Thread 3 Starmer: Digging has started, bigger shovel required

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5117727-thread-2-starmer-return-of-the-labour-government?page=1

Although I take some comfort from knowing the actual government won’t make things worse or inflame the situation, or use it to advance some sort of culture war.

https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1818914837340033470

Lee Anderson stirring the cauldron of hate and then rowing back when he gets it wrong.

It is so depressing and I'm so angry about all the apologists who have let this stuff happen.
Really I just feel powerless and terrified I think.

That is true.

Just watching the women's boxing. The Italian woman took two hits to the head and called it off. She is dreadfully upset but the commentator won't say why. The Algerian man is through.

Family doctors in England have voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking collective action for the first time in 60 years.

https://news.sky.com/story/gps-vote-to-take-collective-action-for-first-time-in-60-years-13188629

I was a bit confused by the one they interviewed on BBC Breakfast. I get it - they are working way too long and still getting abuse - but when the interviewer asked whether the government's aim to increase numbers of GPs would help he said it wouldn’t because his practice didn’t have space for any more. He was saying they needed investment in the estate, but at the same time saying they were private businesses contracted to the NHS (which they are). Not sure what he wanted.

I honestly can’t see GPs getting much public sympathy. Many of them don’t work full time and that’s part of the reason it’s so difficult to get an appointment.

More GPs could help even in a crowded surgery then, logically. Keep all the rooms active by hot desking part timers. But you can’t be a private business and expect the government to extend your premises…

GPs are being given funding for Physician Associates, ring fenced, which they can't use to hire more doctors. I just hope the new govt will sort this and restrict PA and allow more GPs to be hired. There are newly qualified drs not finding jobs. PA are also paid more than a new dr.

I was just musing about this: I wasn't born in the UK. I arrived on a boat from Africa . My father was escaping political persecution, dragging his young family with him and already had a secret service record .

But I'm white, so that's "ok" .

We arrived legitimately as Commonwealth citizens. We spoke English. My father arrived here to study to be a doctor and gave years of service to the NHS.

That explains why I never experienced racism

Racist really are hypocrites. It's all about the skin colour, mixed in with (nowadays) some Islamophobia

It would also help if GP appointments were reserved for people who are actually ill. My surgery keeps offering me age related checks for all sorts of conditions, I’d happily trade those for being able to get an appointment when I need it. I’m assuming there’s a financial incentive attached to those checks so it would be good if that was removed.

What I don’t understand is how much GP practices seem to vary? Is it how they’re run?

I live in normal area, with a practice in two neighbouring small towns. It’s always possible to see a doctor on the same day, in one of the towns. I’ve walked in at 9 and told to come back at 10 for an appointment.

One thing they seem to do is to employ a locum a couple of days a week to pick up sore throats and chest infections sort of things. They also have a paramedic at each practice.

I frequently hear of people who can’t see a doctor for weeks! I realise how lucky I am, but don’t understand how they can vary so much.

I’m not so sure about this. Preventative screening can save a lot of suffering - and also money and appointments - down the line. We probably need to do more.

It’s exactly about that and I think it would be lot better if people did not tip toe around it. There will always be a core that judge on skin colour. Pretending otherwise is totally foolish.

But not at the expense of people who are actually ill.

Might be talking off the top of my head here but I think General practice is predominantly female - the set hours and (in some cases) flexibility to work part time can be very attractive. Not sure I'd want to restrict that.

And I don't doubt they do a number of hours outside their set hours.

Given numbers of full time GPs has fallen we do need to be retaining the ones we already have whilst training & recruiting.

If they do take action they'll need a coherent message - to me it looks like a muddle of thought.

I'm under no illusions about how some people in this country feel about any type of foreigner.
My youngest son is married to a Finn. Just after Brexit she was out buying a sandwich one lunch break, chatting with a work colleague and a total stranger came up to her and said "You'll have to fuck off back home now you Polish bitch".
My eldest's partner is Chinese. She used to be a postie but during covid she was taken off deliveries and worked in the sorting office because they had so many complaints about a Chinese person delivering the post. People actually thought her ethnicity made her risky to them even though she came to the UK aged 5.

Fair point. It’s another one of those things which has been allowed to get to the point that doing things to improve for the future has to be put on the back burner to fire fight backlog.

I sometimes have a Did-it-start-here? moment. I'm wondering if I have to remember this date so I can look back and say ah yes that's when it all started. We've had riots before but these seem planned and more sinister somehow.

I hope I'm not coming across as a conspiracy theorist. I think I'm more like Muriel in Animal Farm - an observer.

Just read there was a 'protest' at a hotel that houses asylum seekers in a neigbouring town

Have any of you read James O’Brien’s book How They Broke Britain? I have just started it and it is already mind blowing how many things combined to bring us to the point we are at now. I hope the Government have plans to clear out the House of Lords, restrain the Murdoch press and the Daily Mail and do something about dark money funding “think tanks” and foreign interference via social media inciting violence. That isn’t even a complete list of what is wrong 😔

This cartoon sums up how people have been led to believe the enemy is desperate people on small boats

I have!

A growing majority of GPs are indeed women.

@Piggywaspushed am hoping people with the power to change things have read it too!