Would you support the doctors' strike.

Insults? What insults??? I thought I was in a reasonable discussion! Heyho!

I see no insults in hummingbird's post.

Neither do I- what insults???

Can't see any insults at all-thought maybe it was just me being a bit thick!

Is it possible there has been a mix up of the word simple? Possibly Anya read simple as stupid ? I don't know but it can happen, I realise hummingbird wasn't saying this, I was puzzled that Anya felt insulted , unlike Anya to take offence unless a clanger as I did when I mixed up her name with another poster , I still cringe at my stupidity

Thank you Annie for saying that and for working out that little word slipped in (in all innocence of course). I didn't think it meant stupid but it does imply 'simplistic'.

No problem Anya, we often disagree but I know you don't take things personally , well unless it's a big as clanger as mine

Trust me Anya, no insult intended!

I would have been delighted if the strike had resulted in DH's appointment at the JR in Oxford tomorrow being cancelled, (he could do without another tiring day) but no, the consultants are apparently going to step in to help.

Oh good luck, Alea. I hope it turns out well for him

We haven't strikes in Wales or Scotland today

The new regime proposed by Hunt only applies to England! No problem with increased mortality at weekends in the rest of the UK, then. Has this been researched?

Not unless it gives J. Hunt something he can use to knock the doctors/NHS I wouldn't imagine (and if it was otherwise I doubt if we would get to know about it).

Over the Christmas period we were talking to my late husband's family, one of whom is a GP.
When one of us mentioned that she would like to become a GP, the GP replied that she would not recommend the profession. She went on to say that she does love what she does, but the NHS is in an awful mess, what with the amount of work that they have to do, as well as paper work and for the long wait her patience have to wait before getting an appointment, which thankfully is not the same here.

I would add that one has to remember tbat what we receive is free, so a lot of people expect too much and that this service started in 1948, soon after the war, when there were so few peoople around, so much that we had to bring in Asians to help rebuild the country.

I don't feel I'm getting the true stories from anyone. Government say they answered all but one of 16 points the doctors raised, medics say different. Until someone can post up all the points to be agreed I can't say whether I support the medics. I normally would have, as a matter of course, especially against a Tory government, but I need to know more facts this time.

I certainly feel differently about medics once they have taken strike action.

Interesting debate on Newsnight last night. Junior doctor made a case that she was striking because she thought it was the only way she could protect patients from the damage the Gov reforms would do. She said rotas often had unfilled places now and she was sometimes covering 2 jobs and it would get worse-horrendous!

I'm no fan of a Tory government, but I do think we need a fully responsive NHS 24/7. The current system seems to be geared to Monday to Friday, 7am to 7pm. If you are admitted on a Friday pm, say, let alone Saturday or Sunday, nothing much seems to happen (in my experience with an elderly mother being admitted a number of times at 'inconvenient' hours several times) till everyone's back on Monday morning. This needs an overhaul IMO.

I think JH is doing his best to square a very tight (financial) circle.

I also think the junior doctors need built in safeguards re hours of working. Is it not possible to arrive at a system where these professional people are rostered for 40hours over 7 days with anything extra being overtime?

After all an increasing range of services operate at weekends with no additional pay on offer, it's all part of ''normal working'.

I'm afraid that I'm with the junior doctors.

24/7 is what we have already for EMERGENCY services. There just isn't the money to support all the blood work, occupational therapy, social care etc that are required if everything is to run the same at the weekend as it does on a weekday.

No one strikes unless they are certain it's the right thing to do. For a start, they won't get paid on strike days - and will have loads of "catch up" after.
It's some time since my husband went on strike (he worked in education) but it meant unpaid "extra" work ahead of the strike, and unpaid "catch up" after so that his students were affected as little as possible, but he could still show his support for the cause.
The financial impact of a few days pay cut isn't fun either. People strike out of conviction. Not just on a whim.

Both junior doctors and consultants are unhappy with proposed changes. They are not all just out for themselves. I think we should support them.

To believe JH or all the doctors on strike , no problem, I support the doctors

blinko I agree with your post.

"A fully responsive NHS" involves more than just the junior doctors- technicians in all areas etc. So why is Hunt targeting them? because he hopes to distract us from the mess the Gov are making of the whole system. If emergency treatment is needed you get it. Routine examinations and tests are not done at weekends but that is nothing to do with the junior doctors. They will be the ones assessing if a patient needs emergency treatment.

I agree absolutely with this strike - were talking about people who study for 10 years to become doctors and then go on to cope with jobs most of us would hate to do. I hope the Government will sort something out to help the situation but they slowly might.......

Lettie J Hunt said on BBC R4 they had made "substantial progress" on all but one of the 16 points. This is not the same as agreement. The Tories are experts at saying things that sound good but once you stop and listen carefully you realise that they are blurring the truth. (or lying - as pointed out on several occasions by the head of the UK Statistics Authority.
The data on death rates occurring on different days of the week are very questionable. Just because you can measure a correlation between A and B it does not mean that A causes B. The profile of admissions changes from day to day - more accidents at weekends for instance.

I'm really proud of our NHS and think its a big part of what makes our country Great!
Unless we stand firm in support of these dedicated Junior Doctors, then we shall pay the consequences of a brain drain. The government needs to be fair and stop trying to push them abroad where they will be appreciated.

Hunt, playing the harmless, bland card, just interviewed on R4.
He mentioned death rates at weekend again. Including newborns.
Here is a recent publication on this - illustrating just how complex the evidence is, just how incomplete our knowledge is. Causal factors are not known and can only be guessed at. You could make a long list e.g. fewer consultants in hospitals, more agency midwives, planned inductions done in the week not the weekend etc etc etc.
In their conclusions the authors say that we just don't know yet the reasons for this statistical effect and to find out the answer a lot more careful research needs to be done.

www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5774
And here is a short article about outcomes for medical emergencies of various kinds. The weekend effect varies according to the thing medical condition and they can only speculate why. This shows that the state of our knowledge is basic and for politicians to seize on these statistics and decide a new contract is needed for junior doctors is just plain ignorant (as in ignorant of science, evidence, the use of data and research etc). Or else they are using papers like these as something that sounds good during an election campaign.
Would make just as much sense to decide it was the ambulance drivers contract, the consultant contract or even the chief radiographer's contract was the cause of the statistical effect.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60580-3/fulltext?rss%3Dyes