Would you support the doctors' strike.

youtu.be/JRF_n-mlLSQ

For a bit of light relief.

So funny, thank you Jen

"Has the whole doctors' contract fiasco and the “seven-day care crisis” perhaps even been dreamt up as a distraction tactic; a sham battle with a foregone conclusion?

Even if our contracts are protected, even if Jeremy Hunt resigns, our battle will not be over. The real crisis affecting the NHS will not disappear. The past thirty years have seen a series of NHS reforms that have all led to a dramatic and regressive change in the NHS ethos—from post-war collectivism, to 21st century corporatism.

So our protest should not be a Hunt hunt. This health secretary is just the latest face of an older, and more dangerous, agenda. Health secretaries from both main political parties will come and go, but until we challenge their common belief that healthcare can be marketised like any other commodity—an ideology which is so at odds with that of the founding principles of our health service—then the NHS is doomed to fail.

In my eyes, there is only one possible outcome that we could fairly describe as a victory, and that is if the BMA demands that the government openly commits to the one and only principle that can save the NHS: that the health service should be publicly owned, publicly run and publicly accountable."

Back to serious now. This is not so funny.

Everyone I know and almost everyone on any social media site I go on supports the junior doctors.Most people don't realise they have no alternative employer to NHS until they have been qualified for 15 years
DD2 is a Health Care Professional She reckons there won't be an NHS in 10 years

My daughter and son in law are, sadly, part of the exodus from the NHS. They are both senior nurses who became disillusioned with the way the NHS was going and moved to NZ three years ago. Very many of their hospital colleagues; doctors, nurses, midwives and radiographers are also from the UK.

We cannot afford to allow our NHS to be dismantled by stealth as is happening across the country already. Virgin won the multi million pound contract here in Devon to provide health services for children and has won other health provision contracts elsewhere in England.

I believe that the 98% of doctors who voted to strike deserve our support as they seek to stave off the planned imposition of changes that will be detrimental, not only to them personally, but to patients and the NHS overall.

But what can we do about it, grannyactivist?
Nobody is as thick-skinned as Cameron and Hunt.
I read today that the new visa rules on recruitment mean that trainee doctors from outside the EU may not be given visas to stay after we have trained them.
There is going to be a new residency labour market test requirement, where all jobs must go to EU first, then they can be offered to applicants from Canada or Australia.
That means that many of them will not bother applying, and go back home after being trained here. Others will not bother applying for training here.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/royal-college-of-gps-warns-jeremy-hunts-new-contract-will-starve-the-nhs-of-doctors-a6867646.html

The no confidence vote in Jeremy Hunt has 312,500 votes now.
It will be interesting to see what happens when parliament comes back from its holidays next week.

Why do MPs get more holidays than teachers, and a lot more than doctors?

Grannyactivist, this is part of a response to a petition about closure of Huddersfield A&E.

"The NHS has a responsibility to ensure people have access to the best and safest healthcare possible. This means it must plan ahead and look at how best to secure safe and sustainable NHS healthcare provision.

The Government is clear that all service changes should be based on clear clinical evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients. It is right that these decisions are led by local clinicians, who best understand the healthcare needs of their local populations, and in consultation with local people.

Any changes must meet the four tests for service change: they must have support from GP commissioners, be based on clinical evidence, demonstrate public and patient engagement, and consider patient choice."

Do you think that was done in the case of Devon?
Were the patients given the opportunity to have their say?
In most cases where private healthcare provision is concerned, it is not known that companies like Virgin are in the bidding until its decided, because of commercial confidentiality.

I do not know how I missed this petition.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/112379

The government has no mandate to privatise the NHS and should cease immediately.

Thanks dj-signed!

I have tried to stay away from this thread as I have seen first hand the impact of the doctors strike but I am still none the wiser when it comes to what they actually want?????

I would also like to say that the "team" of nurses working on a daily basis with my mum have enlightened us recently. Without going into too much detail, the team in my mums ward (where she is a long term on/off patient) is made up of around 12 nurses. Over the last few months some members of staff have been complaining that some of their colleagues are refusing to work overtime for the NHS and many have greatly reduced their working availability. Strangely though, they are happy to work all the hours that god sends doing "bank" work and are also VERY available when it comes to receiving 4x the NHS salary for doing the same job. One of the senior male nurses on my mums ward told us last night that he was "frustrated" (he used much stronger words than this) that certain members of his team thought it perfectly acceptable to "sign off" from their NHS job at for example at 12 noon and sign on to their bank job in the same hospital at 12.15 ! No wonder morale is at an all time low.

They want a negotiated contract that will enable them to run a safe NHS. Not difficult surely. What J. Hunt and the present Gov want is a better question and why they want it is even more important. So a 7 day NHS with elective surgery and clinics available at the weekend is what they are planning. Why? Not to help any patients but to make some services more attractive to the private health companies who are looking to cherry pick the more profitable parts and leave anything which won't make them money. Then the situation with staff will be even more difficult.

I'm still not sure I understand trisher

Saying They want a negotiated contract that will enable them to run a safe NHS is really not answering my question.

What in their/your opinion would make a "safe NHS"?

Surely when anyone negotiates a contract there has to be give and take on both sides. My impression is that the doctors seem to want it all their own way (although I will be happy to be corrected). Or is it really all about money?

Unfortunately people become ill 24/7. Not between 9-5 Monday-Friday.

Millions of people in all walks of life work 5 from 7 these days, its nothing unusual.

The doctors have already given way and negotiated on lots of points. The proposed contract cuts their pay in real terms and will result in some leaving for countries where they will be paid and treated better. There is already a 24/7 service in the NHS for people who become ill what there isn't is a 24/7 access to clinics and elective surgery which seems perfectly reasonable to me. You don't expect your dentist to offer you a Saturday or Sunday appointment so why should a hospital? It is also about patient safety. Doctors numbers are already low and one young doctor described how she had a shift covering 200 patients but was also given a second pager because there was no other doctor available so she was responsible for 400 patients! Why should she receive less money on a Saturday for such a responsible position?

www.politics.co.uk/video/2016/02/10/watch-how-tiring-is-it-to-be-junior-doctor

Watch this, gillybob.
We can all have different opinions about what is happening in the NHS depending on what has happened to us or our relatives.
What matters, surely, is whether we still have an NHS to complain or rave about.

You say about all the nurses not being available for the NHS but being available for bank nursing. You cannot blame them for wanting more pay. Blame the system that allows this to happen.

If you look for any nursing jobs, they are all through bank companies. It's the privatisation of the NHS. You must realise that.

I am sure this has been mentioned, but what about the consultants in this all singing all dancing 7 day NHS. Do we assume that there is tacit agreement that they will work?

And they are the ones who are most noticeably absent at weekends.

They are going to be the next ones to be given an ultimatum by Hunt, along with the nurses.

When the junior doctors were on strike, it was the consultants who manned A&E.

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/dominic-pimenta/jeremy-hunt-goes-nuclear-12-things-you-need-to-know

There might be some idea that consultants will work 7 days but of course it isn't going to work because there simply aren't enough of them to cover. Most hospitals do have extended hours (early morning and evening) for operating theatres. One of the problems is the lack of anaesthetists, can't do an operation without one!
Thanks for the link dj

I think it's a fiction that consultants aren't around at weekends. I've been in hospital over the weekend several times in the last couple of years, different departments, two different hospitals and the medical teams were all there and did rounds as usual. The consultants I know personally do a rota with a weekend on, and two on call ie one weekend in four on leave. And they don't get paid for unsocial hours or overtime. What Hunt doesn't explain is that few hospitals run outpatient clinics on Saturday and Sunday so fewer staff are needed. But how many GPs run surgeries at the weekend?

Lilygran, that may be the case at the hospital you were in, but in 2013 I had two separate operations and two admissions at a different hospital because of neutropenia. All four occasions included weekends and no rounds were done by Consultants at either hospital at the weekend.

At the second hospital, the kitchen staff didn't work at weekends either, so it was cornflakes and sandwiches for those two days!

There are, unfortunately, badly run hospitals all over the country but it is quite wrong and irresponsible of Hunt to make sweeping statements about the whole NHS as though the worst were standard.

No I do not support the Dr strike. All Dr contracts need to be revised. The medical profession need to be brought into the 21st century like everyone else.

The government wants it to be taken back to pre NHS years, hardly the 21st century.