Would you support the doctors' strike.

I'm not saying that managers thinking something is needed makes it needed either. But it might. In principle.

Yes, they do happen, but for sound business reasons and often against strong opposition.

The issue with the NHS is that it doesn't make sense from a business point of view.

The Conservative Party promised a 24/7 NHS in its manifesto and quoted some statistics which have now been discredited to support its ambition.

I don't know exactly what proportion of the NHS budget is spent on staffing, but staffing costs are the biggest cost to the NHS, as health care is labour intensive.

In order to provide the same service on two extra days, the staffing bill has to increase - not quite by 40%, because some staff already work weekends, but by a huge amount. No extra funding is being provided for weekend staffing, so something has to give. There's no money to recruit extra staff, so staff will need to be taken off weekday rotas, which will mean that the service provided during the week will decline.

The government seems to be doing everything on the cheap. Thousands of people are going to find themselves having to work at weekends for no good reason, which will disrupt family life and increase childcare costs, etc. Without recruiting extra staff, the services provided during the week will suffer. Staff are going to end up doing unpaid overtime, which could be life-threatening.

Junior doctors are a soft target, because they are employed on short term contracts in the early years, which need to be renewed on an annual basis. Therefore, the government avoids the issue of having to change existing contracts, but it might not find it so easy to impose contract changes on other NHS staff

"having to work at weekends for not good reason"

I thought the reason given was that weekend cover is not good enough, according to some, at the moment. I presume the Tories put the 24/7 thing in their manifesto because they thought there was a demand for it. I'm not well up on Tory manifesto pledges or Tory political thinking but I wouldn't have thought they'd promise such a thing "for no good reason". It must have seemed to them as if they had a good reason, even if you or I don't agree that it was.

Put in sufficient resources and everyone will support full weekend cover, why wouldn't they?

This government is so cheap.

Well, they are doing what Tory governments always do: trying to keep taxes and spending down. If that's 'cheap', so be it, but it's what one should expect from a Tory government without being surprised or sounding resentful about it, I reckon. It's what Tories believe in and is the price we pay for democracy (such as it; not saying it's perfect). Do not make assumptions about how I vote based on this post. You'll be wrong.

Nothing to do with taxes etc everything to do with ideology. They are hell bent on following the idea of a smaller state. Anything that is owned by the community and not for profit rather than owned by the private individual and run for profit is anathema to them.

With regard to democracy, nothing in either of their manifestos outlined what they have done to the NHS.

i2.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/160426juniordoctorstrikeexplained.jpg?w=552

Daphne, this is what you mean, I think.
Hunt's idea of 24/7 without extra staff, resources or finance is just not possible.
As whitewave said, on the cheap.

Apparently senior doctors have called for midlife 'MOTs' to be scrapped after finding that the £165million-a-year scheme has to see 4762 patients to prevent only one heart attack or stroke. I guess that amount of money redeployed towards something more useful would come in handy for something else.

Perhaps there is a case for not necessarily more money but better allocation of what is currently available.

But the five year forward plan sees the NHS saving £22 billion. The MOT money will not go far to fill that gap.

www.onmedica.com/newsArticle.aspx?id=67544646-b430-4cc2-83e9-2edabdc5ac10

Equality and Human Rights Commission says that the new contract is illegal. Government says that's rubbish.
Hope it goes to court before the government gets rid of human rights.

If that's £22 billion over five years then, according to a bit of googling for the annual cost of the NHS (in England) and a bit of artimetic calculation, that's less than 4%.
I don't know whether that's doable, but it looks as of it might be possible, especially if you're a Tory politician.

artimetic? Well, well!

I thought that figure was something they'd plucked out of midair? Didn't I read that somewhere?

It probably is, just like recommended alcohol intake and various other government figures.

fullfact.org/health/nhs-black-hole-size-funding-gap-2020/

The NHS does not need to save 4% per year. It's just government ideology. It will be impossible anyway with the increase in the number of pensioners.
The only reason they have been told to do that is so that the NHS can be sold off when it does not make those efficiency savings.
Have you actually seen how many hospital trusts and CCGs are in deficit now?
There is nothing left to save.
The one hospital that was privatised had to be handed back to the NHS because the company realised they could not make any money out of it.

www.bbc.com/news/health-36198952

3 hours ago on the BBC.
Is the NHS underdoctored, underfunded and overstretched?
The answer is yes.

Jeremy Hunt is now the longest serving SoS for health.

www.welfareweekly.com/fewer-people-die-in-hospital-at-weekends-study-finds/

Do you think, if this research had been done earlier, he would not have had his stand-off with the junior doctors, or was he just spoiling for a fight anyway?

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/11/jeremy-hunt-misleading-voters-over-nhs-budget-increase-says-thinktank

Again, the think tanks are finding that Hunt misled parliament, and lied to us.
Why has it taken until now for this to come out?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/09/the-guardian-view-on-statistics-and-nhs-reforms-jeremy-hunts-number-games

www.welfareweekly.com/seven-day-nhs-plans-fail-to-address-staffing-needs-say-mps/

From the public accounts committee.
Why is this man still in his job?

"Hunt and Stevens - leaving their dirty footprints all over the NHS
Deborah Harrington, Caroline Molloy, and Madeleine Dickens 13 May 2016

Sustainability and Transformation Plans - the biggest attack on the NHS you've never heard of.

Jeremy Hunt tells us he wants a '7 day NHS'. He's the only person in the country who hasn't noticed we've already got one.

While Hunt distracts us, his NHS boss, Simon Stevens, has created a plan to solve the NHS’s problems - by CLOSING more beds and more A&Es. Stevens thinks if you close hospitals people will stop using them.

Before Hunt recruited him to run the NHS, Simon Stevens worked for in the US for 10 years for global health firm UnitedHealth – where he helped lobby for the TTIP trade deal that would help US health firms take over European healthcare. (1)

Now Hunt’s put him in charge of our NHS. He’s just carved our NHS into 44 bite sized regions, called ‘footprints’. And he’s told local health bosses that they must come up with a plan by 30th June to completely clear their massive shortfalls - within a year.

If they don’t come up with a new big cuts plan in a hurry, they won’t get any financial or other help, he’s told them. And he’s made clear that if they fail to deliver on the plans, they face being sacked or taken over by other – unspecified – organisations. "

Privatisation of the NHS.

I bet the junior doctors talks come to nothing.

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-plans-to-dismantle-our-nhs

www.bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2016/may/bma-agrees-junior-doctor-package

Looks like it might be over, and Hunt gave in. I bet he doesn't see it that way.

No, Hunt didn't give in ( otherwise the BMA would be shouting about it) in fact it looks like they have accepted the NHS will become a 7 day a week service, and in return Hunt has allowed other concessions to do with training, maternity leave and not posting doctors to far flung hospitals ( ie Leeds, when the doctor and his family live in Taunton for example.)Glad it's all over.

I wouldn't hold your breath about it being over. Making a 7 day health service work needs other staff besides doctors. I doubt if it's even started.

Hunt did have to back down, because he had previously refused to discuss the issues on the agenda. He has also had to compromise on weekend pay.

PS. Where did you read that doctors won't be posted to 'far flung' hospitals?

It was one of their gripes, because it disrupts family life( on Radio 4) they had various things that they were unhappy about with their training.Compromise is the only thing that works, and it has to come from both sides.It seems it has, and the dispute is now over.