These strikes....

With respect db3000, it's a load of cobblers. It's a matter of choice. Spend on the NHS or spaff it away on your Tory mates and their money-grabbing schemes. There are ways to sort it - we just need the will.

 

The country CAN afford the NHS IF the greedy, feckless, shirker, tax dodging billionaires payed any tax

 

Vote Labour.

 

Clearly the NHS is not unique in uneven distribution of resources. As I said in my other post re NHS vs Italian hospitals there is a huge gap between most departments in our local hospital here and the Pronto Soccorso (A&E). Most doctors other than GPs here want to specialise so very few want to work in A&E hence only one or two doctors doing late shift . There was on triage one senior nurse and one other nurse none of whom were treating patients although they were involved when ambulances arrived. Ultimately there was only one doctor who followed up actually treating arrivals though. There were actually only 12 of us in the walk in area after triage and it took 12 hours to treat and discharge us all. One elderly patient had arrived at 12 noon and left at 1 in the morning. I sat there for 11 hours before being given stitches on an already swollen and painful finger ( without any anasthetic I might add which bloody hurt) - not sure that happens in UK?

 

Complete fallacy fed to you by Tories.

This PM just said he's giving Ukraine unreserved support.

We can afford one but not the other?

We can afford what we want to afford.

Any money spent on the NHS is money well spent, a more healthy population generates more tax, receives less benefits, creates more jobs.

 

'We', if you are referring to the general population, pretty much have the will. It is the Current Govt and fat cats that prefer low taxation over decent public services, health services and infrastructure since most of them go private and/or don't use public transport .
Cheap reliable transport, GPs that you don't have to make appointments to see and Ambulances that arrive quickly and hospitals that can admit them on arrival. Is that really too much to expect from a supposedly 'first world' country in the 21st century?

 

Read my first sentence again. We cannot afford not to give the NHS staff what they ask for. However many other demands e.g.the train strikes as I stated are in a different situation.

 

Even Mick Lynch is under pressure from his bosses to back track now over these strikes.

 

Can't believe I'm saying this but there's a lot of good points to what you're suggesting. As a nurse myself I agree with your in law.

 

Yet another Brexit bonus.

 

Well I’m welling up here !!!

 

I have more sympathy with the rail workers (and postal workers too) than a lot on here but I think it is testament to public opinion that nobody on this thread is of the view that the nursing and ambulance staff don’t have merit in what they are trying to achieve, and pretty unanimously are for their cause.

A lot agree the nhs is underfunded, there is an argument by one that it isn’t, but is mismanaged. I’d say it is both criminally underfunded and woefully mismanaged.

I have family and friends who work in the nhs (and for Royal Mail, no rail workers I don’t think though!), and I have to admit I feel stronger about the NHS but I’m not against the other striking bodies either.

The NHS needs to be both better funded and better ran. Centralise it more, remove the middle management and directorship layers at local trust level.

The railways and mail need renationalising, removing profit as the primary driver, and to be run professionally. Better pay and conditions for the workforce across the board.

I’m hoping Sunak trying to take on the nhs is a bridge to far for the country to accept. This current brand of far right Toryism is more damaging to the normal people of this country than any which went before it. Even that old hag from Grantham wouldn’t have had nurses and paramedics chanting in the streets with placards I don’t think.

We are at an all time low and anybody that could consider voting Tory now would either have to be completely self serving or downright idiotic.

 

It goes way beyond Brexit. This crisis has been brewing for well over a decade now ( more like 15-20 years). PFI money originally introduced in 1992 was badly handled by both Labour and subsequently the Conservatives and costs the NHS billions. Even John Prescott called it a major mistake

 

It has had a massive impact on staffing though. Most wards I've worked on relied on Africans to work as healthcare assistants. Bring in a stricter visa requirement and suddenly you have a huge reduction in people available and willing to do the role.

 

And now there's your poorly finger to deal with!

 

Most of the money wasted in the NHS is on agency staff. The cost of such agency staff is quite eyewatering, for example, recently a Senior Agency Consultant was paid in excess of £5000 for a single shift. This money would be better spent in improving full-time staff wages so that they don't leave the service.
Also the NHS is compelled by the Government to outsource services to private health companies - which would be fine as long as the costs are in line with what a similar service would cost in-house. Unfortunately, the private health companies wouldn't make such vast profits in that case...
All part of the Tory plan to run down the NHS to the benefit of their buddies and donors, leaving the rest of us to suffer the consequences.

 

I’m sure you have stories of the waste that goes on in the Nhs and some real insight into the reason it’s done . Why don’t the unions inform the general public of this ? Surely it would help the cause ?

Nail on the head !

 

Mick Lynch’s bosses are the rank and file members who vote democratically to take or not to take any form of industrial action. His position simply makes him the main spokesperson not the decision maker. He will be receiving regular feedback from his Union’s branches.

 

Oh no, you agreed with me, I must be wrong then!

 

I hurt my foot a couple of weeks back, god knows how I was literally just walking but it really ******* hurt when I put weight on it so I struggled to walk for a few days. Since then it has improved quite a bit but when I'm walking it's sore/uncomfortable but manageable. I'm no medical expert but something's not right with it, I suspect I've got a hairline fracture or something like that but I don't really know. I can't go to the GP as there's nothing they can do. My only choice is to go to A&E, but with waiting times as they are there's no way I'm spending 12 hours in A&E waiting for a scan over Christmas. It's not life threatening and not life limiting, but it's not right and might need something doing with it. Ideally there'd be a facility somewhere where I could book myself in for an xray to see if anything serious is up with it, or whether it's just me being a wuss and I need to just get on with it.

I'll probably have to go to A&E in the New Year if it doesn't sort itself out, but I am loathed to waste a day in there and also take someobody's place in the queue who might actually have something a bit more serious.