24/7 NHS

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chief-executive-of-firm-accused-of-ripping-off-nhs-on-staffing-is-a-tory-donor-10301423.html

I do not think I need to add anything to this. The link title is self-explanatory.
Except of course to laugh at the idea that the Tory party say it's all above board. They really do think we are stupid.

"What GPs want, according to the recent BMA survey is more time with patients, with 80% ranking continuity of care as essential. They said they needed more core funding, longer consultation times and a reduction in bureaucracy. GPs are attempting to practice relationship-based, patient-centred care in an increasingly performance and guideline-centred NHS. This is in the interests of neither GPs nor patients."

From the opendemocracy link.
I think this is what patients want, too. Shame it will not happen under Hunt.

If there are 11 doctors in the practice now, that does not make them part-time. It means they can do a normal working week, surely.
I must admit, I do not know how many doctors there are in my practice. I just refuse to see anyone but the one I know now. A few months ago, I took a phone call from one I did not know and ended up having to go for a totally unnecessary scan because the guidelines said so. That would not have happened if I'd been able to see my GP.

durhamjen- yes OH is very happy to be out of this mess. But also very very sad and disappointed, as he truly believed in the NHS and was totally dedicated to it- and refused time and again to go into private practice.

Sad that it has gone from sublime to ridiculous- with many young doctors not seeing medicine as a 'vocation'. The practice, for the same number of patients, has gone from 4.5 doctors to about 11... all more or less part-time- and patients not knowing who is who or have any long-term relationship with patients. He worked an 80 hr week until he retired aged 62.

This is what GPs want.

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/jonathan-tomlinson/general-practice-after-general-election

No I do not. I read www.pulsetoday.co.uk

Many people do not understand because we are not told.
If I want to find out something about GPs, I read www.pulsetoday.com
I imagine you and your husband breathe huge sighs of relief on reading what is happening now, that you are out of it.

One thing that was mostly not understood- is that although nurses, policemen, firemen, etc- worked on a shift system- doctors did not. OH worked 140 hours (yes, absolutely true) when he was a houseman in 1969 and not much less for the next few years. A doctor that worked a night shift or a week-end shift, would do so ON TOP OF HIS/HER VERY LONG HOURS. I remember when OH worked a day, a night and a day... before having a night off, and back to work again on similar 3 days and 1 night shift again.... It was madness.

And as a GP, he was on a 1 night in 4, or 1 night in 3 when a partner was away or on hols, on top of normal working hours, as well as 1 whole qweek-end in 4 or 3. A night on call could be quiet if you were very lucky, but often meant being up 2 or 3 or more times to go on visits all over the place (including me of course as I then had to (wo)man the phone... despite not having any medical training at all (and unpaid of course- in those days a doctors wife/husband could not have a job themselves for that reason).

That was accepted as par for the course, but I can truly understand that young doctors do NOT want to sacrifice their life, their couple and their family to the job- and want to have a work/life balance.

Did anyone else laugh today when they heard Simon Stevens complain about nursing agencies ripping off the NHS?

Looks like we do not want 24/7 NHS or at least GPs.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/access/pms-seven-day-gp-pilot-drastically-reduces-sunday-opening-amid-frequently-empty-appointments/20010023.article

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/david-wrigley/and-on-seventh-day-cameron-created-7day-nhs

It appears that Conservatices started PFIs and Labour embraced them when they came to power.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peterborough-hospital-pfi

My example is not about them spending it wisely. Well actually, I suppose it is. How interesting.

PFI started in 1992. Who was in power in 1992? Easy to work out who started it.

Pleased you are not in politics, soon, if you think running the country is like running an office.
Although your example does sound very Tory. Do not give poor people any more money as they will not spend it wisely.

dj - the way Labour chooses to run the economy, and how it has chosen to run it when it is in power, is obvious to see to many voters.
It is like when you work in a large office, and the same employees start running out of money half way through each month, even though they are getting the same sort of salary as others in the same office. And even if their salaray increases, they still start running out of money half way through the month. It is their philosophy.

From google, I cant work out who started PFI. It seems to have been embraced by both parties.

Well said, JessM. Like you, I get tired of Labour being blamed for the poor state of the economy and PFI, when they were left an appalling legacy by Thatcher and Major.

Sorry loopyloo it was the Tories that started PFI during the Major government in 1992.
In 1997 the Blair government inherited thousands of schools and hospitals that had been badly maintained and were no longer fit for purpose. Labour had a choice:
1. continue to let school and hospitals slowly disintegrate and let the staff struggle on in outdated buildings or
2. try to get a rebuilding programme underway - after 18 years of neglect.
I remember when I was first a school governor the school was in truly appalling state. School budgets had been cut to the bone with no spare cash for any building maintenance, let alone replacement building.
But the cost of so much urgently needed rebuilding could not easily be met. If they were to try to catch up they would have to have some PFI projects or put up taxes significantly, or run up a big debt. They poured money into buildings and PFI helped to fund a part of this building programme but by no means all of it.
Most schools did get improved or rebuilt during the Labour years. Many new hospital buildings can be seen around the country, projects started during the Labour years.

Labour's bright idea of PFI started the escalating hospital debts, one local DGH was struggling long before the coalition government was in place.

The fact is that there is an ageing population, people with previously life-limiting conditions are living longer, and a system now over 70 years old can't meet the demands on it.

A hell of a lot of Labour supporters have clearly demonstrated, whether you like it or not, that they had no confidence that their Party would be able to govern the country. That's blatantly obvious who voted these people in dj !

£30 billion black hole by 2020, I think they said. But if they do not give them the £8 billion to help fill it, the hole will get bigger. Never worked out whether it was both each year or just giving them the £8 billion each year.

The Tories will tell us that the only way out will be to sell it to private healthcare companies.
Who voted these people in?

Because they are in a financial mess - a mess that has got a lot worse on their watch and they have made a whole long list of electoral promises they never thought they would have to deliver on. Osborne has not got £8billion tucked up his sleeve.
In election debate PM referred to the £8billion but in the same breath referred to the "efficiency savings" - the NHS needs to make. Demand has gone up, workforce planning has gone belly up, causing vast amounts to be spent on agency staff and nobody knows what is going to happen.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/22/nhs-needs-emergency-cash-care-could-suffer-ministers-told

The government said it would give the NHS an extra £8 billion a year in the election promises.
Why does it not give it a billion now, to cover this? It makes sense to me that you put the money in at the beginning of the year rather than the end, otherwise all the money will be eaten up with interest charges.

Lilygran, not where I was; it wasn't unusual for the rota to have 6 consecutive days including nights followed by one day off. Because it was averaged out over the month you did get 8 days off but only guaranteed two together once a month so very difficult to plan anything.

All this may have originated in the stats that if you are an emergency admission you get less good care at weekends. Dealing with that problem might make sense but responding by saying everyone and everything must be 24/7 is just plain stupid.
As is Hunt saying it is all going to happen without paying any more at weekends and without incurring extra costs. You can tell that some of these politicians have never managed anything in the real world.

I believe a lot of hospital staff do 3 shifts then 3 days off. Or something like that. I'm told that nurses and midwives join agencies because they can't get flexible posts in hospitals. Also thousands of people wanting to train as nurses are turned down every year because the universities don't have the capacity. And the same applies to medicine.

I didn't realise that 12 hour shifts are the norm. How many 12 hour shifts do nurses have to do in a row?

I honestly think that the majority of people can't work effectively for that length of time and I should think by the end of the working week nurses must be exhausted. Perhaps younger nurses with no family commitments can manage OK but I would imagine nurses with children or older nurses would find it very difficult.

I agree with when that women can be too accommodating and it is about time that they got together and challenged this crazy system - for the sake of themselves and for their patients. (I reaslise there are male nurses but they are in the minority - in general nursing at least).