mamadoc Tue 03-May-16 22:19:25
"Lanchester- I do wonder, very genuinely, what your interest is. You started this thread. You always comment in a similar vein on other NHS threads and you seem very angry with all NHS staff.
What is your agenda?"
I'm not sure what you mean by 'agenda'.
Unlike any Doctors and NHS Staff contributing to this thread -I have no personal financial interest in this issue - other than as a Citizen, Patient, and Taxpayer.
As a responsible member of society, I suppose I feel that there is a real problem in the UK with well paid elites hijacking the wealth in society causing polarisation and deprivation in society.
I think that Doctors increasingly are focusing on their personal compensation (money and benefits) to the detriment of their focusing on patient care.
Also, it must be pretty obvious to everyone who is paying attention to the world around them that as an organisation the NHS too often treats patients with considerable disrespect and lack of care and competence.
That does depend on the leadership in different units. Many are good, but more are poor.
This is having some devastating personal consequences for patients.
It is not ok.
The system needs fixing.
The BMA solution is 'More of the same'
i.e. more money if you please, lots of it , and now.
Labour chucked money at the NHS but the main difference people noticed is GPs getting wealthy.
Granted, the patient experience improved briefly with 'choose and book' but that seemed to fizzle out as an option.
The NHS Staff complain about "no payrises" but even at a time of "no payrises" they got their increments on the pay scale of between 1 and ? % PER YEAR.
0% payrise in the private sector actually means 0% and better not complain or you will be "let go", or whatever phrase might be used - to mean in effect "sacked".
So NHS Staff are beginning to feel defensive and concerned for their future.
They have come to expect better financial security than most,
and they are afraid and unwilling to lose any of it.
There is a rather outdated and offensive sense of entitlement amongst many doctors.
They have been brainwashed in a way by a system that tells them they are special from an early age.
SOME consultants are so arrogant that it is almost farcical - yet very dangerous for patients.
They seem to intimidate their more junior staff (from senior registrar downwards).
All that attitude is like something from the 1950's that should long ago have been swept away in the NHS. We want a modern effective service - not posturing and stupidity.
Also, it is rather annoying to hear young doctors talk about their years of hardship so far (i.e. since they got their A levels) and their sense of "despair" as 'it is so difficult to get nannies to cover hours when both partners are JDs on duty'. etc. etc.
They seem to feel that society OWED then a huge subsidy for their medical training but they seem to have little loyalty in return.
They sound quite young inexperienced and spoiled.
But its not really their fault because that is exactly what they are.
They will get older and wiser over the years.
JDs do work hard but lots of people in society workhard -e.g. factory workers working constantly rotating shifts early/ late/ night
for years
on low pay and in noisy wet and dangerous factory conditions - with none of the status or rewards or prospects of interesting work available to doctors.
JDs and also older Doctors are complaining about lack of autonomy.
Don't they realise that that is what working in most organisations in society entails, especially as an employee?
Even GP surgeries with a number of partners represents a lack of autonomy for each partner as compared to if that partner was working as a sole practitioner in a one doctor surgery , but there are obviously benefits from working in a partnership rather than as a sole practitioner despite all the "autonomy" that allows.
Those benefits are partly for the doctor but also for the patient - as for example there is (or should be) some mutual scrutiny of standards of care when doctors work together.
In the NHS there seems to be a pervasive culture of fear of speaking out when senior staff are not working safely, or have not put in place safe systems or working,
and there is a culture of coverup in the NHS where doctors and nurses will actually lie to cover up the truth so that no-one gets disciplined or sued.
Whistleblowers seem to be persecuted and so are rare and have to be brave people - (E.g. Nurse Donnelly at North Staffs)
Why then would more autonomy be a good thing?
So I could go on... but I have some other stuff to do - but anyway those are SOME of my reasons for taking an interest in the NHS and how it needs reforming.