Come on dude at least let us chat about it (doctors on strike)

[cooldan]

...... and if it gets nasty then sure, close away. This is a pretty important topic to a lot of people, and it is away from the pinball pages and nobody has to be offended by it.

Ron said
Now that the government has forced a change on contract on them, what are their options? Accept it and move on or quit and take it to tribunal.....or can they do something else?

No tribunals as its all legal.

Trouble is that if they don't *all* accept it then the ones refusing to sign / to work will need their shifts to be covered by the others, which will increase the pressure and tip a few more over the edge ..... and GOTO10

If they 'accept it and move on' then many will need to work longer hours for the same money which turns up the heat.

If they choose to quit - which some will, no doubt - then again this affects all the others. If 1% quit, as John Snow said in his interview with JH, that's 540 less doctors whose shoes need filling.

But no, there's no other options. Some doctors will leave the NHS. Others will come in from the EU poorer countries to fill their places, but not all of them will speak good English.

Currently only 53% of newly qualified doctors stay in the NHS. I predict that number will drop, as although they can only enter medical school by being on top of the academic heap at school, after studying 6-7 years they leave with on average £70K student debt to go straight into a £23K salary job with antisocial hours and now all this political malarkey on top.

It's very sad. The thing that annoys me most is the way that Chunt says on TV about wanting a '7 day NHS' (hello? There already is emergency care available 7 days) with 'the same services available every day' ....... but that there won't be any additional staffing or resources to fund that.

Oh, and also when he says that the BMA has misled its members about what is being offered. FFS does he think doctors aren't capable of reading the details and deciding for themselves? Not all junior doctors are in the BMA anyway, it's an optional union.

/sigh

/rant over for now

 

[robdown]

A lot of my wife's colleagues are looking at shifting to Wales and Scotland (as is my wife but I think thats more a reflection of living with me than any change in her contract!)

 

[cooldan]

Hmmmm yes the new contract isn't valid there for some reason. Does the govt not have control of the NHS in Wales or Scotland then?

 

[robdown]

Nope it's devolved. So Wales and Scotland aren't imposing these changes (and Scotland is dropping the box-ticking points system too). There's a big recruitment drive on from the Scots

(And the Australians had a stand to recruit people at the first doctors March)

 

[johnwhitfield]

100% with the doctors on this one. I've never understood why anyone would want to be treated by a doctor who already worked 50+ hours.

I honestly believe that a lot of the problem stems from MPs being isolated from the services that other people use. If you and your family have private medical care and private education then these changes won't affect you.

To add insult to injury I notice that MPs are now due to have a 2% pay rise again. Obviously the 1% pay cap doesn't apply to all elements of the public sector. Nurses will be the next one that are forced to extend their hours then all the admin and clinical staff. Of course we want a 7 day health care system but the solution is to encourage more staff to join rather than introducing punitive measures that will cause more existing staff to leave.

Very similar things are happening in education but the government are denying there are problems there. This week when 14 out of 17 secondary schools are announcing it's virtually impossible to fill vacancies the governments response isn't to examine and address the huge waste of people training and then leaving the profession within 3-5 years but to blame the unions for letting people know that it's currently a **** job.

Paul, I'm sure lots of forum members will disagree with my views but I'm sure we can all keep any discussion civil. Discussion on any topic is always good. Calling someone names if they disagree isn't good. Maybe move this to the OT section though and see how things progress. I'm genuinely interested to see why people might be with the government on this one. Is it that they think doctors are overpaid or lazy? Or do they think that it will bring about a better health service for everyone?

Finally, if you ever wonder what the right decision is about any issue I always find it helps to ask yourself "What would Katie Hopkins think". That way you know the opposite view is almost certainly going to be the right one

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

Same **** f'd up the media sector in a previous role, so I'm all for his balls on a block. Gutless puppet.

 

[Bandit Boy]

Disgusting how this government treats all workers, especially teachers and medical professionals.
But as stated before, they seem to be exempt from belt tightening with regards to their cheeky pay rises and expenses.

From local area news......

South Yorkshire MPs claimed more than £2.4 million in business costs and expenses last year, new figures have shown.

The data published yesterday showed the amount claimed by the region’s 14 MPs totalled £2,426,282 during 2014-15.



Read more: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/south...in-expenses-last-year-1-7455448#ixzz3zwE7BoFn

That is some amount of coin there...

 

[DRD]

Firstly, I am a huge fan of @cooldan .

The NHS is the biggest economic entity in the UK. The third largest employer in the world (after Chinese steel and Indian railways I think). It has been mismanaged for years and any politician is on a hiding to nothing trying to change any aspect of it

It is heavily unionised and this causes enormous resistance to change. It needs to change. I have seen with my own eyes the care given to in patients at weekends. It can be truly lamentable

It is underfunded.

Being a doctor is a lifelong ticket to a job. The steelworkers of Sheffield thought they had this. As did the Potters in stoke. As did the Miners in Nottinghamshire. As did the Shipbuilders in the Clyde. There are very few jobs where you can literally work anywhere in the world and have a job for life. There is no shortage of kids that want to be doctors

I had impositions made on my employment contract. Reducing my pension. Removing my mortgage subsidy. I was sent to work far away from home. Living in other cities on rental flats, serviced apartments. Weekend work, sometimes beyond midnight. This happens to workers across the UK. They do not all go on strike. I did not go on strike

When I hear stupid things from politicians like "doctors are not in this just for the money". Well no-one does their job just for the money. Not even professional footballers or African dictators. People do jobs for an overall "package" lifestyle, stress, pay, holidays, security, damage to their own health. But to suggest that a material number of doctors do not enter the profession because of high expected lifetime earnings is stupid.

A neighbour was a GP. He retired in his mid 50s and he drives a brand new jaguar xkr convertible. His wife a brand new audi sq5. Fantastic pension that taxpayers pay for. They reared a three kids. Have always had two top notch cars. They go to Michelin star restaurants. They go on multiple fabulous holidays every year - Maldives, Japan .....

To retain junior doctors they need to do what they do with junior airline pilots. The airline industry faces exactly the same problem whereby BA spends vast money training a highly skilled individual to do an important job. Then Lufthansa poach them leaving BA with the spent training costs. So even 20 years ago the airlines attached a debt to the job so that Lufthansa would have to pick up the tab if they hired a trained pilot

Junior doctors salaries are quite possibly too low. But society paying a neighbour so much money that he retired early shows that a lot of money that could have been spent caring for people ends up in upmarket car dealers' hands, restaurants, and exclusive holiday destinations. He didn't make the rules, he just optimised personal choices - which is what many do

So this is a very complex story

 

[Bandit Boy]

Excellent post DRD, really informative and well worded.....

 

[cooldan]

Excellent post DRD, really informative and well worded.....

I agree. Well written David. You are quite right that most doctors after a few very tough years end up well, or even very well paid. And also that there is plenty wrong with the NHS and that many people die unnecessarily due to medical errors or NHS incompetence.

True, there will never be any shortage of people who want to be doctors and would happily work much worse conditions for the privilege. And it is a privilege.

So as you say, a difficult subject. Jeremy Chunt needs a bulletproof vest to do it in the way he has done though.

 

[mission65]

how do you fix it ?
1.6 million employees +
116.4 billion cost

started with cheap labour in nurses and long working junior doctors.

now times have changed and woman work for income alone like men (and rightly so )and so need the higher wages and junior doctors are working better hours ( if not still very long ) for not very good money.
drugs cost a fortune because we have let the the big drug companies hold us to ransom
top doctors earn fortunes and work for both nhs and private

i dont think the goverment are wrong, just our aspirations and systems ?

we choose not to afford it, the country voted tory

Most people i know who can, do take private health including my civil servant union rep freind (which always makes me smile )

its time for a change, but how ????

wish i had the answer as it was the envy of the world but now a huge corporate beast and money pit, with a lot of good but also a lot of bad

Dan For Prime Minister thats the way,

 

[Wayne J]

I'll chip in my thoughts as well, seeing as I work in an NHS hospital, and have first hand experience.

The biggest issue I see is that the NHS is, as David said, a MASSIVE organisation. The problem being that with such a huge organisation it can not be run by a single HQ (government) as there is so much variation between each hospital. It needs breaking down into smaller regions and being managed on a more individual basis, rather than a set of edicts being passed down from above. What other company could possibly run like that?
No government is prepared to do this, despite the fact that it essential, due to the over sensastionalisation by the media and it basically meaning they would be unelectable and be quoted as the "government that privatised the NHS".

Much is made about the NHS being stretched and the blame being put on migrants. The biggest 2 factors currently stretching the NHS is the fact that we are simply living longer. It used to be that you could expect to live 10-15 years after you retired, if you were lucky. Now medicine has improved to such a point that people are regularly living to 100+. To do this though they need increased care and medication, all of which requires time and money.

The other single biggest factor is the expectation of what they should get from the NHS. They expect to be able to get an appointment immediately, sent for all kinds of tests - purely because they've self diagnosed on Google. I have been told by many consultants and GPs that nearly half of the patients they see already "know" what's wrong with them because they'd read something online, they also know what treatment's needed and where to get it. Simply ignoring the fact that the medical professional they're speaking to have trained for many years before being allowed to sit there and try and help them. There's also no "punishment" for not attending appointments. We've had operations cancelled by the patient less than a week before being due - because they want to wait until after they get back from Pakistan in 4 months time, or they want to wait until after Christmas.

As for the staff and unions. The unions are very strong and they know how to manipulate the media and garner sympathy for the "poor over worked nurses". Almost everyone I have spoken to joined the NHS to help care for people, very few mentioned money as the reason they started a nursing career. However, because the pension is so good, overtime/extra hours worked, holidays are so good, perceived as a job for life, I am seeing more and more people stating that as a reason why they are working within the NHS. With the union so strong, it is virtually impossible to be sacked. I have experienced members of my team, quite frankly, taking the p!$$ with regards to their work ethic, sickness, honesty and when going through the correct and proper routes with HR, etc. they get, at most a slap on the wrist and are moved to another department. Likewise promotions, promotions are based on length of service rather than ability. This leads to a large proportion of staff incapable and demotivated, but because of the excellent financial package unable to go and get a job in the "real world" so sit waiting to pick up their pensions while doing the minimum amount to stop themselves from being sacked.

Everyone who joins the NHS as a junior doctor or the like, knows what they are letting themselves in for, up to a point. It is not a 9-5 job, never has been and never will be. Yes there are long hours, yes you will likely get into debt, but the payoff further down the line is there. It's almost the equivalent of an apprenticeship. With regard to being treated by over-tired staff, that is not the government doing that, it is the individual hospital not being able to sort rotas, or arrange cover for "sick" colleagues. As such I have little sympathy for doctors at the moment, and if they persist with the strike action I feel that the public's sympathy will rapidly fade for them. Currently they have the best PR as it's easy to knock the government (whoever's in power) but nothing can be said about the poor overworked doctors.

I can only see 2 possible solutions. The first is to try and change peoples perception and expectations. This can only succeed if the NHS is made less of a political topic, with each party trying to score points off the other, and a united front is presented.
It wasn't so long ago that people wouldn't wear seatbelts, a massive advertising campaign showing people being injured and dying in crashes followed. Drink driving used to be accepted and not demonised the way it is now, again following a massive graphic advertising campaign. Advertising against smoking has become more and more graphic.
Why not do something similar? A patient books an appointment/operation meaning that someone else has to wait, they then don't turn up, wasting resources of the clinical staff, theatre time, etc. and then cut to someone who has died as a direct cause of that. Or someone turning up at A&E on a Saturday because they've sprained their ankle playing football, rather than wait and see their GP on the Monday, because of the time someone is spent dealing with them someone coming in with a heart attack doesn't get seen as quickly and dies as a direct cause of that selfishness. People need to see the consequences they are causing by their own selfish, unrealistic expectations.

The only other solution is to "privatise" the NHS. Instead of being dictated to by Westminster, split the country up into smaller regions and have more targeted guidelines and instructions. So long as the patient (or customer as how I am meant to refer to them) has not got to pay for treatment - it makes no difference to them.

It's perfectly clear that there is no simple, easy solution, but throwing more money at the NHS, and its' staff is definitely not the answer.

 

[Pooman2084]

Christ on a stick, I think this is the most well reasoned political debate I've ever seen on any forum, ever!

I can't believe no one has blamed immigrants or the EU yet!

 

[DRD]

It safer not to mention immigrants. The debate in the UK is too timid to realise that employing skilled workers to fill posts that would otherwise stand vacant can be a good thing. But providing free treatment to folk who have never paid a penny to the UK tax base can be a bad thing. The people we inhabit this island with too often see it as a 100% free for all on unlimited immigration or 1940s death camps for foreigners. With no optimal ground in between

 

[cooldan]

blimey that was excellent too, thanks @Wayne J for the input.

i expect you're right, and that public symathy for the doctors will soon wane - especially as i anticipate a flurry of press reports of bad-egg doctors being drip-fed by government to the newspapers that like reporting scandal to increase sales; the redtops, basically.

 

[DRD]

A few snaps of the high end porches, jags, mercedes etc in the "reserved" car parking spaces for nhs staff might appear too

Few stories asking why it is ok for doctors to moonlight between recurring income nhs work that pays their mortgages and high margin private work that buys their sports cars

Tanned doctors on international golf courses

Tanned dentists with very white teeth killing lions in zimbabwe ?

You are spot on Dan, it will all turn grubby

But the tories smashed the miners' union. Folk round here are still feeling the effects. So they might have a good go at the bma given the state of the opposition parties

 

[Pooman2084]

Christ on a stick, I think this is the most well reasoned political debate I've ever seen on any forum, ever!

I can't believe no one has blamed immigrants or the EU yet!

Just to be 100% clear, I was just expressing surprise that no one had brought in the subject of immigration as usually happens on 99% of political threads. In fact I found it quite refreshing.

With hindsight it was a considerable blunder as the very thing I did was introduce the topic. Thankfully if was dealt with eloquently.

 

[Bandit Boy]

blimey that was excellent too, thanks @Wayne J for the input.

i expect you're right, and that public sympathy for the doctors will soon wane - especially as i anticipate a flurry of press reports of bad-egg doctors being drip-fed by government to the newspapers that like reporting scandal to increase sales; the redtops, basically.

I agree with you now, another excellent post, best thread I've seen on any forum for ages.

 

[Wayne J]

I was very careful not to make my post a political one, blaming the conservatives or labour or anyone else. As the opposition party ALWAYS blames the party in power.
In this instance the major thing going for the government is the fact that an election is so far away, so they don't have to worry about popularity, at the moment.

To me this isn't a political issue, as the problem will exist for as long as the NHS is governed by a central entity.

 

[robdown]

Woah. Wayne I'm guessing your an nhs manager rather than a doctor

I agree with much of what you say. But the biggest issue facing GPs is actually the lack of common sense amongst the general public; my wife regularly gets people coming in (using appointment time) to ask her to get a bus stop moved, ask for anti-biotics for a common cold, get a cotton wool bud removed from their ear (seriously!) or write a sick-note for the day they skived off last week. If we could cut that nonsense out things would be so much easier

You can't impose a training loan on to junior doctors; it ignored the obvious point - when you graduate from medical school - with student debt - your training is on the job at a lowish wage (f1/f2/trainee gp for 3 years). The nhs in effect uses you as cheap labour in return for the training.

The pensions are good. But that feels like fair compensation for years of training and then years of frankly harrowing work (anybody want to routinely deal with dying children? Not me thank you, I'd rather be an airline pilot ).

Finally can I just say this discussion is all a little pointless. The issue is actually very very simple. We barely have enough doctors to cope Monday-Friday with the reduced weekend service. So you cannot expect to stretch the same number of doctors (well fewer now thanks to Mr hunt) over a full 7 day service. Simples

Ps you may be interested to know Jeremy hunt wrote a book 10 years ago on how to go about privatising the NHS. I don't think it was a best seller

 

[Beeper]

I can only add to this from my own personal experience, in that my wife is a 'junior' doctor.

She is a less than full time worker yet, in reality, works more hours than me, a full time solicitor. Not always because she needs to but because she and her colleagues care about the patients.

The treatment by Hunt has been disgusting and, in my eyes, rings the death knell for the NHS. Rather than attracting talent (which is needed for a '7 day Service') workers are being pushed away.

It's incredibly sad to see - my wife is genuinely upset.

 

[cooldan]

the biggest issue facing GPs is actually the lack of common sense amongst the general public; my wife regularly gets people coming in (using appointment time) to ask her to get a bus stop moved, ask for anti-biotics for a common cold, get a cotton wool bud removed from their ear (seriously!) or write a sick-note for the day they skived off last week. If we could cut that nonsense out things would be so much easier

hahaha that's funny. when the general public is involved, they get chatty! the common cold and the object in ear are both totally reasonable doctor visits. the bus stop is comedy and the sicknote is just people trying it on.

this discussion is all a little pointless. The issue is actually very very simple. We barely have enough doctors to cope Monday-Friday with the reduced weekend service. So you cannot expect to stretch the same number of doctors (well fewer now thanks to Mr hunt) over a full 7 day service

well now i believe you may be wrong, Rob, for all the reasons brought up in this thread - people in some small part resent doctors for being wealthy at the top of their careers; and everyone knows that doctors are total suckers who will take a beating to save their oh-so-precious sick patients, there's no way they'd play hardball and close A&E even for real emergencies. plus there's no shortage of new applicants and the entire EU to source replacement doctors.

so while logic says you're right, it's no open-and-shut case. Hunt is gambling that he can win the long game by turning the public against the doctors, and ultimately he can offer to fix the problem by selling the government one of his private medicine packages. yes he's a horrible ****hole. but let's not underestimate either side in this nasty business.

 

[Beeper]

plus there's no shortage of new applicants and the entire EU to source replacement doctors.

But isn't that the underlying problem? There may be a deluge of applicants waiting but it is so poorly managed they aren't used. My wife is on an 8 slot paediatric rota, ST6. The hospital know these slots need filling get year after year they end up with 6 doctors covering the slots and locums needed. From a private industry perspective the mismanagement and inept HR is infuriating! Results in wasted money and stretched drs. It will only get worse now. A doctor had to take it upon themselves to sort the rota out as HR couldn't. NHS management needs a shake up.

 

[cooldan]

NHS managers are basically third-ship telephone sanitisers as far as i'm concerned. i'm pretty sure @Wayne J isn't a hospital manager, i think he's either a radiographer or physiotherapist or operating theatre / anaesthetic technician if memory serves, but in any case he's one of the actually useful first-shippers, not one of the parasites living on the workers' sweat. but i digress, and risk turning nasty and name calling, in case there are any real politicians or NHS managers on here.

i wonder if it's possible to place a bet on a political outcome, or on a political assassination? probably not as too prone to manipulation. part of me is certain that Chunt is cutting his own political throat by his actions, but another equally strong part thinks this is the kind of 'strength' that could win him fans in a few years time if he can weather the storm. please please please let me be wrong and let him wither on the vine, but i suspect he will be a strong candidate for Tory leader in about 6-8 years ..... he'll let someone else take the 'Moyes' role, someone pathetic like Gove or May or Letwin, then he'll appear after that as a saviour when it all goes tits-up for the successor.

 

[JT.]

I'll chip in my thoughts as well, seeing as I work in an NHS hospital, and have first hand experience.

The biggest issue I see is that the NHS is, as David said, a MASSIVE organisation. The problem being that with such a huge organisation it can not be run by a single HQ (government) as there is so much variation between each hospital. It needs breaking down into smaller regions and being managed on a more individual basis, rather than a set of edicts being passed down from above. What other company could possibly run like that?
No government is prepared to do this, despite the fact that it essential, due to the over sensastionalisation by the media and it basically meaning they would be unelectable and be quoted as the "government that privatised the NHS".

Much is made about the NHS being stretched and the blame being put on migrants. The biggest 2 factors currently stretching the NHS is the fact that we are simply living longer. It used to be that you could expect to live 10-15 years after you retired, if you were lucky. Now medicine has improved to such a point that people are regularly living to 100+. To do this though they need increased care and medication, all of which requires time and money.

The other single biggest factor is the expectation of what they should get from the NHS. They expect to be able to get an appointment immediately, sent for all kinds of tests - purely because they've self diagnosed on Google. I have been told by many consultants and GPs that nearly half of the patients they see already "know" what's wrong with them because they'd read something online, they also know what treatment's needed and where to get it. Simply ignoring the fact that the medical professional they're speaking to have trained for many years before being allowed to sit there and try and help them. There's also no "punishment" for not attending appointments. We've had operations cancelled by the patient less than a week before being due - because they want to wait until after they get back from Pakistan in 4 months time, or they want to wait until after Christmas.

As for the staff and unions. The unions are very strong and they know how to manipulate the media and garner sympathy for the "poor over worked nurses". Almost everyone I have spoken to joined the NHS to help care for people, very few mentioned money as the reason they started a nursing career. However, because the pension is so good, overtime/extra hours worked, holidays are so good, perceived as a job for life, I am seeing more and more people stating that as a reason why they are working within the NHS. With the union so strong, it is virtually impossible to be sacked. I have experienced members of my team, quite frankly, taking the p!$$ with regards to their work ethic, sickness, honesty and when going through the correct and proper routes with HR, etc. they get, at most a slap on the wrist and are moved to another department. Likewise promotions, promotions are based on length of service rather than ability. This leads to a large proportion of staff incapable and demotivated, but because of the excellent financial package unable to go and get a job in the "real world" so sit waiting to pick up their pensions while doing the minimum amount to stop themselves from being sacked.

Everyone who joins the NHS as a junior doctor or the like, knows what they are letting themselves in for, up to a point. It is not a 9-5 job, never has been and never will be. Yes there are long hours, yes you will likely get into debt, but the payoff further down the line is there. It's almost the equivalent of an apprenticeship. With regard to being treated by over-tired staff, that is not the government doing that, it is the individual hospital not being able to sort rotas, or arrange cover for "sick" colleagues. As such I have little sympathy for doctors at the moment, and if they persist with the strike action I feel that the public's sympathy will rapidly fade for them. Currently they have the best PR as it's easy to knock the government (whoever's in power) but nothing can be said about the poor overworked doctors.

I can only see 2 possible solutions. The first is to try and change peoples perception and expectations. This can only succeed if the NHS is made less of a political topic, with each party trying to score points off the other, and a united front is presented.
It wasn't so long ago that people wouldn't wear seatbelts, a massive advertising campaign showing people being injured and dying in crashes followed. Drink driving used to be accepted and not demonised the way it is now, again following a massive graphic advertising campaign. Advertising against smoking has become more and more graphic.
Why not do something similar? A patient books an appointment/operation meaning that someone else has to wait, they then don't turn up, wasting resources of the clinical staff, theatre time, etc. and then cut to someone who has died as a direct cause of that. Or someone turning up at A&E on a Saturday because they've sprained their ankle playing football, rather than wait and see their GP on the Monday, because of the time someone is spent dealing with them someone coming in with a heart attack doesn't get seen as quickly and dies as a direct cause of that selfishness. People need to see the consequences they are causing by their own selfish, unrealistic expectations.

The only other solution is to "privatise" the NHS. Instead of being dictated to by Westminster, split the country up into smaller regions and have more targeted guidelines and instructions. So long as the patient (or customer as how I am meant to refer to them) has not got to pay for treatment - it makes no difference to them.

It's perfectly clear that there is no simple, easy solution, but throwing more money at the NHS, and its' staff is definitely not the answer.

Great post. I've no direct experience of the NHS, apart from as a patient, but this is a great perspective to share imo.

 

[JT.]

NHS managers are basically third-ship telephone sanitisers as far as i'm concerned. i'm pretty sure @Wayne J isn't a hospital manager, i think he's either a radiographer or physiotherapist or operating theatre / anaesthetic technician if memory serves, but in any case he's one of the actually useful first-shippers, not one of the parasites living on the workers' sweat. but i digress, and risk turning nasty and name calling, in case there are any real politicians or NHS managers on here.

i wonder if it's possible to place a bet on a political outcome, or on a political assassination? probably not as too prone to manipulation. part of me is certain that Chunt is cutting his own political throat by his actions, but another equally strong part thinks this is the kind of 'strength' that could win him fans in a few years time if he can weather the storm. please please please let me be wrong and let him wither on the vine, but i suspect he will be a strong candidate for Tory leader in about 6-8 years ..... he'll let someone else take the 'Moyes' role, someone pathetic like Gove or May or Letwin, then he'll appear after that as a saviour when it all goes tits-up for the successor.

I tend to agree with you @cooldan, his position looks politically suicidal at the moment, but I guess Thatcher wasn't popular before she took power (school milk, etc). From a political perspective, this is surely just another example of conservative ideology taking hold in the absence of a vocal opposition (there is no necessity to cut services now, we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world with no issues paying back our national debt - just compare our debt now to that post-war for a reminder of how bad it could actually be). Rather than cut a service that we all rely on, those less fortunate even more so, why not just raise income tax by 1p in the pound to pay for it. Or divert money from our defence (attack) budget to fill the gap, or tax corporations and banks adequately. I laud Wayne's attempt at taking an apolitical position, because that probably hits the nail on the head, but at the end of the day (unfortunately), this will only be decided politically - and my opinion is it will be ideology that decides what happens - privatisation by our current government, or maybe remaining as a public sector institution if a different party takes power. Who knows though.

 

[johnwhitfield]

Never underestimate what a politician will do for career advancement. Roll back 2 to 3 year and look at Michael Gove. A man who has probably done more harm to education than anyone else in the last 30+ years. I swear the only reason he decided that the only subjects students should study were the same as he did, not because he believed that it was the right thing to do but because he could get his name in the paper every week as a result of his posturing in his bid to become the next Conservative leader. (Did you know he decided the Brit school was failing as students could only sing and dance and not pass the subjects he thought were important. Kind of ignores the impact Adele, Amy Winehouse etc have had on our GDP!). One of the few things I take comfort about the last election is that it sunk his campaign.

I spent my first 12 years working the private sector and the last 13 years in the public sector. They are very different beasts. The first 12 years I had no pension or career security. (Not to mention boss who's dubious Yakuza connections kept coming back to haunt whatever we were doing) . However, my work and effort were directly measurable and reflected in terms and conditions.

The time I've spend in the public sector has felt like I'm an easy whipping boy for political problems. Some aspects of working in the public sector has me tearing my hair out. PPI, for ****s sale who thought that was a good idea? Nobody on the front lines thought it was a good idea but short term political gains made politicians spend money they didn't have and now we will be paying it back at horrendous rates for the next couple of decades so we need to cut back spending on current projects. Career security is not what a lot of people imagine it is, I'm currently accountable for factors which I have zero control over. Setting targets of the public sector is not the same as if you are working in marketing. Judging Doctors by their death rates just mean that they won't take on risky cases.

Some big changes need to be made to the public sector but governments go for the short term sound bites rather than tackling the underlying problems

Thanks also to Paul for allowing this thread to run. There's been a few things on it that I disagree with but it's all been expressed in a civil and intelligent way.

 

[Paul]

it's all been expressed in a civil and intelligent way

That's the main reason it's still running

 

[Wayne J]

Thanks Dan, my official job title is Theatre Equipment Manager. I basically run stock levels of everything used in the theatre suites. I've never had any clinical training, it's a combination of procurement and logistics. I managed to save over 450k in my first 3 months, not by being super fantastic at my job (although I am), but purely by doing very simple things. There is enough scope within the NHS to make massive savings very simply.

Having only been here 5 years the difference between private and public sectors is still fresh in my mind. What John says is so true. Put very simply in the private sector you are performance managed so much more, and rewarded as such. Public sector pay structures are so rigid to fit in nationally that they can't possibly reflect individuals abilities