What do NHS staff think about the Tory NHS plans?

[fedup21]

Will this actually solve any of the current problems?

Would it be better to scrap the nursing tuition fees or would that be too expensive? Were there still huge recruitment problems when nursing was free to train?

I’m sure the Tory plans for education (I’m a teacher) will be just as nonsensical, but just wondering if anyone thought these plans for health have any redeeming qualities?

No redeeming qualities at all. The tory Party is responsible for the staffing crisis that we currently have in the NHS as the whole brexit fiasco is solely down to them. Trying to fix it by recruiting more staff from overseas is unethical as they usually recruit in developing and underresourced countries by attracting staff with higher wages than they can earn at home. It is not ethical to poach staff from these countries to make up for the fact that our own population are put off applying for these careers due to high uni costs, low wages and hard working conditions.

Hmmm, I suspected as much!

We've always recruited nurses and doctors from overseas, and will continue to do so as we cannot train enough ourselves. They need to reestablish a bursary and make it easier to train our own staff. Don't forget when you talk about the ethics of recruiting from overseas, many U.K. trained health care professionals train here and relocate overseas. It simply needs more money spent on it.

I wish I could find the link..... I will keep looking. But this is not just a UK problem. Pretty much all health systems across the EU and in places like Australia and Canada are experiencing issues with staffing health roles. We have always recruited from aboard, especially ex-colonial countries. Australia tries to get UK staff to go there, we try to get their staff to come here, it's a bit bonkers really. However, recently, it has been more difficult to issue VISA's for Australians or South Africans, I suppose that might change post Brexit.

Were there still huge recruitment problems when nursing was free to train?
Recruitment to university nursing courses has been severely reduced since the bursaries were removed. Bear in mind, too, that because of the requirement to do placements, it's not so easy for students in healthcare to get casual jobs while they do their degrees.

I've been involved in a research project about emotional labour and wellbeing in nursing and it's not just recruitment that's causing issues. Retention is a massive problem, too.

We need to open more medical schools in the UK. My DD is desperate to study medicine and it's almost impossible to get a place.

At the start of the NHS we had to import nurses and doctors. I know because my mum was one of them. It can't run without imported staff because there aren't ever enough Uk people to keep it running.

Basically there is a global shortage of healthcare professionals coupled with increasing demand in healthcare. So any country that isn't trying to grow their own talent (as well as recruit abroad) is going to lose out. The NHS always got lots from abroad due to the high standards of training but any barriers to working in the UK (permits etc) won't help.

This seems like a good place to post the following article:

www.opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/what-did-jeremy-hunt-do-to-the-nhs-and-how-has-he-got-away-with-it/

hahahaha... One of the PTA accounts I took over, follows (since before I took it over) NHS Million, a twitter account that is not, er, very complimentary about the Tories & Brexit etc. 490k followers.

Few screenshots.

This seems like a good place to post this from another thread.

I think what he says is pithy and accurate. All the NHS staff I know say the state of hospitals and understaffing is horrifying. All my friends and neighbours who work in London hospitals say there has been an agenda for the slow dismantling of the NHS. This has accelerated under the current government especially since the The Health and Social Care Act 2012.

I don't think that the government have been open about it, and I just wish they would be.

Obviously most NHS staff and experienced practitioners are biased and want to keep it free at point of use- who would want to be responsible for eventually turning some patients without insurance away?

But I want to understand the underlying new Tory arguments because knowingly or unknowingly the electorate are supporting them in this dismantling. So far I've come up with:

• why Shouldn't Healthcare be left to individuals with more freedom of choice?

•Healthcare might become more efficient if providers compete more with one another rather than a monopoly?

•A state-upheld monopoly in health care gives the state too much control over what and who are treated?

•The 10% expenditure of GDP on the NHS isn't enough to sustain its needs which are increasing and this much GDP is unsustainable?

•Why should higher rate taxpayers carry such a burden of state provision when most other countries don't provide free healthcare like we do and have done for decades?

•The NHS is already a failing project with people in corridors etc - a privatised system would be more efficient and streamlined?

•The NHS minimises alternative holistic remedies, a less state controlled system could be more individual and responsive to holistic and homeopathic treatments?

Are there any other anti NHS arguments out there? I'd respect politicians and canvassers more if they'd just be honest about their alternative vision.

We need to open more medical schools in the UK. My DD is desperate to study medicine and it's almost impossible to get a place.

One of the problems the U.K. has is that it's hard to open new training places if there are not enough doctors to teach students and supervise placements safely.

None of these arguments are new. Most of this was being said in 1970

The problem is the NHS Cannot continue in the way it is operating.

It treats too many conditions, people expect to much from it - it was never set up to be all things to everyone.

My mother was asked to sit on a patient panel at the GP and quit after a year because everytime something was suggested to solve a problem - the answer was "we can't do that".

If something is free, people don't value it.

There is no penalty for people who book GP appointments they dont need and then don't turn up, who expect paracetamol on prescription because its free and abuse A&E services.

We run to the health services these days at the first sign of illness expecting a magic pill to fix it. Even on here, the umber of times people say "oh, go take the little one to the doctors or get yourself checked out - just in case" when in the past we'd have had the common sense to watch and wait for it to turn out to be nothing.

It cannot continue this way and chucking ever more tax money at it won't solve it. We could put the entire GDP of this country at the NHS and it would still run out of money.

And yet other European countries spend a little bit more, as a % of GDP, and manage to offer a much better service.

The NHS, up until very recently, ranked top in the world for value for money.

source

When people say "It can't carry on like this" you have to ask, who is making it fail, and who benefits from pushing the message that it has to be radically changed to survive?

Theresa May's govt announced in May 2019 that it would annually recruit 5000 nurses from abroad, up from about 1600 in each of the previous yrs.

5000-1600 = 3400
5 x 3400 = 17,000 (5 yrs of next Tory govt)
Number of 'extra' nurses Tories just announced they would recruit from abroad =.... 14k.

Manifesto announcement is the same Frigging announcement May's govt. did in May 2019, they just re-announced it & made it more realistic, coz frankly, 5000/yr was very unrealistic Grrrrr.

There was coverage back in May, too, about how UK shouldn't drain LMICs of qualified HCP.

There is no penalty for people who book GP appointments they dont need and then don't turn up,
I am quite sure that a persistent no show person could be thrown off the doctors list.

Who expect paracetamol on prescription because its free and abuse A&E services.We run to the health services these days at the first sign of illness expecting a magic pill to fix it. Even on here, the umber of times people say "oh, go take the little one to the doctors or get yourself checked out - just in case" when in the past we'd have had the common sense to watch and wait for it to turn out to be nothing.

Some things need checking out - a suspected lump for example, and GPs are usually happy to see children. They would much rather see a child with a rash and reassure a parent that it's not meningitis than have it ignored.

While you are about it, please tell us too that you can't get appointments because immigrants are clogging up the services.

@Peregrina

That’s a little harsh! The poster has a fair point. Lack of money isn’t the problem with the NHS. The problem is with middle management, passing the buck, too many people with different roles, time-wasters, too much being paid for by the NHS and so on.

Personally I don't think it's harsh. I do think the NHS needs a proper review, but selling it off to the US is not a review. I do think that the admin is pretty crummy - my family have had a lot of recent contact with the NHS and time and again they have said that they can't fault the medical/nursing/midwifery staff, but that the admin leaves much to be desired. As for too much being paid by the NHS - no, we have a good system of keeping the cost of drugs down, which is one reason why the US pharma firms don't like it. But we have had stupid Tory reforms which have been money wasters....

DH is an NHS surgeon.

There’s a major consultant shortage among the general medic shortages and hospitals are regularly failing to recruit consultants (up to 40% of cases) including cancer specialists.

Exacerbated by the fact that only 15% or so of consultants can be persuaded to take jobs in hospitals in rural or coastal areas, they want to work in towns and cities.

There are 4 or 5 medical schools opening across the country but that’s only around 1000-1500 places, when NHS England is short of around 10,000 doctors.

I work in General Practice and agree with everything @ACautionaryTale has said

@Peregrina. We can remove persistent no -shows or abusive patients but they have to go somewhere so they get allocated to another local practice until they get removed and so it continues till we get them allocated back!

Not sure what your DH being a NHS surgeon has to do with your post.

I think we are agreeing, peregrina. I’m simply saying PP didn’t imply that they thought immigrants are clogging the NHS so it’s unfair to suggest that they were.

@plaintainchips The title of the thread asks what NHS staff think of Tory plans...