Would you support the doctors' strike.

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.

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 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.

Thanks dj-signed!

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

"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.

So funny, thank you Jen

youtu.be/JRF_n-mlLSQ

For a bit of light relief.

The above post was written in 2005 by, among others, Jeremy Hunt, Mark Reckless, Douglas Carswell and Michael Gove.

The full link and list of authors is on this
whatwouldvirchowdo.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/direct_democracy___an_agenda_for_a_new_model_party.pdf

IV – Health
SUMMARY
In five years’ time Britain will have one of the most expensive health
services in the world, but one which still fails to meet public
expectations. The problem with the NHS is not one of resources.
Rather, it is that the system remains a centrally run, state monopoly,
designed over half a century ago.
Tr a n s f e r r i n g c o n t ro l f ro m n a t i o n a l t o l o c a l p o l i t i c i a n s w o u l d n o t
address the NHS’ structural flaws. The only way to guarantee equity
and universal access, and remove politicians from controlling the
minutiae of care, is to give power directly to patients.
We should fund patients, either through the tax system or by way of
universal insurance, to purchase health care from the provider of their
choice. Those without means would have their contributions
supplemented or paid for by the state.
We can hold to the ideals of the NHS – guaranteeing care for all,
irrespective of their ability to pay – while showing that a 1940s
structure is no longer relevant in the Twenty-first Century. The
Conservative Party should lead the demand for change and
demonstrate that we have a compelling vision of better health care
reform for all.
AILIN
G
NHS
In five years’ time Britain will have one of the most expensive health
services in the world, second only to the USA. At 11 per cent of GDP,
health spending will be well above the European average and more
than 50 per cent higher than the GDP shares of Scandinavia and New
Zealand. On a worldwide basis the public sector share of spending is
likely to be the highest of any system.
Yet there is little sign that we will have the health services to match.

I fear the young doctor took her own life, heard a snatch on the news that she has left a note and Hunt was mentioned it it

Someone in the Lords has said that tax should rise by 3 pence in the pound to pay for the NHS funding gap.
The problem with that is that the funding gap is there on purpose, to starve the NHS of funds and leave it available for private health companies to plunder.
Surely someone in the House of Lords should realise that!

Doubt anyone will notice , he always looks wild eyed and always speaks nonsense

Or if there is any NHS at all. He looked a bit manic when I saw him on the news. Do you suppose he is cracking up (and if he does will anyone notice)?

He will received bags full of postcards from British doctors working in other countries - weather great, work conditions great, glad your not here to cock it up

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/15/weekend-effect-on-hospital-deaths-not-proven-say-hunts-own-officials

I wonder if he will take any notice of his own officials. He doesn't take any notice of anyone else.
He is now saying that the junior doctors will thank him in a few years. That is if there are any left in the NHS.

Poor girl, if she is dead I hope it wasn't suicide

Smoke and mirrors again!! Moral would improve considerably if Jeremy were to go!!

They've found a hoodie on the beach, washed in.

The idiot knows the answer, all show yet again. An inquiry when we all know moral is rock bottom

Has the body of the young female been found yet?