To wish ATOS would leave me alone

Elegran, another short, to the point and spot on post

As well as the doctors, tax officials, benefit assessors etc, every social worker, probation officer and approved mental health worker would have to go. They're making tough decisions every day and are regularly accused of propping up imperfect systems.
Wanders off, singing And did those feet…...

You're right, guys, mass resignations are unlikely and probably not too helpful.
Has anyone else signed the CAB petition about stopping the practice of leaving people with no benefit at all?

I have, FarNorth.

Nobody needs to suggest that doctors resign. They are leaving in huge numbers anyway, and the trainees do not want to become GPs.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/education/trainees-shun-partnerships-in-favour-of-locum-work-or-emigration/20008406.article

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/home/stop-practice-closures/one-in-20-gps-considering-closing-their-practice-by-next-spring/20008370.article

Sorry, can't put two links on the same post.

Jen no-one is denying that there are huge problems within general medical practice, many of which are due to the ineptitude of this and previous governments, and some of which are due to the unrealistic demands and expectations of patients, which in turn are fuelled by politicians and the media. For example, the recent suggestion that GPs should be named and shamed for failing to diagnose cancer, even though it is not the job of GPs to make a definitive diagnosis of cancer.

However, grave though it is to think that as many as 1 in 20 GPs are thinking of leaving the NHS in the next six months, that is very far from a mass resignation.

The NHS has a virtual monopoly of the employment of doctors in this country. While doctors at the beginning of their career may have the choice of emigration, and doctors near the end of their working lives may have the choice of retirement, those in the middle who have made a financial commitment to their practices and have homes and families to support actually have little choice of employer. What choice would a GP working in a deprived area in the inner city, or a deprived rural area, really have?

Increasingly we are all suffering from the lies, incompetence and greed of a super-rich elite of powerful politicians, officials and, increasingly, get-rich-quick spivs all dipping deep into the trough of public funds. I'm not sure how we can get out of this spiral of deceipt now that just about all political parties are tainted. First they need to be cleaned up of the dross that has attached itself to the vitals of the body politic. We must remember that it was people-power that got rid of the despised poll-tax, then the arch-fiend Thatcher, and more recently prevented Cameron, the current loon-in-charge, of getting the country involved in more military madness in Syria. So there is hope when there is the strong desire to make things better. We must gather up our strength and resources to do just that.

I have read that Governments want more home ownership, so that men in particular are tied into their mortgages, so are less likely to have the time and inclination to rock the staus quo of the higher ups in power.
Not sure how true that is, but it makes sense.

And voters are voting UKIP to try and the main political parties.
I cant decide if that is sensible or out of the frying pan into the fire.

The first link is an interesting link for the likes of me who only has tenous links with staffing of the NHS.

How many % of trainees need to become GPS to keep the system going as it is?

IMO there is a conspiracy in place to destabilise and eventually destroy the nhs. They hit from several angles.

NICE have to take the costs into account when they look at new meds. If they say yes and it's expensive a campaign is run complaining at the cost. If they say no then the campaign declares that ill people are being denied meds that will help them.

The hospitals are understaffed at the sharp end so they can run 'patients left in corridors' and 'long wait time' stories. The cleaning budget has been slashed so they can also say hospitals are dirty.

GPs are attacked so that they leave. Surgeries close or amalgamate and waiting times for appointments increase.

The conspiracy originators can take it slowly but by a drip effect they will convince the general public that the nhs doesn't work.

It doesn't even need a conspiracy, vampirequeen Providing a National Health Service that is everything to everybody from cradle to grave costs vast amounts of input, in money and in time, skill, etc.

It is a sad fact of life that when something is free it is not valued, so instead of being the safety net that it was conceived as, it is expected by a lot of people that it will provide for every sniffle, every very minor injury, every sticking plaster, paracetamol tablet, laxative, all the bits and pieces that all housewives used to keep in their bathroom cabinet. People who would have dealt with this minor stuff themselves now visit the GP instead.

Everything is single-use and discarded. Use-by dates mean that much of what is thrown away is not even used first.

Add to that the improvements in medical care, the new diagnostic techniques and the expensive drugs and treatments that are available - all absolutely free at the moment of use - and both the costs of treatment and the amount of use that the system gets rise in an exponential curve.

Of course those responsible for funding it try to keep the costs down. Of course they try to stop "abuse" of the service. There is no bottomless well of cash. The whole situation gets more and more of a mammoth cats cradle all the time.

And the population in the UK is increasing. Not sure if it still is.
And definitely more people are living longer.

Let's take all this out of the dirty world of politics and set up a time-limited independent investigation into the NHS to recommend action to secure its future. The likelyhood of that happening is nil because those in power are rich and have access to private medical care so couldn't really care less. We only have to look across the Atlantic at the health system in the USA to see what awaits us if the NHS fails. A superb health service and massive profits for the wealthy and to hell with everybody else. That must not happen in the UK.

When I've spoken to Americans they think the the nhs is abominable and that usa health care wonderful. They deny that anyone in the us of a can't afford healthcare and were dead against Obama.
I sometimes worry about about Yankee friends

I have friends in various countries who can't afford medical treatment even though they desperately need it. It's appalling and so hard to see them suffer just because they're too poor to pay.

papaoscar

There was an article in one of the newspapers, Indie I think, from an American doctor who had believed all the misinformation put about in the US about the NHS at the time that ObamaCare was going through.

She came to the UK on holiday and one of her children (I think) had an emergency hospital admission. Her article was a paean of praise for the NHS, because she was overwhelmed by the speed and efficiency with which her child was treated and received the necessary specialist treatment without question of money and she compared what happened here with the much poorer service she would have got in the US.

American television is just one advert after another for different kinds of medication, telling the viewer to ask their doctor for it [there are then about 5 minutes of disclaimers] .

Not wishing to be horrible, but there was a news item on the telly last night about the epidemic of obesity facing this country. But the woman who was chairperson of the group being interwiewed [can't remember it's name] looked very overweight .

That reminds me of the practice nurse telling me I could do with losing about 5lbs while she stuffing her rather fat face with crisps, [I kid you not]

Just had a quick read of this thread. Fine, until I got to Saturday 8th.

Why is it always the same people on here who have to immediately jump on anyone they feel may have made a point which they consider to be howible!?

Why bother?

There doesnt seem to be any country in the world that comes that close to ours as regards healthcare of allits citizens.

Who are you referring to, jingle?
It's not like you to be vague.
You usually come out and 'tell it like it is'.

I spent a week in USA when Fox was rubbishing Obamacare. Time and again, the attack was against our 'socialised medicine'. I really wanted to go out on the street and show them the scars on my hip and shoulder and ask everyone if they could have got these replacements free of charge. Fortunately I didn't or I'd probably have been arrested.