Re Ambulance/ nurse strikes

[TheWindIsChanging]

The last thread reached 1000 messages so assume that means it automatically closes any thread so thought I would continue the debate. My view is that it is unreasonable for any person in charge of a person's life to simply down tools regardless of pay issues. I wouldn't disagree pay is too low but so are many jobs yet not all jobs carry the responsibility of saving lives which will be lost during the strikes.
It's no great shock the usual suspects are screaming about the tories again waving tiny fists around red faced incandescent with rage. The reality is increasing wages across the board would lead to an inflation death spiral which happened in the 70s further decreasing quality of life for all of us, not just the NHS workers.
Inflation is the main issue that causes issues with wages, and the reason for this is principally covid lockdowns which ( cue the drumroll) were brought in to protect the useless NHS... the irony that this same "service" is now complaining about economic problems which it helped to instigate is hilarious. I can't remember a single year in the last 20 where it wasn't nearly "bursting at the seems" and given the amount of tax payers money disappearing into it like the metaphorical black hole perhaps time it was scrapped. I don't see these same issues in other countries..a healthcare worker is not a typical profession as the basic goal is to save lives not abandoning ship. As others have said, all very well to type YABU, but I suspect the wind would change quickly if it was a relative who died as a consequence of these disgusting strikes which will cost lives make no mistake about it. That said, the same people raging about the state of the economy were labelling anyone not supporting lockdowns as a " granny killer" which anyone with an IQ over 70 could see would lead to this mess.

I am a qualified staff nurse and have worked in the NHS for 25 years. Myself and nursing colleagues are terrified that ourselves or family members will become ill and need the NHS because of poorly staffed wards. Intensive care is relying on highly paid agency staff due to lack of nurses. These staff are often unfamiliar with the equipment and need support from other nurses working the shift. The only way to get the 50 000 nurses we are short of is to pay more. If the NHS is privatised we will STILL need nurses. Unfortunately many people against pay increases for nurses think that we still just wash bums and make beds.

the NHS is one of the most financially wasteful institution I have come across. Two examples that spring to mind:

After having my twins I struggled to breastfeed. I was in hospital for 5 days and my husband asked if there was somewhere he could make up formula but no kitchen existed that we could use. So instead we were given single use, throwaway little bottles of pre-made formula. This happened across the whole ward. Multiply that by all NHS hospitals, can you imagine the cost of that alone! Why not just have a little area with a microwave?

I’m part way through my MBA, it’s costing me around £20-30k, dependent on how many years I take to do it. I have to self fund. On my course there are 12 NHS staff from mgmt, this is all being paid for by the NHS. That’s a minimum of £240k and that’s just my course. Apparently they are put on MBA’s to help the NHS run better. This, to me, is utter madness. I’m sure this money could be better spent dealing with the myriad of problems the NHS has instead of paying for MBA’s.

oh and there’s the £40 million a year on diversity training www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/diversity-news/nhs-wasting-money-employing-equality-and-diversity-staff/51309?amp=1

And managing the cost of obesity and all the issues that come with that at £6.5b a year www.frontier-economics.com/uk/en/news-and-articles/articles/article-i9130-the-annual-social-cost-of-obesity-in-the-uk/

it really is time to have some grown up conversations about the NHS, people taking some responsibility for their own well-being, understanding that the minimal NI we pay will not cover the demands of patients nowadays due to our very unhealthy lifestyles, ageing population with multiple co morbidities and our weird fixation on keeping people alive at any cost.

I also wholeheartedly support the nurses and dr’s, I think what they eat is appalling but I think the NHS fritters money away. I also think the public take the NHS for granted and think it should be able to use qt any point for the littlest thing.

I love how you’ve derailed your own thread @TheWindIsChanging.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64050277#comments

Luckily, going by the comments, there is a lot of support for the strikers.

Not using taxpayers money for Johnson's partygate defence lawyers would save another £220k

Why not just have a little area with a microwave?

Infection control and patient safety.

Why are you investing in your MBA if it’s pointless? The NHS is a business, it needs good management.

I’m not sure you appreciate quite how bad the situation was in covid. Lock downs were to try and halt the spread of covid and reduce numbers when we had no vaccine. It was done badly and communication was poor many times.
however I work in ITU, we usually have 20 ITU bed (life support machines) and 10 high care beds (CPAP). We increased to nearly 50 ITU beds and 30 high care beds by taking over theatre recovery spaces. Do you have any idea the amount of extra staffing that needed and how much extra hours everyone had to put in? And the rest of the hospital was full. So yea we were close to being overwhelmed and at that point if you had a heart attack or a car accident there would be no space for you. That was why we had to ‘protect the nhs’

This is part of the problem I agree.

At least we can agree you can't read your own statistics which you put up to substantiate a failed argument repeatedly making false claims.

We agree nothing.

Well if the Government succeed with this then problem solved.....lots of money to pay those striking a better wage....except they'll make up some lame reason as to why that won't happen.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64029040

Headline reads

"Government to sue Mone-linked PPE firm for £122m"

@Blossomtoes i don’t work in the NHS and I don’t think critically analysing marketing strategies for the last 2 decades helps it to run more efficiently……

It was the government who put the "business" crap into the nhs

The florence Nightingale hospitals were set up to give added capacity for covid patients and most of them were not used having been subsequently dismantled.

As you say, we were locked down waiting for the "vaccine", but as a mainly vaccinated nation over 90% of the Uk population have had covid so the transmission argument for the jab doesn't really stack up if 9 in 10 have contracted covid anyway. The vaccine also needs multiple boosters with efficacy starting to wane after 10 weeks for a virus that has an average age of death above natural life expectancy. I accept that individual employees of the NHS were blameless in policy decisions, but I don't accept these factors being sufficient to drive the country to economic oblivion protecting a health service where there is no proof lockdowns saved a single life. Infact there are more people likely to die as a consequence of poverty related factors which we are now seeing.

If the NHS was at danger of being overrun with covid patients, the Florence Nightingales would have been full but the government realised they had massively overestimated the danger of both the virus and underestimated the danger of the subsequent policy measures to the health of the general population. ( as did most nations bar Sweden and a few others)

@Iwanttoquitthegym the myth that NHS staff were sitting around doing nothing during COVID is so, so toxic. The reality is as you describe - ITU and high dependency beds being created and staffed out of nothing (through redeployments), and the same for post COVID rehab beds for older patients. I know, because I was part of the team that project managed the creation and staffing of those beds. In three weeks we took unused spaces, got Estates to ensure the equipment was all there and that clinical waste disposal was available - especially important with COVID positive patients, that the beds had adequate staffing, that provision of meals was in place - you name it, we did it. My average working day during the first 3 months of COVID was 10 hours and 14 hour days were frequent. Staff were ripped from their posts and had their schedules messed around, and they coped because the patients needed them. Stress, burnout and moral injury levels exploded.

Shame on everyone on here talking down the NHS - after 12 years of Tory rule, you should be grateful for crumbs.

I didn’t say you did work for the NHS. Presumably there’s more to an MBA course than that?

@pointythings out of interest as you work in the NHS, what are your thoughts on how much obesity costs the NHS(£6b per year) and the £4m spent on diversity training? Or is that the Tories fault too?

Managing the cost of obesity and all the issues that come with that at £6.5b a year www.frontier-economics.com/uk/en/news-and-articles/articles/article-i9130-the-annual-social-cost-of-obesity-in-the-uk/

Bit risky to mention obesity on here, IAmADancer
On such a fast moving thread you may well escape, but otherwise you could quickly discover that it's the ultimate it's-not-my-fault topic

@Blossomtoes the main use for an MBA is if you work in strategy. (This is why lots of consultants have MBA’s) It helps you to identify issues in a business, normally the underperforming/loss making, and how you can turn the business around so that it makes money.
There are better course, that cost less, that people could go on rather than an MBA, which will of minimal use to a business that doesn’t charge people for its services

What about the £3 billion spent on agency nurses per annum?

Do we want to maybe reduce those costs by retaining existing staff and attracting new ones?

£112 million would cover an increase to nurses salres of around 0.5%.

However, if the tories hadn't created a £30 billion hole in the economy with Trussenomics

Or if they hadn't lost £40 billion in tax revenue due to how they enacted brexit

Or if they hadn't spent £38 billion on test and trace

Or if they hadn't written of £4 billion of covid fraud

Or if they hadn't wasted £9 billion on useless PPE

Or if they hadn't overpaid £11 billion on interest to service our national debt

Or if they hadn't committed to spending £40+ billion on HS2

Or if they hadn't already spent £18.5 billion on yet another trainline for London

Or if they hadn't accepted they'll lose around £11 billion in failures to repay covid loans

They probably would have had they money to fund pay rises for public sector workers.

But that wouldn't enrich them or their mates so it's not going to happen.

@Puzzledandpissedoff i know it’s risky but it is a key cost in NHS expenditure, one that didn’t exist at its inception, but no one wants to talk about it.

at some point, we have to have the very difficult conversation about what you treat first and the impact obesity has on the NHS

Have you also started a thread about how outraged you are about the private sector pay rises that are also escalating inflation?
It's not hard to find examples of substantial pay awards this year.

But these are the rewards of honest enterprise, not the undeserved largess of feckless public servants sponging off the taxpayer! 😉