Save the NHS!

[Jolteh]

Simple question does this new contract improve things for patients?

That's the crux of it.

If the government were genuinely interested in a 7 day NHS, then they would have said "We want more medical coverage over the weekends, so we're going to train XX% additional doctors."

If Overclockers decided they wanted to open the shop on Sundays, you'd think they'd hire more staff rather than tell their current staff that they're rewriting their contracts to cover it.

 

[Minstadave]

Notice the complaint and solution is more money for doctors.

That complaint is not about money, it's about having appropriate safeguards on working hours You have to ask if the existing system is effective why is there a reason to change it?

At no point through the contract negotiations has anyone talked about increasing pay for doctors.

 

[Minstadave]

That's the crux of it.

If the government were genuinely interested in a 7 day NHS, then they would have said "We want more medical coverage over the weekends, so we're going to train XX% additional doctors."

They wouldn't even have had to paid for it, the BMA offered them a cost neutral solution last week - but they turned it down.

 

[Nitefly]

That complaint is not about money, it's about having appropriate safeguards on working hours You have to ask if the existing system is effective why is there a reason to change it?

At no point through the contract negotiations has anyone talked about increasing pay for doctors.

I think he means the solution is the removal of the reduced 'perks' in the new contract. As in, the fight is to reinstate current 'perks'.

Also, I though you just replied to my post saying that increased hours are not the key issue? No?

In any case I don't think I can take this any further. Hopefully junior doctors won't get it too bad!

 

[Jolteh]

It amazes me how well the Conservatives have mastered this fall guy style of government though. Throughout this entire thing there has been virtually no mud thrown at Cameron. Hunt is such a fantastic pantomime villain that he's managed to completely distract the public and the entire medical profession into focusing entirely on him.

Inevitably, the government will do the other cabinet reshuffle trick and he gets his peerage and toddles off and we're all left wondering where we direct our anger.

 

[Minstadave]

I think he means the solution is the removal of the reduced 'perks' in the new contract. As in, the fight is to reinstate current 'perks'.

Also, I though you just replied to my post saying that increased hours are not the key issue? No?

In any case I don't think I can take this any further. Hopefully junior doctors won't get it too bad!

I was just talking about that one specific area that Dolph posted - the safeguarding of hours, not a key issue, but the one Dolph posted info about and linked to pay.

 

[Minstadave]

It amazes me how well the Conservatives have mastered this fall guy style of government though. Throughout this entire thing there has been virtually no mud thrown at Cameron. Hunt is such a fantastic pantomime villain that he's managed to completely distract the public and the entire medical profession into focusing entirely on him.

Inevitably, the government will do the other cabinet reshuffle trick and he gets his peerage and toddles off and we're all left wondering where we direct our anger.

Amazing isn't it. Let your lapdog do the dirty work, when it blows up, shuffle them on and walk away clean. Zero consequences politics.

 

[marshalex]

Amazing isn't it. Let your lapdog do the dirty work, when it blows up, shuffle them on and walk away clean. Zero consequences politics.

Well we should all know that our Dave is good at dodging bullets. Just look what happened with Gove and the teachers and before that Fox and the Forces. The only reason May hasn't **** on the police/fire services as much yet is because she's after the top job when Dave steps down and doesn't want to be smeared

 

[joeyjojo]

Inevitably, the government will do the other cabinet reshuffle trick and he gets his peerage and toddles off and we're all left wondering where we direct our anger.

This is true. Especially as the latest Health and Social Care Act took responsibility for health away from the Secretary of State for Health. "Don't like that the NHS isn't providing care according to its principles? Who you going to complain to?"

 

[V F]

It amazes me how well the Conservatives have mastered this fall guy style of government though. Throughout this entire thing there has been virtually no mud thrown at Cameron. Hunt is such a fantastic pantomime villain that he's managed to completely distract the public and the entire medical profession into focusing entirely on him.

Inevitably, the government will do the other cabinet reshuffle trick and he gets his peerage and toddles off and we're all left wondering where we direct our anger.

It'll be frightening if the public vote the Tories in again for 2020.

 

[Minstadave]

Corbyn isn't electable so it's a real worry.

 

[1mm3]

Isn't there other mainstream options/ employers for junior doctors to work other than the NHS?

If I was a doctor I would be aiming to shift as soon as possible out of the NHS.

Why continue to work for an employer who doesn't value your services/ reward you appropriately?

Why continue to prop up a system that you know is unsafe for patients also?

 

[Minstadave]

Isn't there other mainstream options/ employers for junior doctors to work other than the NHS?

If I was a doctor I would be aiming to shift as soon as possible out of the NHS.

You could work as a locum for an agency but the Government have made a move to cut that off (capping rates that hospitals can pay to laughable levels).

Otherwise you're a bit stuck if you actually want to work as a doctor, there are some crappy roles like working for DWP assessing those on long term sick but otherwise it's heading abroad.

Why continue to work for an employer who doesn't value your services/ reward you appropriately?

Why continue to prop up a system that you know is unsafe for patients also?

Those are the two questions that have led us to striking.

 

[Destination]

Isn't there other mainstream options/ employers for junior doctors to work other than the NHS?

If I was a doctor I would be aiming to shift as soon as possible out of the NHS.

Why continue to work for an employer who doesn't value your services/ reward you appropriately?

Why continue to prop up a system that you know is unsafe for patients also?

One possibility actually, is they ship to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales for their training programs, and then once consultant level is achieved pop back to England to fill the vacancies.
The same old rules exist in the other countries, and the qualifications are one and the same.
It would remove a glut of foreign doctors from the regions, and then when they return to England as some, if not many no doubt would, the could be seen as superior candidates due to their 'home grownness' and linguistic abilities.
Additionally people may consider it as an option, as they wouldn't be that far from their origins, and there would be an endpoint to it.

Benefits us in Norn Iron I would have thought also.

To the best of my knowledge, last year Northern had 66 doctors complete their GP training. I believe this was complete their reg year, so fully qualified GPs. Due to our wonderful *&*&hole of a system, and tightness on quality of work life and other factors, 61 of those doctors are no longer within Northern Ireland. Mainland UK, Canada and Australia are where most of them are now.
So when HUNT (remember the rhyme) thinks people will not travel or leave for their training, they're already leaving after their training, so it can and will happen. Ouch.

 

[Jolteh]

Due to our wonderful *&*&hole of a system, and tightness on quality of work life and other factors, 61 of those doctors are no longer within Northern Ireland. Mainland UK, Canada and Australia are where most of them are now.
So when HUNT (remember the rhyme) thinks people will not travel or leave for their training, they're already leaving after their training, so it can and will happen. Ouch.

The current government doesn't really care if there is an exodus of doctors in a few years as they'll all be long gone by then. The nature of our parliamentary system means that governments only really think in 5 year blocks. That's why governments using the NHS as a key political issue is so toxic.

 

[Danthus]

So I have now reviewed the blog and the original document and stand by the above. The study both notes and controls for the variations the blog highlights. The blog is essentially a gish gallop article relying on people either not checking or not understanding what he is suggesting, or relying on people using the blog as an appeal to authority based on the author's position in lieu of analysis.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...doctor-who-conducted-study-says-a6872281.html

A doctor who was part of a study on links between staffing and deaths in the NHS has accused the Government of “continually misrepresenting” the findings to support its push to change junior contracts.

Dr Peter Holt, a vascular surgeon at St George's University of London, said he had written to Jeremy Hunt, the Health Select Committee and shadow Health Secretary Heidi Alexander raising his objection.

In a post on the Junior Doctors contract forum Facebook group, he wrote that the research published in December “could never have shown that higher staffing on weekends reduced mortality”.

Dolph?

 

[Danthus]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/...deaths-not-proven-say-hunts-own-officials#_=_

Jeremy Hunt’s key argument in his demands for a seven-day service in NHS hospitals has been called into question by his own department, in a leaked report which says it is not able to prove that fuller staffing would lower the numbers of weekend-admitted patients dying.

The report also admits it will be “challenging” to meet the government’s promise to recruit 5,000 more GPs by 2020, a Conservative pledge during the election campaign, and that 11,000 new staff will be needed to run a seven-day service in hospitals.

The increased numbers of deaths among patients admitted at weekends has been the cornerstone for Hunt’s argument in favour of a seven-day health service, with the health secretary citing 15 international studies since 2010, including one co-authored by the NHS’s top doctor Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, which indicate an increase of deaths in hospitals at the weekend.

However, an internal Department of Health draft report, leaked to the Guardian, says the department “cannot evidence the mechanism by which increased consultant presence and diagnostic tests at weekends will translate into lower mortality and reduced length of stay”.

Critics have long argued Hunt’s figures are skewed and that patients who attend hospital at weekends are far likely to be sicker or unable to access alternative palliative care services.

How long will he carry on with his ridiculous plan?

 

[Minstadave]

It'll crumble with the first decent strike. Hopefully the BMA will grow some balls now.

 

[Danthus]

Fingers crossed!

 

[Danthus]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/...fuse-to-impose-new-contracts?CMP=share_btn_tw

So impose the contracts or we may look at cutting funding.