition) government would bring about an assault on the working class like never seen before. He said there would be major strikes throughout the public sector and that the vulnerable (disabled) would be squeezed. He really, genuinely believed what he had to say was true.
Of course, I passed it off as some sentimental, old-fashioned rubbish from a man that was living in the past. It's only now, now that bit older, that I fully appreciate just how right he was.
The junior doctors are completely right in what they are doing, arguing about working conditions they know a hell of a lot more about than Jeremy Hunt. If they are made to break then we will rue not backing them to the very end. Sadly, I fear that public support will cave and so will the current opposition to the incoming contract.
Genuinely thank you so much guys, it does mean a lot.
Was obviously on the picket both days and then also went into town in the afternoons in 'meet the doctor' events we were running to try to engage with the public and explain the reasons we were striking.
Reaction was still overwhelmingly positive I have to say though certainly a couple more negative reactions than previously.
As for what Hunt is doing, no idea. How can someone be a health secretary when he can't even talk to the doctors? Its not been particularly well reported on but there's been an ongoing protest outside Whitehall, where doctors have set up a table with 3 chairs, one of them with Hunt's name on it, a table with let's talk Jeremy on it and 2 doctors all the time, who are obviously rotating round around their normal lives. He's been taking the back exit every day and was chauffeured around 50 yards a few days ago to avoid them.
The NHS already outsources quite a lot of things though, including actual healthcare provision, to private companies.
Currently at our trust, we have outsourced patient transport to a company that has been so crap that patients have actually ended up staying an extra night because they missed their window to go, that takes a good half hour to get through to and who's drivers can't get in touch themselves with their central office in any way other than the same way we do.
Its a comedy of errors. I'm not sure its been beneficial in any real way though.
Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their opinions and none of us took this decision lightly. Despite the attempts of the government and some elements of the media to paint us as a militant, revolutionary group, junior doctors are generally quite a placid group, who've taken most of the perks of the job being taken away from us and worsening training etc without much of a whimper.
We are not a group that strikes often, that makes a fuss often.
Which probably tells you the strength of feeling regarding this current issue and how much we've been pushed into a corner. None of us want to do this and none of us took the decision lightly.
We don't want more money though I have to say and we don't want to work less hours. I'm not really sure where that has come from.
As was shown over the two days, the strikes were actually safer. As has been shown empirically from other previous strikes from doctors in other countries. In fact, having had a chat with one of my consultants, there's a patient or two in the hospital on Wednesday who I think would actually have been dead by now on a normal day, had they not been seen by a consultant quickly at every step of their care.
And public support has actually gone up. Consider how conservative the British public can be, how most people in this country feel about striking, how drastic a step removing emergency care from juiors is and then consider how many people still support the action (and cross party support too I have to say)
My consultant colleagues were incredible on strike days, quite something to behold actually. I'm incredibly grateful for them, their support and teaching and their backing of us on this issue.
It certainly does. Clinics over-run. Pretty much constantly. There's quite a few reasons for that. I think the primary one is the scheduling of the appointments though. My clinics always over-run because they give us 10-20 minutes per patient for what are often very complex patients. In those ten minutes, we are supposed to see the patient, pleasantries (we are british after all!), check how the patient is doing, find out the issue, go through referral letters and past documents (clinic letters, discharge summaries etc), go through blood results and scan results, discuss these with the patient, make future plans regarding investigations/procedures/management, ensure the patient understands everything, perhaps book a follow up appointment and then dictate the clinic letter, it tends to take a little more than 10-20 minutes. Not taking into account any time you may spend actually talking to the patient as human beings or having to break bad news to a patient and then obviously consoling them and again, discussing options etc.
Do you see where the problems might start to lie?
And it certainly creates a huge amount of uncertainty with other duties as you inevitably end up turning late to everything else or getting home at about 8 every day you have an afternoon clinic.
Yes I do realise that thank you. It is however an undisputed fact (as Ive already linked to) that they were in nowhere near as much trouble as they are in now. I also didn't say that the financial pressures started with his appointment, that would be a silly argument. His appointment has certainly made it worse, as well as ushering in the biggest crisis of morale in most of our working lives within the NHS and a genuine and quantifiable drain of both newly and long time qualified doctors, to Scotland (now one of the most competitive deaneries within the UK I am told) and Wales, as well as to slightly further options.
And I wish you would stop trying to politicise this, as if I am some rabid, card hold lefty Labour card holder. I am not. This is not a political issue, in the sense that doctors are not a homogeneous group. Lots of us have said that Labour have also been shit with the NHS. That doesn't excuse what is happening now, it doesn't mean that the Conservatives are even worse and it doesn't mean that the Conservatives are putting the NHS through its most drastic real spending pay squeeze in perhaps its history.
Not to mention, if you do want to make it a political issue, how counter productive it is cutting social services to the extent that the conservatives have, as it means that patients who are medically fit and awaiting social care or resettlement can take up a hospital bed unnecessarily for literally months as they try to sort that out.
Mainly the grounds that it would disincentive nurses training from other professions, as many do (and often very good ones) and stop a well worn route of nursing training which is HCA to nurse. Many of the older nurses don't think they would have gone into nursing if they didn't have access to the bursaries while applying from their other jobs.
That world experience can be a huge asset for the nurses and the ward as a whole.
I should clarify, i do support the junior doctors in fighting for a better deal. I just feel witholding the one thing you are supposed to provide is too far. This is not refusing to go and drive a train for the day, or dig some coal up, this is people's lives being used as a bargaining chip for something that is far less important than those lives.
See post #169
People have access to media platforms now that aren't just mouthpieces for the government. That's the main thing that's changed and we're all the better for it.
Do we? The traditional media is owned by fewer and fewer people/companies. (2).
We have the internet, but that can end with thousands of voices yelling into the wind.
Exactly.