"A tragic death due to over demand and under capacity"

I see the workmen in every house near me nowadays, maybe they have improved their performance but I certainly did not get much in the way of repairs. My kitchen in the house I now live in was 30 years old when the council replaced them for my neighbours I had bought the house so I left it till I could afford it. The fences are run down and people end up with pushing things like baby gates and odd bits of wood to prop them up. I have had a section of my fence done but it will take years to do all of it.
Not all council houses are grotty, many are well looked after but with the new rules where they are now on year long contracts many people just don't bother if they are to move on.
Several years ago the council modernised the one I used to live in, starting on 15th DEcember, they stripped the kitchen and bathrooms, then systematically sent workmen to do what was needed. I spend xmas with a pile of unfinished cupboards and ate my xmas dinner sitting on a bag of cement, there was a hole in the wall and the electric went off with a bang on xmas eve ruining my turkey cooking in the electric oven. (happy days).

We bought the Council house we have lived in for ten years, because it was so spacious as compared to say the Victorian conversions in our area in a similar price range.

There are young mums with babies in the flats in the Council building across from our home, and I am amazed at the constant stream of workmen that are in and out of their flats doing up kitchens, bathrooms, painting and decorating and so on.

The assumption that Council = grotty is annoying. I've never had such a lovely kitchen for example as I have in this house. Our neighbours are great (apart from one, but you'd get that anywhere).

The thing I am noticing about doctors (posh or not posh) is that they are all so young
Like policemen.

Or is it just that I am getting older? All the GPs my age or even just a bit younger in our practice - the ones who know us - have retired or are retiring.

Doesn't everyone end up with a car cylinder block on their kitchen table?

My council house(not the one I bought) was grotty. durhamjen, we were not allowed to do any repairs so I just got used to things being broken as the council took so long to fix small items. My late DH was a maintainence engineer and could fix anything he would have done so but it just wasn't allowed.
As for room, there wasn't room to swing a cat. we had 2 up 2down, no dining room, playrooms etc. Our living room was where we ate, watched tv, played and did all our leisure activities. It was impossible to read if DH was watching tv etc. The kitchen was so narrow you could touch both sides with arms open. There were not enough cupboards, no walk in cupboards, brooms, vacuum, tins paint, chemical were piled up in the hallway. The bathroom was squashed under the stairs in a cupboard sized room with the low roof a hazard. The whole house was black with mildew. The council could not fix that. The bedrooms were decent sized but no storage, I had knitting, quilts making, fretwork, model making stuff piled on the floor and in DD room toys were just everywhere.
The worst bit was every room leading into another, just no privacy.
The huge garden was a jungle and the council refused to clear it so it took ages to get a lawn laid and borders made. I understand why so many people just neglect their council houses. We also had a car so car items were laid on the floor in the kitchen too.

Quite Bags
Also my pre registration year I worked a 7 day week with two nights off and 1 1/2 days alternate weekends. I spent my time off asleep. For this I was paid the magnificent sum of £800 pa. Accommodation was a tiny room with a 2' 6" wide single bed, a chair and a wardrobe. This was in an old workhouse and we had shared washing, toilet and bathing facilities.
There was no overtime or time off in lieu. You just worked as long was needed, no agreed working hours.

That was in Jesmond, posh Newcastle.

One student house my eldest son lived in was condemned by the council so the owner paid the students to move out rather than make the improvements.

etheltbags, have you ever been in a house occupied by medical students? If you had, you'd know that many of them know exactly what slumming it is. The medical student houses I've been in (including the one my brother lived in) have been, in a word, squalid. I think you are making too many assumptions.

A lot of the council houses I used to visit as a GP were very spacious, as was my grand mothers's.
The OAP bungalows, on the other hand were very cramped.

As I said, ethel, my husband was an architect. Most council houses were not grotty. They were designed to Parker Morris standards which gave tenants more room per occupant than private housing. Even flats were built to the same standards up until Thatcher came in and started selling them off.
We did live in council houses for a year, six months in Peterborough, and six months on Bransholme estate in Hull. Both houses had more room than the equivalent private house in the same area. The reason we moved then was because council housing was for those who could not afford to buy, and we could afford to buy.
Loose door handles are a problem of the tenant who lives in the house. As a private householder, any loose door handles would have to be fixed by my husband or, now, by myself.
I can use a screwdriver as well as anyone. I can replace door handles if need be. Why could you not do so?

Its difficult to get across what I am trying to say. I think that if someone has come from a privileged background they might not understand the fears/problems/social deprivations that someone might face who is not so well off.
Example ; I had a health visitor who came to my house to check DD progress at a particular milestone, I happened to say she was very naughty, the HV said to apply 'time out', which in the 90s was a popular means of punishment for naughty children. She explained I must put her in a room alone for just a few minutes until the tantrum expired. OK. I asked which room, 'oh put her in the dining room', I explained I did not have a dining room, 'then put her in the kitchen', I refused knowing that in the kitchen my DD could do untold damage where there were hot taps, a hot hob etc. The HV then suggested put her in the hall but as the hall led to the kitchen and bathroom that was a no no too. This suggests to me that the HV was a lady who assumes that everyone had nice spare spaces such as a dining room or rooms that had door handles that worked, my door handles were all loose and every door opened at a push. I tried putting DD in her bedroom but she insisted on throwing pictures, toys, bedding down on my head, The HV gave up after that. The time out theory does not work in a grotty council house.
This HV had obviously no real life experience

ethel You seem to be saying that young professionals should experience life at the bottom, so that when they are faced with a patient or client with a particular postcode they can make certain assumptions about them.
Good clinicians do not judge their patients; they listen to them, hear what they are saying, treat them and try to understand them as individuals and empathise with them.
Patients who live in deprived areas are not all the same, with the same outlook on life and the same opinions.
Nor are people in middle-class areas.

I'm sorry that you have obviously been very unfortunate in all the doctors and nurses you have come across in your life.
I certainly don't recognise your descriptions.

You can be at the bottom but not on zero hours contracts and living in a slum.
My husband was an architect. It takes seven years to train, like a doctor.
You've obviously got a very rich friend if she can afford to buy her son a house in a nice part of town. I hope she lives in a nice house herself.

durhamjen good idea, for lawyers, don't know much about architects but I also think social workers would benefit too. They will never stop zero hours or get rid of sink estates, there will always be someone at the bottom.

That medical student was not the norm.

No absent what I meant was that during their training for maybe a year or so they should live like ordinary people and work for low pay, most students do this anyway. They should be learning to live like normal families with kids running around their gardens, drunks hanging around/druggies lurching all over etc . They would see normal life. After all patients are very good at hiding things, they can tell doctors they drink 10 units a week when they really drink much more etc, if the docs had the experience of living with people like this they would be more perceptive.
My friend bought her medical student a house in a nice part of town and went every day to clean and cook for him, he has never known what real people live like, not just the benefit scroungers, the many people who cant get off they rough estates who want to.

I presume you also think architects and lawyers should do that, Ethel.
Wouldn't it be better if there were no zero hours contracts or sink estates?

It takes years for doctors to qualify; if they then had to live on sink estates on a zero hours contract for year or so, I think most would either emigrate or not bother in the first place. It is a truly daft idea.

I agree about politicians, ethel, but not necessarily about GPs.

Some are better than others at communicating with their patients but all those years at medical school do at least ensure they're qualified for the job and I don't really care where they choose to have their children educated.

with regards to some of you thinking I am predjudiced then maybe I am, however it is from experience that I make my comments. I have never met a doctor that had not got a middle class accent, never met a doctor that I trusted nor liked, they have a distance about them, they know about all our lives and backgrounds but we are not allowed to know theirs. We have to make appointments but if they visit us they just arrive when they feel like it etc. Their lifestyle due to their high incomes (I dare any of you to say they are not well paid), put them out of reach of most people I know, ie they send their kids to expensive play groups/have expensive holidays etc. My friend had a son who is a doctor but I have never been allowed to meet him, I am not invited if he is there and would not impose by going uninvited.
I meant what I said earlier that all professionals in the care industry should have to work on a zero hour contract and live on a sink estate before qualifying. (perhaps for a year or so).This would give them an insight to real peoples lives. Politicians should do this also

Also, re "wants" being vague - I was thinking, that's not vague as opposed to "needs".

I had a skin condition about two years ago - the GP gave me the hugest bottle of very good skin cream that I have ever seen, way more than was needed at the time. It was great and I used it all up long after the skin condition had healed. I want some more of it, but I no longer need it. I could go to the GP and say how much it helped my dry skin or lay it on (excuse the pun) and get some. But I would be wasting resources, time and money.

Etheltbags It is unfair to generalise about Doctors. Many of them are caring and compassionate, there are others who are not, but don't condemn them all.

My DSiL is a Dr and had a very underpriviliged upbringing with an absent Father and an alcoholic mother with a personality disorder.

I have huge admiration for the struggles he had to get the qualifications he needed and to become the caring, compassionate and genuinely good man he is. I think Ethel's comments are biased and just incorrect.

I think this man is very upset about his mother's death and probably feels guilty that, as a doctor as well as a son, he could have done something to help her but he did not, possibly because his father failed to involve him. How often did he phone his parents to see how they were, especially if he knew his mother was ill?
Perhaps he is lashing out in an emotional state and blaming all and sundry because he feels guilty.

You see so many cases in the media where families blame the NHS, the government, the social services, local authorities - anyone but themselves.