Poll: Doctors strike tomorrow, do you support it?

Junior Doctor's Strike, do you support it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 438 59.4%

  • No

    Votes: 299 40.6%
  • Total voters
    737
Minstadave said:
We had a great turn out in Leicester, loads of public support, people stopping to talk to us and lots of honking.

Also I think the press are finally getting on board largely.
Click to expand...

You work in Leicester?
Was there a few years back. Just looked at your profile - haha small world we've worked together!
 
Last edited:
I voted no. I don't support the action solely because the Tories don't care either way. They have their private healthcare and don't give a damn how many people die or conditions worsen because of this.

Call their bluff and refuse to sign any new contract en masse. Work set hours for awhile, refuse additional unpaid hours etc has to be another way.

I hope Hunt and co. back down but I just don't see it.

EDIT: I fully understand WHY it's happening, just wish there was another way.
 
Last edited:
Yes, one hundred percent support.

If you think that being a doctor is similar, in terms of skills and education, to being a nurse or fireman then think again. Look at what this government is trying to do. Support and protect YOUR NHS.
 
uber soldat said:
If you go into a hospital on a weekend with something serious mortality rates are much higher, coincidence? Or logical when you have far less doctors working?
Click to expand...

http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/...-looking-at-increased-weekend-mortality-rates


Professor Martin McKee expresses concern about the validity of the Government’s claims that seven-day working could save 6,000 lives annually. He highlights that the previous analysis by Freemantle et al, published in 2012, found that those patients already in hospital “had a significantly reduced risk of dying” on both days of the weekend.

And from the latest bloody Freenmantle paper that started this - from the actual Authors:

“It is not possible to ascertain the extent to which these excess deaths may be preventable; to assume that they are avoidable would be rash and misleading.” Nevertheless they also stress that the ‘weekend effect’ is “not otherwise ignorable.”

So firstly the data is dodgy, and secondly the authors don't draw any conclusions from it. Yet the Government is restructuring the entire Junior Doctor working pattern based on it and caused massive disruption, cost and demoralisation to the NHS in decades.
 
Last edited:
uber soldat said:
If you go into a hospital on a weekend with something serious mortality rates are much higher, coincidence? Or logical when you have far less doctors working?
Click to expand...

Most people don't go into hospital at weekends unless they are seriously ill eg brought there by ambulance - they are likely to be much more unwell. It's the same reason why kids die at Great Ormond Street - they take all the most complex and difficult cases that other hospitals and doctors won't touch, so their statistics get skewed because their patient types are skewed. The same thing happens at Royal National Orthopaedic with regards to their specialist work.

There are particular surgeons who have "bad" statistics, but when you look at the details, you find it's because they do the most difficult and complex cases that other surgeons won't touch.

The same thing happens at weekends, but the government is using an emotive headline that doesn't reflect the facts to impose the new contract so they can start privatising the NHS. Saying "more people die at weekends" is just simplistic hyperbole so the government can push through their ideological aims without any supporting evidence.
 
Last edited:
Lots of people end up in hospital at the weekend becasue they didn't couldn't seek medical help in the week and thus their illness is more serious.

I have first hand experience of that, not wanting to bother the NHS, I tried to plod on but when the time came that I needed the hospital it was the weekend and I was far more ill than what I would have been if I would have sought treatment earlier.
 
413x said:
Would you guys be happy with no change to pay/hours and just more staff?
I.e.. Doing it properly?
Click to expand...

I think I can speak for absolutely every JD when I say yes! We have never asked for more pay or less hours.

We would love to improve our weekend service, it's by no means perfect, but you can't do it with an already failing system, massive rota gaps, no locums and a crushed workforce.

The problem is doing it properly means spending the money, not just on Doctors, but on everyone across the board nurses, radiographers, HCAs, pharmacists, social care. It means training more staff, keeping staff, valuing staff and listening to them. None of this is on the Governments plan.
 
Last edited:
Werewolf said:
*My father had to have an MRI a couple of years back
Click to expand...


Funny you should mention this, I have an MRI booked tomorrow, I rang today and was told that I can expect to be seen more quickly than normal due to the strike and people not turning up to their appointments lol :p
 
kindai said:
Funny you should mention this, I have an MRI booked tomorrow, I rang today and was told that I can expect to be seen more quickly than normal due to the strike and people not turning up to their appointments lol :p
Click to expand...

The whole system is probably running better during the strike because trusts have poured their entire consultant bodies out onto the shop floor and cancelled many routine procedures/appointments.
 
Nope.

The demands on the NHS are changing, the NHS needs to change too. Civil servants in government monopolies are always resistant to change and go on strike, predict catastrophic consequences and generally try to maintain the status quo.

I think the government has handled this badly, but so has the BMA, no one is smelling of roses after this. Ultimately change must happen, but not everyone is going to like it (junior doctors in this case). People will still want to become doctors as it will still be a highly regarded and well paid profession, although maybe slightly less well regarded after how some doctors have conducted themselves during this process.
 
OldCoals said:
The doctors aren't resistant to change, they are resistant to bad changes.
Click to expand...

And I suspect change for the sake of change.

You just have to look at the mess the government (over the past 20 years) has made of the justice system with things like attempts to bring in "speedier justice" by getting magistrates courts to be open later, forgetting that to do that you don't just need the magistrates and/or a judge, but the whole backup for them (security, lawyers, clerks, admin), and from memory wasting vast sums on trials of it whilst closing down local magistrates courts to save money (which was debatable as it meant that there was a lot of additional travelling for many of the people involved, so time + travel costs).
 
danielanthony said:
Nope.

The demands on the NHS are changing, the NHS needs to change too. Civil servants in government monopolies are always resistant to change and go on strike, predict catastrophic consequences and generally try to maintain the status quo.

I think the government has handled this badly, but so has the BMA, no one is smelling of roses after this. Ultimately change must happen, but not everyone is going to like it (junior doctors in this case). People will still want to become doctors as it will still be a highly regarded and well paid profession, although maybe slightly less well regarded after how some doctors have conducted themselves during this process.
Click to expand...

The NHS changes with every government, every election, every hair brained idea someone has. We're used to change, I move cities every 6 or 12 months, work with different people, seen different government iniatives, restructuring, training systems etc.

There's so much change no one can actually sit down and figure out what works.

I think the opposite of the BMA, they've been under aggressive, tried too hard to accommodate Hunts ridiculous plan and been walked all over.

We were understaffed before the Locum cap came in, now we're massively understaffed, we've not even seen the effects of the new contact yet.
 
Last edited:
It is true that if Hunt (remember the rhyme) had come forth and stated he wanted a seven day NHS and as such would enable training in British universities to increase places, take in more, so that in five years we would have more graduates ready to start the junior doctor training programmes to fulfil a truely well staffed seven day serbice, which with longevity would eventually provide more doctors of every level available for all days, then I think all sides would have welcomed it.

Doing seven with what isn't managing to provide five is utterly idiotic, and this remains the case.
 
anticonscience said:
As a total new comer to this why does Hunt want a truly 7 day NHS?

Is what we have now simply not good enough?
Click to expand...

Because from the point of view of somebody who's spent an extended period in hospital, it's very apparent when your stuck on your ward over a Saturday and Sunday that the care / facilities available are somewhat different from that you get in a Monday - Friday.

Believe me, I've experienced it and it wasn't nice.


I agree with the governments idea not with how they are implementing it nor with the Junior Doctors resorting to strike action.
 
I was in over a weekend, it was fantastic.

The NHS paid for me to go private after I had my operation becasue they were short of beds.

There is a theme forming here. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom