To think the uk is on its knees

[Ilovemycatalot]

Just this. Every day negativity. No one is happy with life or working conditions. The country is at an all time low. Living standards getting worse by the day people getting poorer. I know we are not in poverty like some countries but honestly can’t see us ever returning to decent living standards unless you’re the few top percent earners. Tell me I’m being dramatic perhaps I am but can’t see much of a way back from this .

It’s not painting them in a very rosy light at the moment. I skim it every day because my bloke’s a subscriber. I’ve been struck by its growing criticism of the government recently. That’s a major element in my optimism that we’re soon going to see the back of it.

We should all learn from best practice and introduce new technologies that aid our work etc

But if you have an elderly person in hospital who is deemed med fit but needs a care package at home to allow their discharge but cannot get one for 6 weeks because there are no care staff available, then i don't see how software or cheap technology is going to produce extra staff, technology has not yet found a way to cook meals, wash up, make beds or provide personal care for a frail person living at home nor does it provide the social stimulus the elderly need.

Also, why has the UK got so few nurses and beds etc per capita compared to comparable countries?

Either we are super efficient and everyone else has too many or the NHS is under staffed/equipped?

One consultant may have the views you talk about but there are '000s more that would disagree with her.

One of the first points is the journalist recording the interview and explaining it would be transcribed verbatim automatically/simultaneously, so presumably something like an updated Dragon speech-to-text @TooBigForMyBoots which Prof Price thought would be valuable in recording patient notes, or progress through an operation, or to catch up lectures (as a prof at UCL, when she's not a consultant oncologist at the Marsden).

The wider point was that the NHS has a silo mentality and tends to adopt a not invented here stance. She is about to retire, so presumably feels more comfortable rocking the boat while she can command an audience thanks to her professional roles.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow , feel free to hate the Torygraph as much as you like, but it has the largest paid-for circulation of all the "broadsheets" which is why people who want the largest possible thinking audience use it as a platform.

I’m sure it does have the widest paid readership. It’s readers are the only ones who can afford to pay this.

I think people tend to forget that there is an actual 'hot' war going on in Europe. A pretty damn serious one. And that's depressing. It depresses people, it creates a background noise of fear, it depresses economies. In this case, it impacts fuel, cooking oil and wheat. It has created a refugee emergency; thousands have died and untold numbers have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed. And no one knows how it's going to end.

On top of that, it's the tail end of a long Tory reign of incompetence.

Brexit has hit harder and wider then many (who voted for it) expected.

And honestly, I think the environment/climate change is a major factor, too.

It all contributes to instability and stress, worry about the future, rather than a feeling of positivity about it.

So, even when some of the reason for negativity is concrete - strikes, the high cost of housing and fuel, stagnant or diminishing wages esp in the public sector, public services in crisis mode - there's plenty more that's contributing to a feeling of doom.

£49 pa, for digital edition @ArseInTheCoOpWindow !

But who’d pay 50 quid a year for a Tory mouthpiece unless you vote Tory.

The argument that people need to read a wide variety of newspapers doesn’t really stand up if they all have to be paid for.

I sometimes vote Tory, sometimes Labour and sometimes LibDem... fully paid up pragmatic floating voter, and I like to know what they all think ... on lots of topics.

@beguilingeyes and that's the big difference with places like Germany or Denmark- they are far less short termist- proper Proprtional representation also means that it's usually the middle ground that holds sway too. They wouldn't sell off vast swathes of state housing without building new because they would think 'this will cause a big problem 20 years down the line'

I don't think Transcription software will cure the NHS.

System wide transcription s/w not only requires the licenced s/w but significant investment in IT hardware too.... so pay 10s of millions on this and not recruit more staff.

Its one thing having in a standalone BUPA hospital... quite another in a region or national healthcare system.

There is also the accuracy of transcription when you considered the regional and international staff that work in the NHS.

Easy solutions to the NHS may go down well with Tory voters because it makes it easy to blame someone else but in reality they don't exist.... the NHS is wrecked because of historic underfunding... now we are just throwing money at it with no real long term planning... very wasteful.

Most of Prof Price's remarks reported were about the micromanagement of clinical processes and decision-making in oncology. This is not a point for political point-scoring. It's about stultifying bureaucracy at hospital level.

Specifically:
(1) A tariff of charges in radiotherapy that spins out treatments unnecessarily because doing so earns a Trust more money. I can tell you from my own radiotherapy that this was fact, because the radiotherapist who did my course said I was one of the first patients to have five treatments in one week, rather than 15 treatments in three weeks.

(2) Use of stereotactic radiosurgery to treat tumours very precisely with high blast dosages was authorised only in August 2022, despite the NHS having had the tech and the knowhow for over 10 years. Multiple treatments again, despite
one big dose eliminating the metastases for good.

(3) Sorry I brought up the transcribing software, and of course it alone is not going to save the NHS, but it would compensate for the reduction in clerical/secretarial support, and would get letters, reports and clinical notes done faster and thereby increase patient throughput. The tech and software is readily available, off the shelf. Given its scale, the NHS should be able to negotiate a really competitive deal but instead every Trust wants to reinvent the wheel.

Everyone wants a better clinical outcome, or does the 'progressive' faction just want to complain about underfunding? The evidence that more staff are needed and need paying properly is visible on the TV news every night; the slowness of care packages and problems with recruiting in social care are known to all. We can't magic up new fully trained doctors and nurses overnight. Retention rates need to improve too.

And while all that happens, it makes sense to work smarter not just harder.
Starting every online patient questionnaire with a section on gender and racial identity is a new (and IMO particularly idiotic) attempt to justify hiring diversity managers. I filled one in yesterday. Where is common sense?

None of the above is, IMO, a particularly Tory opinion. You could think similarly from any political stance.

It's what the Tories have delivered after being in charge for 13 years. Prof Price didn't mention staff shortage being a problem. Do you think lack of medically trained staff is a problem for the NHS @EffortlessDesmond?

Clearly lack of trained staff is a LARGE part of the problem, but as so many young people have 4 A * A levels and want to be doctors, then we have to work out how best to get them trained to competence, and then to keep them working in the NHS rather than deciding that life in Australia looks more appealing. It is and isn't all about politics and funding. The BMA has traditionally resisted training [too] many doctors because it's protecting its membership, and the NHS has limited training capacity as well. Every patient has to consent to having a student in the consulting room and while my DH a fortnight ago was keen to have the student nurse observe his atrial refib, not every one will want their procedure recorded.

Prof Price did not mention staff shortages, but I expect it would be a "too obvious to mention" point. As in, it goes without saying that more hands would be better. What she does say is that thoughtful, considered use of available technology and software could speed up processing of cancer diagnoses with a measurable improvement in results, if we could only stop some of the micromanagement.

Is your interest in proving the Tories wrong, or in improving health outcomes?

I think crap health outcomes and Tories are intrinsically linked.

We have transcription software in our trust. Have done for years. We also have four vacancies on a seven person rota next month, and a fifth person has put her notice in today.

I recruited a doctor from overseas in December, her visa still isn’t through (hopefully she’ll be able to start work in May or June). No other appointable candidates.

We are a well-known london teaching hospital, and we can’t keep our trainees. They are all going overseas, moving out of London due to cost of living (can’t afford to bring up a family on a junior doctor salary - one has gone to Exeter, one to Peterborough), or the one today is leaving medicine altogether. Met with other specialty leads yesterday and it is the same everywhere.

Then we shall have to agree to disagree @ArseInTheCoOpWindow . I could be insulting at this juncture, and suggest that health outcomes are at least in part about taking personal responsibility for one's wellbeing.

Perhaps the problems in healthcare will make people consider taking their own health seriously? That would help a lot.

@Saschka it's a bit like selling a house, if there's no interest, you've got the pricing wrong. If no one is applying for those jobs, then the pay is too low.

Is your interest in proving the Tories wrong or in improving health outcomes.

We have to improve health outcomes for our country. Too many people are unable to work because they can't get the health care they need because the NHS is broken. I wouldn't call it an interest.

I don't have to prove the Tories wrong. They have proven that themselves. In 2010 we had the best healthcare system in the world. 13 years of Tory governance has destroyed it.

Is your interest in improving health outcomes or trying to bolster Tory support?

What do you mean @EffortlessDesmond ? Stop playing rugby? Using trampolines? Eating cake? Reducing the speed limit by 10mph?

Colleague said UK is in decline. I see it every day. All roads lead back to Brexit. There is no doubt the lack of staff and visa red tape is a turn off to business investing here. And that has knock on effect. Plus work ethic and stupidity. Just look at the detectives this week bungling cases left right and centre, plus having scumbags in their midst. Dumb.

Unfortunately the pay is set nationally, and Jezza has said it’s not open for review. We have no leeway whatsoever to pay higher rates for hard to fill roles.

It's not just Brexit. It is low growth in the economy for over a decade.

Now we in the UK have to pay world prices for food and energy. We have no choice on that since we aren't self sufficient.

So prices have gone up, but incomes are stagnant for most. Ignore the top 10 per cent, and the rest are a lot poorer. It really isn't equal, it's a over a decade of low growth in wages and suddenly middle income families feel poorer. Well compared to France or Germany they are. And this effect just gets worse and worse the further down you are in terms of income.

The UK is rich. But it is very unequal in terms of income. That started years before Brexit.