Unless Labour stand up to the public, we will never have functioning services

[Rainbowsponge]

Which, obviously, will never happen.

Anybody who works in a public service - schools, NHS, any government department - will tell you the public have become more entitled, more aggressive, and are absolutely bombarding them with their rights to complain, have decisions double checked, have their case reviewed again, call meetings, and so on.

You only need to read on here the sort of minor incident a parent will then hop onto their emails and bombard their child’s teacher with messages about. It takes them 2 minutes to fire off an angry email, but this then sparks a chain of events which takes the teacher a long time (in addition to all their other work) to sort out and go through the relevant processes.

So, AIBU to think rather than throwing more money at bloating the systems, the government need to give people in public facing roles more powers to simply refuse to engage with trivial or irrelevant complaints?

It would also have the effect of allowing people to focus on their actual jobs and therefore reduce waiting lists, backlogs and so on. It feels like this culture of expecting instant and endless interaction from public servants is breaking the system as much as the underfunding.

But the level of support expected is wildly unrealistic in some cases and literally not enforceable. It’s not a choice because you can’t do it.

Lost marble obviously a good Senco is worth their weight in gold but I've seen good Senco implement strategies and teachers not understanding them, taking them as a perosnal insult or just ignoring them.
Small things like having a get out of class card.

What support are you talking about op.

A ‘get out of class’ card is not a small thing and is not easily manageable when you are teaching a class…

I don’t want this to become a debate about SEN because that seems to be the direction every thread takes on here. But for example there’s a boy at DD’s school whose ‘adjustment’ is that he never has to queue or wait for anything, he gets everything first and if he hits another student he gets to leave the classroom and go to the ‘sensory room’. If half the children had this adjustment the class would be chaos wouldn’t it?

But the level of support expected is wildly unrealistic in some cases and literally not enforceable.

What is wildly unrealistic in your view? And if it’s not down to the schools, how to do expect sen children to have an education? And finally, it is enforceable if the child has an EHCP, legally so.

You are unreasonable encase who gets to decide what is or is not a trivial complaint. That's opinion and is often emotional and depends on people's needs and all kinds of factors.

Instead it would be better to address why the public is complaining so much - which is that people are stressed out, burnt out, and not having their needs met with their mental health, their physical health, their financial health. Addressing those things would make people more resilient to life stesses and therefore are less likely to go from 0 to angry and more likely to take a calmer and reasoned response to an issue that has arisen.

Well, yes, if you had 5 students with this all coming and going it would be a nightmare in terms of supervision, fire drills, ensuring they caught up on missed work, other children wanting the same and so on.

There has certainly been a huge shift in behaviour and attitudes in the last 30 odd years. Behaviours of children and the attitude of parents towards teachers, not supporting proper discipline in schools. Teachers having to be social workers, nannies etc trying to teach while doing the parents jobs.
The nanny state has crept in over the years, nobody expected to take responsibility for their own stupidity. The compensation culture hasn't helped matters, although it has its place in society, its burgeoned
out of control imho.
The police have had to take on a nurse maid role, taking pissheads who have fallen over to A&E and wasting many hours sat with them instead of out policing the streets.
A few years back you would be told to hire a taxi, buggar off home and sleep it off. Now they are expected to be nannied because of their own stupid behaviour.
The lax attitude to weed, any town centre at any time of day the all pervading stench of weed.
The sharp rise in mental health problems jn the youth. Refer to paragraph above.
Out of control benefits culture, as a lifestyle choice rather than a necessity.
Looking at you Tony B
Oh and last but not least, the biggest biggie, smart phones and social media!!

He doesn’t have to queue because if he was made to it would have a worse effect on the children around him. If he’s not taken to a sensory room, he would not be able to adequately calm. He has these adjustments because he has a disability. Or are you also one of these people who thinks that people in wheelchairs shouldn’t get priority on buses as well? ‘It’s not fair I have to fold my pushchair to make room for someone who needs the space more’ …

It is legally enforceable with an EHCP and the process to get an EHCP has to be thorough and have stringent criteria, but just see threads on here for examples of applying and appealing for an EHCP for all manner of small reasons. I say this as a parent of a child with an EHCP.

Schools letting down Sen children because they don’t want to pay the first £££ before applying. Schools who excuse all behaviour behind Sen sorry Suzie keeps getting hurt but Sen/child in care 🤷🏻‍♀️

The first £££ is called notional funding which means that it doesn’t exist in reality. Therefore it cannot be spent on anything. It’s not schools letting the children. It’s the national and local governments who are being disingenuous about this and causing conflict between parents and school SEND teams.

Well yes, increasing sen in schools is becoming a bigger issue. Thats why schools need to remodel, some now have adjoining sen bases. It’s not going away though. As for other children wanting to do the same - you do a disservice to these children. One thing I have been told and have seen for myself is how much more understanding of ND children other kids in the classroom are.

Yes, and GDPR rights. What terrible weapons they are in the hands of irritant complainers. Lord knows what the cost to the public services of FOI and GDPR has been.

Even Blair accepted he’d got FOI wrong.

An independent review released earlier this year determined that the current benefits system is so brutal that it's pushed tens of thousands with health conditions into applying for PIP and LCWRA so they don't have to deal with the stress of the job centre.

These are applicants who have legitimate conditions, but previously would have just muddled through, trying to work in some capacity. Making things harder for claimants has actually cost the gov't millions more. 👏

It’s not about the adjustment it’s about how many adjustments are reasonably enforceable.

As an NHS nurse I was talking to my colleagues about this last week. We have noticed a huge increase in the abuse we take. I have been sworn at and threatened so many times in this past week. I work on an elective/emergency surgical ward. I have had enough.
If the patient/relative is scared and in pain of course we understand and go with it but, it is the demand for extras transport/paracetamol/walkers lightly salted/softer towels/bigger meals.
These people can be horrible and then say it is not directed at you but, of course it makes us wary of dealing with that patient/relative. We can't help but take some of it personally.

We have patients who monopolise staff time with their complaints and demands, this means we can't help others. These people will scream and shout and swear and upset other patients.

I am quite confident and not easily scared and will stand up when patients are being rude to my staff and the Drs ( I am a sister) but it is draining. We ask for help from seniors and they come down with a leaflet to warn and issue yellow cards 🤨. They don't talk to the patient/relative of course that is on us.
Luckily security is brilliant but it takes time for them to reach us by this time a patient had smashed a tv/hand sanitiser off the wall and thrown something at another patient.

I know the NHS is not delivering what is needed and people are being let down, if I find a patient like I do all I can to escalate and resolve it as it is unacceptable. But nurses, are left to deal with all shortcomings, Drs refuse to prescribe or the pharmacy refuses to issue but, we have to tell the patient. Likely these professionals have good reason not to but they don't tell the patient to their face.

As a parent of teens I also see the same problem with teachers. My 16 year old dd has been badly let down and I have tried to get help. I know the staff work hard and there are limited resources but no one will help, respond to emails. It is a big mess.

Public expectations need to be managed. Points can be made without being aggressive and rude, having said that these people often get What they need as no one will deal with them 🤷.

What do you think is reasonable to enforce when it comes to meeting the needs of disabled children? With fully understanding what their disability is? Because you don’t seem to believe that they should have adjustments that avoid triggering meltdowns and therefore affecting everyone, and you don’t seem to think teachers should speak to parents about their views on reasonable adjustments and support needs for their children to help them be an equal part of their classroom.

Oh deer, oh dear.

It's the all or nothing school of thought.

It would be extremely unusual for many students to have exactly the same needs in one class and the same strategies to deal with the needs in the same class

All this could be solved with a mandatory training program run in school.

I don’t thInk OP is talking about disabled children. These adjustments are being demanded by more than half the class in many instances. It isn’t sustainable or manageable.

Can you give examples of how ‘half the class’ requires adjustments even without sen needs?

But teachers never used to email parents.

Communications have totally changed.

Although we're unable to email teachers at my dcs schools. There is only an office email.

I think the infuriating thing with public services is the gap between what you are entitled to- statutory services- and what you actually get. So, the govt write all sorts of standards and entitlements to services for, say, dental services, children with an EHCP or those in care, but there is no infrastructure or adequate funding to support this. So people have a sense they should get something and then the services have the shitty job of not being able to deliver it.

They need to stop giving teachers’ email addresses to parents. If something is that important, get in touch with the school office and do it through them.

Couldn’t agree with you more. How do you think a government can tackle attitudes though? It’s a tricky one.