To disagree with NHS only petrol stations?

[pistachio20]

Some petrol stations around me have now said that they are only allowing in NHS staff to refuel - apparently checking ID.

I find this completely ridiculous and unfair - not only because the majority of NHS staff where I live can easily get public transport to work (most who I know don’t drive to work anyway, and get train/bus anyway due to lack of free parking!).

So many crucial jobs require people to drive, let alone people with caring responsibilities, mobility issues, etc.

AIBU to think that it’s unfair?

I know they don’t as I’ve often seen them filling up previously but I wonder why police and ambulances don’t have their own petrol pumps at work though, at least at very large hospitals or police stations. My dh worked at a car showroom and they had own petrol tank and pump on site for filling up.

The endless online policing of others need for fuel is bonkers.

I could maybe get behind clinical staff being in a priority group for petrol access but not Gp receptionists 😉

I think it's very unfair to decide who is more worthy of fuel access by job role alone tbh.

not just online,
i walked past the queue and one of the drivers was telling me why she needed petrol,
i then joined the queue and my neighbour was asking me why i needed petrol?
people obviously need petrol for their cars.

Rather than people turning on each other, here's an idea the suppliers, haulage firms and government work together to find a solution. This debacle has all the hallmarks of the food shop prioritisation for NHS staff. Yes they do a necessary job and a difficult one but please don't go with the narrative they're Angels of mercy etc. They do a job and get paid.

How do you think acute wards and emergency services will function if staff can’t get to work? I’m including NHS cleaners, HCAs, nurses, doctors, paramedics, NHS catering staff, midwives, physios, community teams here.

Ideally carers would be included (along with many others) but carers often walk to work as there’s such a choice of care homes to work in (when I was a student I worked in 5 and always chose ones within walking distance). Hospital staff don’t have that flexibility and may be on rotations out of area.

Everyone has different reasons. I have given up locally and will just wait it out as I do not n eed it for work just transporting children around etc I do;n't think our 3 local stations have any petrol anyway at the moment. A 4th one I had not remembered 15 minutes away is in a national newspaper today as the biggest issue here as our borough is full to the brim even with more "beds in sheds" than any borough in London!!! is volume of people around so very very busy roads. Even at best of times I tend to venture out to the shop only at 2pm (before school traffic) as sometimes the quietest time other than before 6am.

So the newspaper's picture was two police directing traffic as on that road no one could drive down it to work as queues for petrol had totally stopped the flow of traffic. It was the same on Saturday at 8am when I went for petrol at another one - no one could really go by a round about due to petrol queue traffic.

I cannot now mow the grass (no petrol) but that of course is not important but if you work at home and that is may be your one highlight of the week (okay people will be laughing in the aisles and I could get myself out for some kind of long walk when I am not working almost 7 days a week at home) that does feel as restricting as the 3 earlier lockdowns with which I never agreed. It seems to be one thing after another.

Anyway i will see how we go in the next week or so without petrol and my sons have some in their car so again I am very lucky to have options and work from home. I hope my son who drives for a living is getting it at the depot - he had to scrap his car earlier this month as it was beyond repair so is cycling to the work and back every day which I am not sure is that safe getting back at 1am in the dark on country roads to his place. One of my children has an electric car. Other is in inner London so their car can just sit until they run out of petrol for it largely unused.

The problem with helping NHS staff only is they cannot work if their nursery has closed because nursery workers cannot get to work. Richer people in the middle of cities do not understand how normal people operate - that without the car and given some places have no buses or none at the time people work they just cannot do their work. It is no good saying cycle if you have 20 or 40 miles to go to work due to high house prices and rents.

YABU and ridiculous.

Nhs do a great job ,but no reason why they saying they can't get to work some people could get public transport ,like when the shops made nhs priority for discount Some were taking their familys into store for the discount as in my store they would come in cocky all I'm nhs with there friends tagging along buying 3 hot tubs getting them the discount
It's a shame coz its a small minority who take the piss and tar the rest of the nhs ,but the petrol should be priority for patients at home who need care nurses to visit, emergency services, people with disabilities and some others , but if you are able to get a bus like the rest of the nation stop ranting!. I travel by car to the essential store that has got the nation going through lockdown and happy to use the bus at the minute but we don't get priority for working through all of lockdown or get extra benefits like the nhs did we didnt get a clap for going to work ,point is I can get a bus im not above or below anyone we are all in the same boat just get on with it

@Hazel41

Nhs do a great job ,but no reason why they saying they can't get to work some people could get public transport ,like when the shops made nhs priority for discount Some were taking their familys into store for the discount as in my store they would come in cocky all I'm nhs with there friends tagging along buying 3 hot tubs getting them the discount It's a shame coz its a small minority who take the piss and tar the rest of the nhs ,but the petrol should be priority for patients at home who need care nurses to visit, emergency services, people with disabilities and some others , but if you are able to get a bus like the rest of the nation stop ranting!. I travel by car to the essential store that has got the nation going through lockdown and happy to use the bus at the minute but we don't get priority for working through all of lockdown or get extra benefits like the nhs did we didnt get a clap for going to work ,point is I can get a bus im not above or below anyone we are all in the same boat just get on with it

I think comparing a shop worker to someone who works in the NHS like a doctor, paramedic is a bit different isn't it.

They were facing covid face to face. They didn't know if they were going to get PPE. They didn't know when their shift would end. They held iPads up to people who couldn't see their loved ones.

I'm sorry but the two are definitely not the same. I mean, grateful for shop workers obviously but I think it's pretty obvious why NHS get more perks.

Bar the holding ipads the shopwoekera got equally fucked...

Pff, they should do what the rest of us do & drive round looking for fuel in their own time.

Rather than letting any scrote with an NHS Pass (of who there are millions) go to the front of the queue at the communal petrol stations, maybe the government or NHS should just arrange for a tanker to tip up in the hospital car park, so the poor angels don't have to suffer the stress of queueing like mere mortals...

@DecadentlyDecisive

Pff, they should do what the rest of us do & drive round looking for fuel in their own time.

Rather than letting any scrote with an NHS Pass (of who there are millions) go to the front of the queue at the communal petrol stations, maybe the government or NHS should just arrange for a tanker to tip up in the hospital car park, so the poor angels don't have to suffer the stress of queueing like mere mortals...

Here's hoping you don't need the NHS any time soon!

[quote Springleaves]@phantomgirl22 thank goodness, I feel as if I am a lone wolf amongst all this. I am getting so cross about things being posted but my trust has a blanket ban. There is no compassion for patients or relatives in some of these social media accounts. I am furious.[/quote]
Yes my trust does too. It's a total embarrassment!

I see the OP hasn’t been back to tell us what company is actually doing this.
It was on the news yesterday that some were considering only serving key workers. That’s all key workers though, and just a news story

@Northernsouloldies

Rather than people turning on each other, here's an idea the suppliers, haulage firms and government work together to find a solution. This debacle has all the hallmarks of the food shop prioritisation for NHS staff. Yes they do a necessary job and a difficult one but please don't go with the narrative they're Angels of mercy etc. They do a job and get paid.

Absolutely this. The government and suppliers need to sort this out. This whole thread about whom should be entitled to get petrol first is bullshit. WTH has happened to this country? I say this as an ED nurse. We really do not need nor want this special treatment, totally unnecessary and for most of us a bloody embarrassment!

I'm NHS, have official card etc, so would be allowed entry to forecourts if this was implemented.
But I'm WFH, so don't and won't get fuel, till normal. But whats to stop me fuelling all the cars on the household? Nothing. It would be abused

Panic buying mentality seems very similar to “someone might be getting an unfair advantage “ hysteria.

So many people hugging and puffing about a complete non story.

Any prioritisation that was brought in would be around function, not rewards for hard work…. And there is no current suggestion of any official ways to make it happen.

And yet so many people on this thread have got caught up in getting indignant. Rowing with others, turning in each other, and a competitive frenzy.

Let’s get a collective grip.

Ideally carers would be included (along with many others) but carers often walk to work as there’s such a choice of care homes to work in (when I was a student I worked in 5 and always chose ones within walking distance). Hospital staff don’t have that flexibility and may be on rotations out of area.

That may apply to you where you live; but the places where DD has lived (specialist residential school, college and now centre) are all in the countryside, because the philanthropists who set them up, believed sick people needed the fresh clean air in the countryside and to work on a farm. We have looked at two other centres in the field, who are also out in the countryside.

They typically have 700 - 900 staff for say 200 residents. Where DD is now, I doubt 900 people live within walking distance, never mind all of them want to work there! The care staff seem to come from all over a wide geographical area, because these places are also in extremely affluent areas, and the staff (including all the on site HCPs except possibly the doctors) couldn't afford to live there (unless they have a high earning OH).

When DD was living at home, we never ever had a domiciliary care worker for her in ten years from our own town. Every single one had to get to our house by car, because they came from other towns.

They were facing covid face to face. They didn't know if they were going to get PPE.

Yes, DD works in a pharmacy. Where did people with Covid go, when they wanted to buy themselves something to make themselves feel better; or now they need a lateral flow test? She didn't get PPE for months; and they have no way of shutting the doors on Covid patients, unlike GPs.

It's funny how she was offered a Covid jab in January (she's in her 20s), as they were told they were frontline workers in a community health care setting. They also still have to wear masks all day at work, even though the rules on masks have been relaxed for shop workers.

I cared for residents with covid face to face with hardly any ppe as a carer.

Yabu.

If I take my child to hospital with sepsis I want him to be seen by a doctor who was able to get to work. That’s the top priority. It’s ridiculous to suggest that an essential limited resource like petrol in an emergency shortage situation should be ‘first come first served’ when some people are doctors and others are bankers. The world doesn’t urgently need petrol in bankers cars it just doesn’t.

This situation won’t last long but while it does I won’t be trying to refill my car even though it’s nearly empty. I’m not a priority.

@Skysblue

Yabu.

If I take my child to hospital with sepsis I want him to be seen by a doctor who was able to get to work. That’s the top priority. It’s ridiculous to suggest that an essential limited resource like petrol in an emergency shortage situation should be ‘first come first served’ when some people are doctors and others are bankers. The world doesn’t urgently need petrol in bankers cars it just doesn’t.

This situation won’t last long but while it does I won’t be trying to refill my car even though it’s nearly empty. I’m not a priority.

And how are you supposed to get there with no fuel?

@Skysblue

Yabu.

If I take my child to hospital with sepsis I want him to be seen by a doctor who was able to get to work. That’s the top priority. It’s ridiculous to suggest that an essential limited resource like petrol in an emergency shortage situation should be ‘first come first served’ when some people are doctors and others are bankers. The world doesn’t urgently need petrol in bankers cars it just doesn’t.

This situation won’t last long but while it does I won’t be trying to refill my car even though it’s nearly empty. I’m not a priority.

And will all the doctors, nurses etc be happy to work for free when the banking system grinds to a halt and what then happens when they can’t get hold of their money to pay for fuel anyway?

I'm not sure if the whole banking system would grind to a halt if some bankers had to work at home for a few days. Many have been wfh anyway and others will be able to walk or use public transport. I think lockdown demostrated that they don't all have to be in the bank for the system to work.

It's open to misuse - you could fill up your whole families cars with your NHS card! NHS vehicles should be a priority - but there are many blue light services we cannot do without either, or transport workers, supermarket workers etc

We all just have to take it easy - maybe a minimum fill up of £30 to stop the queues of the endless 'topping up'.