Would you support the doctors' strike.

And if people stopped playing sport there would be fewer admissions for injuries at weekend

Personally I'd charge them for treatment. And not just a token charge either. If they can afford to get plastered then they can afford to pay.

Not sure how that would apply to the homeless though. Perhaps they'd benefit from a night in the cells, a shower and a good breakfast.

I think the people admitted to A&E through drink should go to a separate unit , they do have this facility in some hospitals , I saw a documentary not long ago . If they need somewhere safe to sleep it off A&E is not the place.

It must be frightening for staff to have to deal with these, often aggressive , individuals . A drunk tank with nursing staff or trained vols until they are sober enough to go home !

Should read 'drunken behaviour of some'

Whatever the stats may or may not show, there needs to be the same level of cover in A&E, the wards and in surgery at weekends as there is during the week. Possibly even more if, as Elegran points out, the drunks get behaviour of some at these times puts even more of a strain on the NHS.

How this is to be achieved without everyone shouting for more money isn't clear.

Durhamjen. Should have been intransigent which means stubborn!

I support the strike 100% . I despise this Government and what their motives are , they would happily run the NHS into the ground so they can privatise and sell it off to their rich mates .

Anyone who has attended A & E at the weekend and during the week will have noticed that for one thing there are a lot more accidents involving drink at the weekend. Some of those accidents will have involved more serious injuries than can be sent home after a bit of patching up. Add to that the patients who have been soldiering on at work all week and succumb at the weekend, and subtract the ones who would have been admitted during the week for a scheduled op in due course but have been overtaken by sudden complications. There just aren't enough facts to know exactly what the balance is.

No thanks! Data insufficient to demonstrate anything.
But it is clear that the profile of those admitted at weekends is different - and quite a lot different - to the profile of those admitted during the week. Therefore the only way to demonstrate causality would be to do a careful study across a range of hospitals in which patients being admitted as emergencies are allocated to two comparison groups which are identical other than the day of admission. This would not be easy to do. You'd have to identify as many variables as you could that might potentially affect outcome (age, social class, route of admission, type of emergency etc)
Its a pity that more MPs do not have a scientific background that equips them to assess research evidence. Government front benches in particular tend to be stacked with those who studied politics, law etc.
Generally they do not let evidence, or the lack of it, slow them down in their fevered progress to change things.

Anniebach There are some sums to be done on the statistics in the link I gave - some of it is in %s and some in figures so some translating is needed. As was talked about on another thread, it is not just being able to do the straight sums but also getting your head round just what sums to apply. It would be very easy to go in the wrong direction.

I have been trying unsuccessfully to analyse it to work out the relationship, setting severity of diagnosis plus condition at emergency admittance, against reported increased likelihood of dying. There are probably quadratic equations involved. I think it takes a statistician (or a mathematician at the least, which I am not) Any volunteers?

www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/images-letterfromsirandrewdilnottocd03121_tcm97-45051.pdf

This is the response from Dilnott about the statistics used by Hunt.
Full Fact complained to the statistics authority because he implied cause and effect.

Thank you Elegran , as I thought

"It is claimed more people die in hospital at weekends than week days, I do question how many would be emergency admissions and patient critical on admission" Ab

BMJ report says higher risk of death in patients admitted at weekends (In those admitted, not those already there)

Quote from link -
" around 11,000 more people die each year within 30 days of admission to hospital on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday compared with other days of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). . . . . Patients already in hospital over the weekend do not have an increased risk of death"

"They also looked at patient characteristics, length of hospital stay, and time to death.

An average of 2.7 million patients were admitted to hospital on each weekday, while an average of 1.2 million patients were admitted on a Saturday and 1 million patients admitted on a Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday admissions were more likely to be emergencies, 50% and 65% respectively, than on weekdays (29%) and length of stay was also higher for patients admitted on a Saturday and Sunday.A higher proportion of patients admitted on a Saturday and Sunday had diagnoses that placed them in the highest risk of death category, 24.6% and 29.2% respectively, compared with less than 20% of weekday admissions."

Thereby, obviously.

www.youtube.com/embed/L7aGQjRIq44

This is an excellent guide to the new contract which Hunt still wants to impose on doctors, therby getting rid of more of them.

They pay their tuition fees so why shouldn't they choose to work in another country, they can earn more too and work less hours

What does intrangeable mean?

Okay, we'll let the Tories have their way and sell off the NHS to their rich friends, shall we?
Doctors are standing up for the NHS, not just themselves, as you would realise if you read any of their websites.

I meant to add that yes a lot of doctors might leave the country after they have used the country to train them.

I do not support the strike, why cannot the doctors man up and discuss the problems as they see it, they haven't been offered such a bad deal, doctors enjoy many privileges that the rest of the population do not. Pension, excellent holidays and a good place in society etc. I have come across some very good doctors and also a few poor ones. A lot of the doctors come here to train, why would they do that if it wasn't good. I am fed up with the lot of them being so intrangeable like a special case.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/employment/gps-under-50-leaving-profession-due-to-fear-of-burnout-nhs-study-finds/20030823.article

Hunt's going the right way to make this worse.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/home/finance-and-practice-life-news/nhs-managers-warn-junior-doctors-against-participating-in-tuesday-strike/20030838.article

A nice bit of blackmail.

It is claimed more people die in hospital at weekends than week days, I do question how many would be emergency admissions and patient critical on admission

gillybob So sorry about what happened to your mum it must have been horrible. But I wonder why you blame the doctors for there being none on duty at the time? Doctors are employees, if they are on the rota to work they work-who decides the rota? the managers. There may be many reasons no doctor was there, lack of doctors and lack of money being just 2. Sickness or just a complete mess up are other possibilities. But you should be 100% behind the junior doctors. If Jeremy gets to impose this on the junior doctors they will leave this country in droves and many more patients will be faced with the same situation as your mum because there simply won't be the doctors to provide cover.

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/clare-gerada/unpatriotic-militants-no-jeremy-hunt-doctors-are-just-fighting-to-be-able-to-car

Excellent article about why doctors are going on strike.