TOPIC: Junior Dr's to have Contract changes "imposed"

Could this be the day the NHS died?!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35548091

Why can't they decide their own pay like MPs do?

I wouldvote for any party that states its health minister will be medically qualified, its foreign minister can speak more than one language, its defence minister has been in the forces (rory stewart and his 'what-what spiffing lord carruthers' 6-month university summer holiday job doesn't count) and its education secretary has worked in a school - none of which we have currently

orfc wrote:
That's a bit OTT, what about jobs for the boys and making sure all your allies are in the top positions around you.

Lufbrablue wrote:
Exactly. How are you supposed to ensure your offshore fortune stays tax free unless you put someone in place who's very sympathetic to your needs or more likely in the same boat.

This will destroy morale with junior doctors - I wouldn't want to be treated/looked after by a doctor who is tired and doesn't want to be there.

In a previous job we had a contract imposed on us to do with out of hours support which ruined the team, staff left and the company lost the renewal contract.

Have you noticed, Cameron is saying nowt on this? Don't blame him for steering well clear so when it blows up, and it will, only Hunt will be for the high jump. See Lansley.

Honestly, I don't know how anybody can trust the Tories on the NHS.

I can't see many Drs signing the new contracts so expect a humiliating climb down and a resignation before the end of August.

The thing I don't get about this new NHS contract is how they are going to square the circle on job coverage.
The junior doctors are going to be on a seven day week roster with shorter hours for allegedly more money.
How do you cover the extra days on shorter hours without increasing the numbers employed?
You could I suppose, reduce the number employed through the week, which would help even out the number of deaths at weekends compared to through the week.

The more people die the lower the pension bill. Deficit reduction.

If 1% of doctors leave the proffesion it equates to 500 doctors, in an industry that is already creaking to breaking point. FUCKIN tories would'nt trust them with a kiddies piggy bank they'd love to see the end of a free NHS......

Flatcap wrote:
I admit i havent read up on it but is it no the case that the percentage of deaths at the weekend being higher is because you dont go in unless theres something really wrong with you whereas through the week theres a lot more routine stuff going on?

Id expect to see this fail, they can't force doctors to sign new contracts but as a junior is anything short of Consultant level then there's a massive amount who have mortgages, kids and debt they can't afford not to sign it....
What will happen is there'll be a huge fuss kicked up and then the government will probably increase NI contributions and blame it on doctors thinking the UK will point the finger at them for increasing the middle class tax burden.
Same as always, those working elsewhere other than public service will get clattered for public services mismanagement.

pensionerblue wrote:
A fair point, but what would Labour do? Chuck money at it that we haven't got? None of the parties can be trusted with public services, tories will cut it back, Labour will turn it into a bloated jobs for all unaffordable mess! Until we realise in this country that nothing comes for nothing and we ALL pay more tax, we'll continue the cyclic political mess we always have. We continue to tip money into a bloated beaureacratic mess called the EU, we get involved with wars that shouldn't concern us, we send foreign aid to countries with space programmes despite the majority of their population living in poverty(see India or china) or countries where the corrupt leadership ensures aid never gets to where t's needed., we seem to have been the chosen destination for a large proportion of the worlds migrants, economic and refugee, we continually seem to fail to support the beliefs of the majority in this country and continue to pander to minority. The only future I can see for politics is coalition government, where one party never has full power and the other party can act as a handbrake or double check.

Retiring to safe distance and putting on tin hat!

The RAF began bombing raids in Libya on Tuesday

Bruntonpasty wrote:


Absolutely spot on there.
Would anyone actually miss an extra 10p on their N.I contribution out their monthly wage? Yet a 10p increase could pay for lots more services and make compromise for deals like this Jr Doc's dispute easier to manage....but don't tell The Sun & The Daily Mail....they'll have it up in neon lights that it's a scandal and the working folk of this country are being ripped off by the "Moet Medics"

Labour are trying to take the reward now of the Tories failing to stop the rot they put in motion, they think nobody remembers their horrific PFI deals and their increases in wages across the board for NHS workers (and others)
It seems some have actually forgotten how this mess all started.

If Labour hadn't poured money they didn't have into things they couldn't afford then there may just have been something left to salvage, it's debatable however that the Tories would have wanted to salvage anything...

The foreign Aid one is a bit 'Britain First' but I have to say I agree, we should be thinking about getting our own house in order like roads, rail, health, police, fire brigade and our pitiful rural ambulance service sorted out before we hand a penny over to India, and we should be thinking long and hard about the benefits of throwing £100,000 a-time 'Daisy-Cutter' bombs at Libya and Syria....

About the only thing i'd agree with there is that i'd happily have an extra penny on my income tax if it was guaranteed to go to the NHS.

Not that it'd affect Mr Hunt with his dodgy tax scams.

Lets not also forget the blistering success that has been the Tories attempts to generate commercial revenue. Remember the 14 year old poet beheaded in Saudi? Well the people who readied him for his execution, employees of the British Government. If you can get over the moral outrage we should feel at being the camp guards in Saudi our morons couldn't even do it at a profit. Losses to date, over a million
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/s...illion-a6841541.html
Losses in Somalia are estimated at $100m after the British attempts to reduce corruption in the military by computerising payment systems. To express their dissatisfaction the Somali military shelled the embassy which is in the UN compound.

Would I miss a penny to 10p of tax on my pay? Yes
Would I find a way to cope? Probably
Would I trust any of the current incumbents of parliament to spend it wisely? Not a chance!

HuntingHorn wrote:
To be fair, the current Labour leader has made it pretty clear for many years he is against the whole PFI fiasco. And besides that - the PFI deals started under John Major!

The NHS is hugely understaffed and existing staff overworked. It's falling apart at the seams you can't even get a Dr's appointment nowadays.
It's all part of the Tory plan to privatise the NHS along the lines of the American two tier system leaving us all at the mercy of insurance firms.

It shouldn't come as a surprise - Hunt co-authored a book with Douglas Carswell suggesting people should pay into a personal health account for when they're ill

Armo wrote:
That actually makes a lot of sense. Its like an insurance policy. We could call it "National Insurance" or something. Not sure it would ever catch on, to be honest...

Ahhh, sorry, let me clarify.

Disband the NHS. Pay into your health account. "Withdraw" to pay private hospitals.

Said it before but they need to introduce a charge to visit your GP. Not just a blanket charge for everyone... pensioners, kids, folk with chronic illnesses and some others should be exempt. But if you're of previous good health, earn over £xx,xxx a year it we should be looking at charging people a tenner or so to visit a GP on the initial visit about whatever condition you're visiting about. Any follow up with regards to the same condition should not be charged. It'd be a double win because it'd cover some costs and it'd discourage the p*ss-takers who turn up with colds and sore throats thereby saving even more money.

Labour wouldn't have the balls to implement it unfortunately and the Tories wouldn't implement it because it would save the NHS and they wouldn't be able to farm out contracts to the medical companies on whose boards they sit.

Even if Labour would implement it the Tories would use it as ammunition against them under the guise of actually caring about the NHS.

MerseysideBlue wrote:
And sadly continued under new Labour, Who's name is it on that plaque outside the cumberland infirmary?

I wish the politicians would stop continually blaming the other side and instead sort the situation out.

The trouble is they both want different things and as the political cycle changes the cost to the taxpayer goes up. Here's what should happen, government should relinquish control of the NHS and education system and merely be responsible for raising the taxes to pay for the high quality NHS and education we all want. Sadly, none of them have the balls to go to the electorate and actually say "we will be putting up taxes". At every election we hear" and we are going to take these people out of taxation" " raise the threshold at where these people pay tax". All well and good, but this means less going in to pay for things Like the NHS, education, etc. Tax the bankers, tax the rich, well yeah, good idea, but you can only go so far before that becomes a problem too, these people tend to have businesses that employ people who may end up losing their jobs. Elections are won on tax cuts, not tax increases, this needs to change. As I said further up, we need to stop pissing the money we have into other peoples pots and look after ourselves a bit better.

Bruntonpasty wrote:



PFI, an idea so bad not even Major's Tories implemented it.

It's more than just PFI though, it's labours great idea to make health trusts "businesses" responsible for their own budgets...that's right, an organisation that makes no money and has no income except for taxation handouts is overnight somehow a corporate entity responsible for balancing it's own books....??

Ah, great idea you say, makes em stop wasting their budget......maybe if they'd bothered to put experienced, competent people at the helm of these massive "businesses".
Instead they virtually dumped the financial responsibilities of the foundation trusts onto senior nurses and frontline staff who were changing sheets and planning the next months duty rota one week then suddenly responsible for the financial welfare of their ward the next.....it was insanity.
Like handing the keys to HSBC HQ to one of the senior cashiers and saying "your running the bank now pal, your responsible for staff costs and the running of the bank"
Then they wondered why Foundation trusts floundered like Mid Staffs and why they signed PFI deals at extortionate rates across the country.
Some of Carlisle's movers and shakers on the fiscal side of things were 'arse wipers' not so long ago, now they're in charge of big budget decisions....how does something like that ever happen?

You can say the Tories are idiots and you'd be right, but don't make the mistake of thinking Corbyn or the rest of the red party are any better, the pay freezes in the NHS that form the foundations of this doctors dispute started in 2002 under Tony, then got worse under Gordon....
The bottom line is that one of them (political parties) has to bite the bullet and take the risk of saying NI has to increase to provide proper public services.

Armo wrote:
Nah I know I was taking the piss. We pay for the NHS anyway through taxes. Tories seem to think we don't.

Huntinhorn, you make some good points about the trusts. How often do we see leading lights at the top of these trusts going off on the sick, "stress" usually or leaving after a fook up of some sort with a big pension enhancement and a golden handshake! They seem to last about 3 or 4 years usually. Then we hear about the salary they command, and then it's " we need to pay this to attract the right calibre of applicant", yeah. and they last a couple of years or so then walk off into the sunset with a wedge of cash. How many people on here would perhaps be forced to resign through incompetence but walk away with the cash? Not many I'd guess! The job carries responsibility and therefore a good salary, it shouldn't come with a compensation package if you have to leave through failure.

I spent 15yrs working in frontline NHS....I saw it all unfold first hand, and more besides.

The amount of money frittered by Labour was stomach churning, the Tories are cutting beyond the marrow never mind the bone under the pretence that there's loads to cut....but the cuts never come in the right areas, it's always the frontline that gets hit, and it's the area that should be considered last.

Public services have pissed on their own chips by being squandering ridiculous amounts in budgets for so long, but now they've been cut back hard & it's gone too far the other way too fast, trouble is now nobody believes them when they cry about it.
Teresa May & Jeremy Hunt are two people who should be nowhere near what they're presiding over, they're ripping the guts out of police & health and smugly smiling.
I know at least three doctors who've already started the ball rolling to go to Australia & NZ if Hunt got his way....rather that than be left doing a job they're not safe to be doing.

Th,ve to blame each other, Politicians are the best on the planet at blaming somebody else, To try and force a new contract on the Dortors is wrong and I dearly hope they have the balls to bring that smug [censored] Hunt to his Knees, He bangs on about being passsionate about the NHS, My arse he is.....

The more money we throw at the NHS, the worse it gets. Take a look in our own back yard !!

It would be cheaper for the Government to pay for everyone to have private medical care, than what it costs for the NHS...

thesilentone wrote:
What a great idea. Lets bring in some middle men to rake off even more cash.

It's not an idea, it's a fact !!

Please do your own calculations.

thesilentone wrote: Like you've done yours? It'd be mathematically impossible you massive rivet.

I've done my calcs and your statement is absolute rubbish.

So, NHS Budget around 120 Billion + overspend around 1.0bn

Cost of private health insurance 144 Billion LESS NI costs....

Please show your calcs Vogel !!

Just checked NI contributes 21 Bn to the NHS so deduct from the 144bn

In addition private health insurance costs would drop considerably if all of the UK population were on it to about 100bn (100bn-21bn=79bn)

Private health costs just go up and up. Check the states, some of the most expensive healthcare in the world.
NHS can drive costs down with it's buying power. But they waste billions with un-needed, overpaid, labour introduced middle management non-jobs. Won't bother with the utterly foolish PFI terms Tony & Co handed out like candy, which are royally crippling the finances at the moment.

For a family of 5 Empire Blue Cross charged us usd 3000 a month when I lived in NY. I had a skiing accident, 3 days in hospital and 6 months on blood thinners, cost to the uninsured 100k usd. Lad in our village was diagnosed with leukemia, cost of all treatment 2.5m usd

Silentone, thats where you are wrong if you are using current private insurance rates. They would go up not down, the majority of people who currently take out private insurance are generally more affluent, which equates to healthier. Its a depressing fact but socio economic groups and health are closely linked. Insurance companies just set their premiums based on risk so they would rise... Considerably.

pacirv wrote:
Yet whenever I'm in an NHS building, there's always ample time or bodies available to stand and have a chin-wag leaving everyone waiting longer, putting them under more pressure and giving them something to moan about.

I agree with improving and developing the NHS, but for that to happen I feel there needs to be reform. The place is as goosed as Fifa - old boys at the top holding onto positions, eating up hefty wages and controlling spending badly. It is facing problems due to poor senior and middle management, you can't blame the Tories for people being over promoted and holding positions they're unable to fulfil.

Interestingly just found out a till operator at Aldi gets a better basic hourly rate than some junior doctors. How do you attract the best available candidates to go to college for years when thats the case.

Then we need to pay them more, obviously, but where will this money come from? We ALL need to pay more for our NHS and the govt/trusts need to start and spend our money more efficiently and effectively. Strip out layers of beaureacracy, allow healthcare professionals to identify better ways forward, disconnect Government ministers from the strategic future planning thus preventing the cyclic, expensive changes in direction with each new change of government. Maybe even dismantle the trusts? Standards seem to be very inconsistent between different trusts, more consistency required.

Dancingbear wrote:
I don't want to sound like im sticking up for hunt or the changes but when you look at till staff at aldi compared to a jr doctor 5 years later. Chances are the aldi till staff are still on 13/14k salary whilst scraping overtime to get to 15k. Jr doctor will be a GP or similar on 50k plus

Bruntonpasty wrote:
£100bn to be spent on Trident? When Germany, Spain, Italy, Benelux and the Scandinavians are spending zero.. £2bn found to boost the vital work of the Special Forces in Syria and Libya. $100m to computerise the HR system for the Somali military, £4m to rebuild the British Embassy in Mogadishu after the Somalis saw the computerised system and shelled the embassy making the staff move to Nairobi. $77m to build flood defences in the Philipines. £125m to station troops in Latvia.
When the NHS was launched there were 19 people in 1 work for every 1 being supported. The ratio is currently around 16 to 4 and it will in my life move much closer to 10 to 10. Therefore the NHS and the pension system will need radical overhaul and Government contributions per person will have to fall. The process needs though a competent Government that makes makes good decisions and not the Bacon Botherer and his trained monkeys who are happy to leave 1 junior doctor alone covering all cancer victims in South Birmingham while finding money to bomb Libya.

Markovitch wrote:
Not going to argue with your figures marko, I've said further up we're wasting money on wars we've no reason to be involved in and that's been going on since Tony got into bed with George W. Ill accept your staffing figures, I know no different. Another issue to all this is non political but more a success story. We're all living longer! This is down to quite a number of factors, better medicine and treatment being one. This new tech and the increasing amount of it being employed is increasing costs further. An example, My dad died aged 60 in 1984. He'd had angina since he was 57, too much cake, my mother loved baking! He couldn't afford to stop working and did manual work/engineering. He had a big heart attack at 59 and never worked again, dead a year later despite having been able lead a reasonably normal life barr being able to work. Back then, the surgery/technology was either not there or very seriously invasive and risky. Now, these sort f op's are routine and people are in and out in a day in some cases. The point I make is, our ability to keep people alive is without doubt a fantastic thing but it has increased the cost of our NHS and will continue to do so. We have to accept that money will have to come from somewhere wether that is cuts to foreign aid? Exiting the EU? shutting the gate on immigration? or us paying more individually? We will see!!!

Sad to hear about your father. The NHS is actually fantastic compared to other countries systems, whichever way we look at it politically I hope we stick with it as long as we can. My wife is Russian and is now living in the UK, she has to pay and she considers it good value so maybe there is some life in it yet.

Markovitch wrote:
Absolutely Marko, it is something we should be very proud to have available in Great Britain but it has to work and change going forward. For me , the constant reorganisations made by changes in political control at elections is the most wasteful and dangerous threat to the system, it often seems like they change things just for the sake of it. Junior doctors are in the focus at the moment, but the whole system needs to ensure those on the front lines are well trained, well motivated, valued and well paid. It seems front line is neglected at the expense of looking after management.

Interesting people still call it the National Health Service when in reality it's an International Health Service. A major problem (not the only problem admittedly) we have is it's open to over half a billion people to use when its infrastructure is set up to cater for a fraction of that figure. Just another reason for us to exit the EU.

thesilentone wrote:
"Sorry to tell you sir, you have cancer"

"Thank God I have that Government private health care"

Sorry sir, you're only covered for cancer if you take out the super enhanced health care, you have the basic one which covers you for the odd cough or cold".