Would you support the doctors' strike.

Jalima, it could be in places like Scandinavia, France or Germany. Are their health services better or worse than ours?
The man who wrote it has family in Canada. It's better there for doctors because they are treated as human beings rather than cogs.
As far as finance is concerned the internal market costs between five and ten billion per year.
If the Tory party got rid of that and promoted cooperation instead of competition, the NHS would save what the government wants it to over the next four years, but that's against their philosophy.

anniebach your post of 15.39 is generous in the extreme , perhaps "striding briskly" would have been a more accurate description on my part. Strange as it may seem, with doctors in the family, I do appreciate doctors have families and lives but they also have jobs and in my sister in law's case, that meant rarely getting home before 9 at the earliest.
However granjura I apologise and bow to your superior knowledge. Perhaps you have much more experience of doctors sneaking off exiting with good reason before the end of evening surgery than I have.

www.dartfordgraveshamswanleyccg.nhs.uk/news/news-articles/?blogpost=7464

Anyone in Kent, this is the future for your NHS.

Alea- this is so silly and below the belt- but yes, doctors do sometimes have dental appointments, hospital appointments, GP appointments (yes they do) (working such long hours in the late 60s and 70s, up to 140 per week, nearly killed my DH- and he has had to have very careful monitoring all his life, with regular hospital and doctor's apps, and was not expected to go past 50 due to the severity of the damage done to his kidneys after a strep throat that was not treated on time), solicitor aps, they do have children and wives who might have other commitments and they have to take over, they have parents that need help, or neighbours, they even (shock that I know) play squash or go out for a special meal for anniversaries- whatever. It's not easy to have a life outside being a GP, it certainly was not then, with umpteen homevisits to do all over the nearby rural area- some urgent requiring a doctor to dash out quickly out of surgery), and 1 night in 3 on TOP of normal week, and 2 week-end in 3 (including both nights of course)....

Superior knowledge!?! If you say so- I'd just call it experience of the FACTS and common sense. (your personal attacks are getting tedious btw- and don't do you any favours to be honest- but your prerogative).

Alea, not generous just realistic, doctors have families, they have parents evenings to attend, a child playing a rugby/ hockey match etc, so many think doctors have no life to live.

It strikes me that this thread is going round in circles. Those who support the junior doctors are clearly never going to convince the others, and those who don't, well they just don't. I'm off to clean under my fridge.

Oh the perils of taking things out of context. My comment about our senior partner striding out of the health centre "early" was in response to the contention that

GPs are expected to provide very early morning and evening consultations- and sit there twiddling their thumbs as nobody wants those times anyway

to which I was making the point that those of us trying to get an appointment in under 4 days (especially in the case of DH who has multiple life-limiting health issues and an incurable illness) we would be delighted to take an early or late appointment.
Nothing to do with the hospital doctors' strike, nothing to do with denying a doctor the right to a life outside his profession.
I do in fact support the doctors' strike and feel that the problems in the NHS need to be addressed from "both ends" -GP as well as hospital, and recall very clearly the many occasions DH's health issues have necessitated long waits in A&E not infrequently with a full waiting area regardless of the time of day or night. (See my post about " banging my head against a wall")
And as I said with doctors in the family I do understand the situation so it is disingenuous to suggest that I do not.

Incidentally when did GPs last do night calls? Was this not one of the changes in the new contracts some years ago? They are all outsourced to my knowledge.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/hot-topics/stop-practice-closures/partners-at-outstanding-practice-forced-to-quit-as-funding-is-cut-by-30/20030874.article

It's the junior doctors now; next it will be the GPs. Apparently GPs were asked to work at hospitals during the strike and not one volunteered.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/views/blogs/copperfield/why-i-absolutely-think-we-should-work-weekends/20030869.blog

The world changes and our expectations rise with new technologies , drugs, treatments etc. We all expect miracles and top quality 24/7 service when we are unwell. We can't have the miracles but top quality 24/7 is possible..at a cost.

The cost is in doctors' pay, cost of equipment/drugs, support personnel, buildings etc etc. It also costs the doctors (you could substitute several different professions/jobs here) in personal time and quality of life.

So many of our valuable (and valued) workforce/services are continually undermined by governments and media that, despite our personal experience of good service, we believe the 'myths' that are being perpetuated. In addition by adding bureaucracy ( especially targets/accountability), reducing funding and services governments can create a 'perfect storm' whereby public support has been manipulated to think negatively towards a service and this leaves a route open for whatever policies the government wanted in the first place.

Doctors (other professions and jobs are also available!) generally work hard, have invested their time, money and energy to qualify, accept a level of 'unsocial' hours and rightly expect a decent income and reasonable working hours and some respect in return.

Not sure what I am adding to this thread other than my stream of consciousness thoughts.......

Apparently doctors are "blocking progress" by refusing the new contract according to the PM.

But if they refuse it, it can be imposed by Hunt anyway.

Called off for next week so talks can carry on. This is why.

nhaspace.com/2016/01/19/analysis-bma-suspends-strike-action/

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/20/nhs-funding-falling-behind-european-neighbours-kings-fund-research

The UK is now 13th out of 15 original EU members in spending on the NHS.

This is an interesting quote from Noam Chomsky.

i2.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/150601-chomsky-privatisation1.jpg

It was announced in parliament that 1500 doctors applied to work overseas last week alone.
I wonder what Jeremy Hunt thinks about that. Whether the NHS survives or not, we still need doctors here.

Catching up on this thread again and I see Alea commenting about a senior Partner leaving his surgery on a Friday in the early evening.

This doctor (if not responding to an emergency call) may have been leaving to catch a train or drive to a 'weekend away'.....

My daughter has just returned from a 'weekend away' (from Friday - straight after surgery - to Sunday evening).

She and the other Partners, at least twice a year, rent a house for a weekend to thrash out all the problems and concerns of running two busy surgeries (this is in addition to the regular evening meetings - until c11.00pm. Meetings cannot be arranged as per a normal 'business'). This obviously means working a straight fortnight - do many other professions work thus, with the added high levels of concentration necessary?

I would like to add that my DGD through a strop yesterday and told us she 'hated her Mummy's work'. Through her eyes, Mummy is not there enough evenings and misses weekends too. Through her eyes, doctors do quite enough hours.

I have not mentioned the weekend hours my DD has to put in to work on her appraisal/all the after-surgery reading of journals and updates/the extra weekends giving flu jabs etc.

I realise I am writing regarding GP's but Jeremy Hunt won't stop at 'junior' doctors. It will be GP's and other ancillary staff, then the old chestnut of teachers and policemen.

Incidentally, we don't expect to see our hairdresser/classroom teacher/decorator at 6.00am or late at night, so why - in most cases (anything else, that's what A and E is for) can't we wait until daytime hours to be treated?

I attended a meeting last week at which a participant mentioned his son is undertaking a GP rotation. He is enjoying it very much but is appalled about the pressure of work and number of hours expected. His thought is to qualify and become a locum, earn loads of money and then emigrate to Australia where, apparently doctors are treated better.

I also spoke to a friend in the States who laughed uproariously when I explained the pay and conditions of qualified staff and couldn't believe how little they are paid and how poorly treated.

We need more doctors not fewer (driven away by the current system and fewer staying post-qualification) and it is impossible to elicit a greater spread of hours from existing staff. They can indeed work on a Wednesday from 6.00am to 10.00pm but they can't do this on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday too.

keepournhspublic.com/blog/press-release-we-call-on-labour-to-boycott-the-nhs-commission/

Just read this on konp and the NHA. What they are saying is that if everybody goes along with this commission, the people in charge of it will be those who want to privatise it, and have connections to private healthcare companies.
There should be a cross-party alliance against privatisation of the NHS.

www.bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2016/february/junior-doctors-press-ahead-with-industrial-action

The junior doctors sound quite reasonable.

Interesting post Candelle 0 indeed we are 1000s of GPs short in the Uk so no wonder they are having to work an unreasonable amount.
Australia seems to have a (roughly) 50:50 health care system, rather than an NHS like us, so the huge amount of private practice probably pushes up salaries in the public hospitals. Salaries tend to be higher for everyone there if you do a comparison on currency exchange. However cost of living seems to be higher (according to family who live there). Clothes, food, cars, books etc seem much more expensive and of course many families are paying a big dollop of health insurance every month.

www.onmedica.com/NewsArticle.aspx?id=0000f08a-e442-4842-868d-c9761df650a0

GPs are really in trouble. Not enough of them. Only 25% of doctors are GPs now, when it was 36% twenty years ago. Yet GPs are supposed to be the first point of contact.

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/paul-hobday/seven-things-private-healthcare-insurance-adverts-wont-tell-you

This explains how private health insurance works.

Excellent post Candelle. We can come up with as many solutions as there are politicians to dream them but without more and better paid staff we will not make any of them work. Whips and tridents, which seems to be there chosen method will destroy all that has been built up and then we will see how "safe" the NHS was in Tory hands.

You are quite right about after the JDs it will be the GPs and at the same time the teachers, policemen, etc.

I have no idea when the government will learn to value people and what they do - I just hope it isn't too late. I cannot believe those who go to Australia, etc., will ever come back.

It is time for Hunt to be taken out of the equation then there may be some hope of moving forward.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/110667?reveal_response=yes#response-threshold

This is unbelievable.
It's a petition to ask Hunt to debate the junior doctors contract on television.
The government response actually states that they recognise that junior doctors work really hard over seven days.
If that is the case, why does Hunt have to impose a new contract that the doctors do not want on them?
If they recognise that they already do what they want, why all the fuss?
It's political. That's the only answer.

Hunt is a disgrace , he keeps playing the saviour of the sick, his compassion / lies pour out like treacle

nhap.org/jeremy-hunts-imposition-of-the-highly-controversial-and-unpopular-junior-contract-is-a-grave-error-of-judgement/

Clive Peedell knows what he is saying. He is a cancer surgeon at Middlesbrough hospital.
However, Annie, you will not have shortage of junior doctors in Wales. Scotland is advertising for them to move there as well, although many will go to Australasia.
Hunt seems to forget that doctors are highly intelligent, and have transferable skills.

I believe it is simplistic to blame Hunt alone. He is part of the machine. If it wasn't him, they would soon find someone else to fill his boots. This government fills me with fear