Is the government trying to break the GP service?

Surely the only person who could say they have a 'vocation' to do anything (we hear the same about teaching and other various areas of service to the community) is the person doing it. If you say that any area is only open to those with a 'vocation' - which now seems to be defined as being prepared to work more hours for nothing and be paid less than your worth, I think you could quickly find yourself short of doctors, teachers, etc. It was those employing people in these areas have turned them into just a job. It seems relevant, when talking about vocations, to remind those who have talked down the people doing these jobs that "as you sow so shall you reap"

Rather than telling people doing these jobs as that they should have a vocation - an almost redundant term in our unfettered capitalist society - we should, perhaps be looking at how these people see it themselves. I believe most of them set out on the road to be a professional in their area. I also believe that the increasing need of government to micromanage all professionals (except banking and the city it appears) have tried to take this away and that this is a far more pertinent problem than any thought of vocations.

I think a vocation needs to at least have a few perks.
If there are any still in health and education, people can see that there may actually be more nowadays in other jobs.

It isnt of the junior doctor I know Anya.

[not sure if it makes any difference that he did a different degree before he went for medicine. Though for all I know he may not be in the minority on that.

He says that the title of being a doctor has, in his words "already lost it's shine" - he graduated June 2016.

I dont blame him. He is who he is, and the product of his generation.

He sees some of his peers, working in somewhat easier jobs with some I am pretty sure earning more money than him, and some are also both working and having fun, in definitely more "glamourous" locations than he is in.

It's the same with the education system and teachers too. It seems that everything that ought to be held dear, our Health and our Educational Services is being deliberately eroded.

Medicine is a vocation - that used to be indeed be true mumofmadboys but I'm not sure that's true of the new generation of doctors and nurses.

And indeed who can blame them if their attitude has hardened?

If the subject heading is true, why is the goverment not open about it?

Yes indeed Daphnedil we should be very, very worried. There are few savings that can be made on services to the young and middle aged. Few pennies by restricting IVF and tattoo removal....
Even if more older people can afford private medical insurance - and it gets more and more expensive the older you get - the private sector will be no help at all with many of the circumstances that leads to an elderly person needing emergency care. They do planned surgery and that's about it. They don't do heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia or any other urgent medical admissions.

Indeed, JessM! Something like 80% of NHS funding goes on over 75s. It's to be celebrated that we spend money on the elderly rather than leaving nature to take its course when people become frail.

However, make no mistake about it! It's not health tourism, inefficient management, paying too much for pencils etc where big saving can be found. If the NHS is serious about saving money, it will have to make cuts in services to people who cost the most. That's you, me and anybody else who's made it to the last years of our lives.

Ah! I hadn't realised that. In that case, it's relatively easy to work out how many jobs will go. It's not the cutting of bed numbers, or even the wards to house the beds, which will save money - but the number of staff needed for those beds. So jobs are being axed at a time when the demands on the NHS have never been greater.

www.healthcampaignstogether.com/STPplans.php

All 44 now, daphne.

Yorkshiregal it makes me wonder how they get away with bare faced lies. They are not going to suddenly make it alright in 2020. They are well aware that there is an inevitably increasing demand because of the post war "baby boomers" getting to the stage of their lives when they start to need a lot more medical care. It's long been the case that if you wander around a hospital the vast majority of patients in most wards will be very old. But instead of expanding the number of beds and increasing funding in order to cope, Jeremy Hunt has been cutting beds and restricting funding.
I can only conclude that he is doing this deliberately because he wants to drive the NHS into mediocrity.

I expect you've heard of STPs. Clinical Commissioning Groups have been ordered to make savings. So far, only some of them have produced plans. All of them have included removing beds, which means cutting staff. The actual number of staff to be cut hasn't been officially quantified, so it could be scare-mongering, but somehow I doubt it. The number of midwives, district nurses and mental health nurses has already been cut significantly over the last six years.

To be fair, medical students don't pay fees for 7 years. The NHS pays for some of them. Medical students actually get a good deal, because the fees are the same as for other students, but their courses cost much more. Students of English, Humanities, etc are subsidising them.

The difference is that medical students will probably pay back more than most other students, because they are likely to earn more over their working lives.

I don't think the fees have much to do with the disillusion. It's more to do with the contract which has been foisted on junior doctors, registration fees, re-accredition and hitting targets.

How do you work out that foreign-trained doctors are paid less? As far as I know, there's a standard salary. The saving comes from the training, which obviously costs the NHS nothing.

Daphnedill, that report about nurses is truly frightening....if true. You know how papers like to exaggerate to make a headline grabbing story. So the Government pretends to value the NHS, and then you see stories such as this one. Makes you wonder doesn't it.

I was listening to PM Question time today and it seems to be the norm to promise the earth ..... but it will not take affect until 2020. If this Government loses the Election they will not need to keep their promises to the NHS because they will no longer be in office. Like Nick Clegg said 'What you can promise when out of office is not what you can promise when you are in office.' Manifesto are not worth the paper they are written on.

Look what happened to tuition fees. Doctors must have been gutted with the deal they got, as must have nurses too.

It isn't just the amount of studying that doctors have to do to qualify, it is the expense too. 7yrs training does not come cheap. Who wants a debt like that hanging round your neck until you are collecting your pension?

I think it is not surprising that people are turning away from the medical profession. The reason people from abroad were recruited (whether they could speak proper English or not, which I think is very dangerous) is because they were prepared to work for less money.

Twice when I went to Australia I was taken ill and had to see a doctor. Both of them were Irish. They got out of the system in UK as soon as they could. Now they are living the good life along with a lot of their Irish friends.

It's very worrying that applications for GP training are down. The majority of the GP's in our practice who are reaching retirement age are the children of doctors. Our GP's children went to local schools and are a similar age to ours. A proportion followed their parents by studying medicine, none of those 30 plus year olds want to be GP's. We have one young GP who is 29, he's working as a locum at the practice but told me he doesn't want a permanent post because of all the admin/management stuff that would accompany the post. That is an issue in teaching, social work, nursing etc. piles of forms to complete which take up more time than face to face client contact.
Will the government never back off and leave the professions to run themselves, responsibly?

It's worse than that. The promise was for £10 billion, but £3.5 billion was to come from public health spending (now the responsibility of local authorities) and training (hence student nurse fees).

Yes daphnedil some of us remember Cameron spouting that he was going to "give" the NHS an extra $8 billion (I think it was by 2020) - but in the next breath saying airily that the NHS was required to make "efficiency savings" of £22 billion.
I was somewhat disappointed that his political opponents did not do the simple sums. That's a massive cut of £14 billion. And what does the bulk of the NHS budget get spent on? Salaries, that's what.

nhap.org/brand-nhs-your-global-healthcare-provider/

It doesn't really matter where nurses are trained or what nationality they are, because it appears they're not going to be employed anyway...

www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/16/7000-nurses-could-face-axe-secret-nhs-plans/

And they would need more to replace the projected retirements. But applications for GP training are down not up. It just feels like Jeremy Hunt wants to reduce the NHS in England to a shambles so that he gets his wish of a major boost to private health businesses.
He's just sold a business for a fortune. Don't suppose he'd like to retire and enjoy his dosh would he?

'Medicine is a vocation.'
I had thought of that too, but you should know,
mumofmadboys.
I remember David Cameron saying 'we're going to train 4000 more doctors' or something like that. And thinking, oh yes? and where are you going to find 4000 people willing and able to be trained, studying for at least 5 years, ++?

Medicine is a vocation. No- one would choose to work so hard otherwise. While I agree doctors earn a reasonably good income it is not excessive for the studying, working and stress involved.

I think we all would wobblybits if we thought it would do any good. But don't anybody dismiss "non-urgent" surgery just because it is not an emergency. It can be life altering, can prevent emergency surgery and if you are having a lifesaving procedure better to have an ICU or "Recovery" bed available and a surgical team who have not been on their feet for 36 hours.
We would all give up our place in the queue if we could influence the outcome for others, but it is rarely in our gift to do so.