NHS

The government says that the problem in A&E happens every year. It didn't, not until the Tories took over.

If you retire early on health grounds, the grounds have to include the fact you will never be fit to work in teaching/social work etc again
If people retire a bit early and then do part time with an agency, surely that's their right. Working 70 hours a week as a social worker or teacher is doable in your 30's, less so in your late 50's or 60's.
As GracesGran says, it's the system that may be at fault, not the individuals who try to survive in it.

www.crowdjustice.com/case/healthcare4all-stage3/

If you can't contribute, they would like you to send the link to others who you think might be able to.
They need another £12,000 for the stage three court case.

Yes and you can also contribute to 38 Degrees fundraising for their huge advertising campaign to publicise the message "NHS crisis is the Government's fault" and "they need to boost NHS funding now". This will be on side of trucks and targeted leaflet drops.

Good for us, not just them.
You can still contribute if you want.

I have just seen that the campaign group "999 Call for the NHS" has been successful in gaining permission to bring a judicial review of NHS England's draft Accountable Care Organisation contract, which they believe is unlawful under current NHS legislation. It will be held in Leeds in April. This campaign is being financed by crowdfunding, and if it helps to put a spanner in the works of the Government's progress in privatising the NHS, good for them.

I am a strong believer in 'never blame the person, blame the system gillybob'. It would not be impossible to stop people going down the early retirement /agency route. Just have all your currently vacant position filled and there would be no need for the number of agency staff but there are often freezes in recruitment and the pay of agency staff coming out of another pot. They could also look into giving permanent staff some of the flexibility agency staff.

The laws have changed with regards to agency staff rights Iam64 . We occasionally take agency workers if we get a rush job. They are entitled to holiday pay the same as a permanent member of staff.

I also disagree with anyone in the public sector taking early retirement and then selling themselves back via agencies at inflated costs. This appears to be rife in teaching as well as the NHS .

When they quote these waiting times in A & E. Is that the time to see a doctor or time to see anyone? Last time I went to A and E. I saw a triage nurse and then a nurse practitioner. Never actually saw the doc. as such.

I agree that it is a terrible haemorrhage of cash out of the NHS to private agencies, but as has been said the hospitals are so short staffed that they cannot function without, it's difficult to blame poorly paid staff for working for these agencies. Surely the blame lies in years of lack of investment in nurse and doctor training, and made worse now by nurses losing their bursary. When I worked for NHS they ran their own staff "banks", to enable staff either to work over time if they wanted, or to work hours that suited them. These have largely disappeared but when my mum was in hospital some nurses said that they had offered to work on a "bank" basis after early retirement, but hospital's are unable to do this apparently.

gillybob, I acknowledge your frustration but - what's happening in public service is that staff are under constant criticism from Ministers who would like to see no public, all private services.
Workloads are steadily increasing and pay hasn't increased. Administrative support for teachers, social workers, nursing staff, police etc etc has been demolished with the result that 80% of their working hours would be spent on a computer but everyone I know manages to do much of that in non working hours.

People who work for agencies get paid more by the hour but they do not get sick or holiday pay or any kind of pension scheme. No one wants agency staff, we need permanent dedicated nursing/teaching/social workers - it's a bad deal all round but it does enable staff to have a semblance of control over the hours they work.

Yes I know that trisher we have allowed the nhs to be ripped off ( blackmailed) by agencies. Where does it end ?

The Indian doctor running the agency recruiting them said that they gained valuable expertise when working for the NHS which they supposedly take back with them after two years to benefit the patients in India.

I'm not so sure.

Probably not very Jalima. Whilst we're taking qualified doctors from poorer areas of India for our benefit, we're depriving those areas of qualified medical expertise. So who will care for them?

gillybob if you stopped the NHS using agency staff it would completely shut down. It can't function without them, and you can't blame someone for wanting to earn more when they have had what is effectively a pay cut over years. www.unison.org.uk/news/press-release/2017/09/nhs-staff-need-pay-rise-thats-inflation-say-health-unions/If you have growing expenses what else can you do?
As for this pie-in -the -sky idea that a cross party group could run the NHS has it not sunk in yet that this government and the Tory party have no interest in the NHS running successfully, they are just waiting to cherry pick the best bits to flog off to their mates.
I was in A&E recently and wondered who the 2 members of staff out of any uniform were. I eventually realised they were the psychiatric team. They seemed very busy. Cuts to mental health services and no social care must have left the mentally ill with nowhere to go but A&E .

There is also the problem of recruitment - however much money is put into the NHS pot (and social care pot needs to be increased too) we have not trained enough doctors and nurses over several years having relied on overseas recruitment.
There was an item on local news about a doctor going to India to poorer areas to recruit junior doctors from there (where the number of patients per doctor is far higher than here) - supposedly for just a couple of years with two aims: one to fill our shortages and the other to train them so that they can go back to India better qualified to fulfil the needs of patients there.

I am not sure how ethical that is.

Some Tories are plucking up the courage (who knew there were any apart from the Remainers) to suggest higher taxes for the NHS

So the NHS should stop all agency staff immediately Durhamjen?

I don’t think anyone should be allowed to do both. Work 16 /20 hours for the NHS and 30 + more via an agency.

Why blame them for wanting more money to spend on their families?
Isn't that normal?
Blame the system that allows it.

How much do you think a general nurse is worth per hour then? Or a police constable? A newly trained social worker? A fireman/woman? Rufuge collector? Civil servant? There is a very long list and they will all want more.

I can’t agree with you there Durhamjen. I know 2 people who have left full time nursing jobs “to spend more time with their family”only to go back to the same job via an agency working even more hours for a ridiculously inflated hourly rate (and I mean ridiculous) . Good for them you might say but the NHS can not afford to pay these silly rates and let’s not forget it would be all tax payers who would be footing the bill.

It's not the problem of the staff. Most people in most professions go for more pay.
It's a problem of having a government that undervalues such workers.

We should also look at public sector staff making themselves unavailable to work and then renting themselves back to the nhs as bank staff at much higher levels of pay. We are seeing this more and more with nurses, social workers etc.

There is a petition at moment on 3rd degrees calling for Government to release funds now for N.H.S.

Julima1108 - your description of the way your surgery works reflects the pressure, staff shortages and increased demand that all GP surgeries seem to be under. Our nurse practitioners are great. They triage urgent appointments and see patients with illnesses they can prescribe for. Sometimes, A and E is inevitable, it's happened 3 times in our family in the past 3 weeks. We've been very fortunate in the speedy response and level of care given on each occasion.
The NHS needs more funding. We need to train doctors and nurses. Nurses shouldn't have to pay for training . Gillybob's point about taking the NHS out of politics is something we often discuss here. What about taking all public services "out of politics". All the senior police officers interviewed in recent weeks talk about the impact of the reduction in officers alongside the devastating cuts to mental health, drug/alcohol, youth and every area of social care is leaving the most vulnerable in our society at significant risk. Cresida Dick said last week that knife crime in London can't be stopped by focus on arresting people, it needs to be tacked by working with children and families at an early age and by youth work with disaffected young people.
I can't recall a time when every senior Police Officer interviewed stressed the need for effective early intervention rather than increased prison sentences (or alongside that of course).