These strikes....

Country can't afford to make huge pay rises but, then again, the country cannot afford not to when it comes to the NHS.

My opinion only - the NHS is chronically understaffed. This has reached the breaking point now that recruitment is inadequate, existing staff are leaving and either emigrating or taking up better paid agency work.
Those that are left are under intolerable pressure. The ambulance paramedics, it has been pointed out, are spending whole shifts sitting with a patient outside a hospital waiting for admission. It has also been pointed out that on more than one occasion, some have turned up for their next shift to find the same patient they left on the previous shift still waiting for admission. That is not only 100% unacceptable for the patient but intolerable for the medics concerned.
The majority of people take up medicine for a career do so not for the money (obviously) but because they are the type of person who wants to help others and are prepared to accept that the job at times can be stressful but there is a limit to what level of stress is acceptable. That line has long since been crossed.
Pay rises are not being asked for by 'greedy NHS staff' the recent payrises the Govt boast about go nowhere near what is needed , and are in fact an attempt to make the profession, once again, attractive to both the workforce and we the general public.
The major difference is whilst, many sectors deserve pay rises, correct me if I am wrong, most are not chronically understaffed. Train drivers and rail workers and rail workers for example, may well feel they deserve more but I do not think they have a case like the NHS in demanding huge pay rises.
The country needs to decide whether or not they want a low taxes which comes at the cost of 3rd World level of public services or higher taxation and money invested the NHS. The problem is the Cons have always taken the first option to the extreme making it very difficult to pull it back. Borrowing like Truss wanted to do, unfortunately, would not solve the problem because the pound tumbles on the World markets and the cost of borrowing sky rockets so extra money disappears into servicing loans and additional import costs.
The only answer (which never happens), is to add a few pence to income tax and ring fence it for specific purposes i.e. 'transparency' Unfortunately tax rises disappear into the black hole of the Treasury.

The NHS is broken and I don't know how it can be fixed. What I do believe is that Sunak, the Govt and the Govt supporting papers demonising the Ambulance drivers and Nurses have got it wrong and are out of step with public opinion and the longer it goes on the worse things will get. Pay up and shut up (NHS only) with a clear statement they are a 'special case'.

 

The backbenchers of the Tory party are starting to kick up against the PM. What with his stubbornness to not get round the table and discuss pay it is starting to rankle with em.
Thatcher took on the miners union to try break them, out of spite rather than reach a settlement and as a warning to others. Then creating laws to make it more difficult for unions to achieve their aims.
Sunak I believe, is looking for the break up of the NHS to try make people go down the private route (those that can afford the premiums/insurance) He shows no intentions of trying to make the NHS attractive to potential employees and disregard to those in the profession under extreme pressures.
Joe public hopefully will take heed of what is happening. The tory PR machine trying to blame workers for the outcomes that may arise from striking.
Tories and those who still support the party should hang their heads in shame.

 

NHS - I belong to a running club and we was discussing this on Sunday, we have a variety of staff in our club, Nurses, Accountant, Receptionists,Porters & Canteen workers and all of them said the real issue was years of understaffing has finally broken them. Yes money is important too but they all stressed the understaffed issue being the biggest thing.

I’ve said for a few years that the NHS today is not fit for purpose and needs ripping up and starting again.
In reality no Political party will ever take that decision as it would be make them unelectable for years to come.

IMO the NHS should be non political and should have a group of MP’s from different Parties to build and manage it moving forward

 

Spot on about the NHS Tekky, except that I would argue it is under-resourced rather than broken. It's been well advertised that Germany and France pump far more into their systems, so it's a question of choices, not 'affordability'.

As an aside, can the NHS afford Stephen Dawson?

 

Trouble is , as everybody piles in it’s getting harder to see a solution.
Personally I think the nurses and ambulance drivers should be a priority, their case has been ignored for too long , although I also think they have shot themselves in the foot by asking for too much in one go, IMHO they should have gone for a lesser amount and then negotiated progressive rises that the government could rationalise against other unions.
The thing that really irritates me about the nurses though, is this making them take a degree course to qualify, automatically landing them with debt to pay off, the system seemed to work well with in house training before, my missus was an SRN and the old system worked for her.
Still think the rails strikes are selfish running up to Christmas though, yes strikes need to cause disruption but they are absolutely crucifying a lot of independent businesses and traders that rely on the extra numbers of shoppers and tourists to get them through the year!

 

Staffing is a massive problem on the railways, this is the main reason why the service has been so bad that several operators have had to be replaced or temporarily nationalised. We need need good reliable infrastructure, something that the Tories don't seem to understand. Time to renationalise the railways along with energy supply and water. All essential infrastructure that no functioning economy can do without and all in a shambolic state.

 

I agree with a lot of what you've said in the OP Tekky, but this can't be right. The NHS directly employs nearly 4% of the UK working population - 1 in 25 people working in Britain work for the NHS. And yet it absolutely is true that front line and patient facing roles are in hugely short supply. The degree of waste and inefficiency is scandalous - it just has to be when you look at those numbers - but the trouble is that stating this simple arithmetical fact is so toxic and unpalatable for any political party in the deification era of the NHS that no one has the ****** to say it, let alone address it.

I dunno what the answer is like.

 

Wonder when mp’s will go on strike for their pay rise…? Oh, that’s right, they’re already sorted….

 

The NHS spends £180Bn each year, about 20% of total government spending, or 9% of the entire value of the UK economy - it's not underfunded, it's badly managed.

 

Less, proportionately than France or Germany. But efficiency is certainly an ongoing issue. Raise taxes and create a world class service, I say.

 

Raise taxes and you simply defer the conversation about impact and efficiency.

 

Would you include non medical staff in the NHS priority?
I ask because the way the NHS is structured the only positions that won’t get an increase is Dr’s and Directors of a trust all the others will get what Nurses get due to the pay structure.
That’s not me saying others don’t deserve.

 

I agree, something needs to be agreed and soon, I’m also not sure what the answer is.

However, I do believe the NHS is understaffed in certain areas, but massively overstaffed in others.

For example a couple of weeks ago I went to Montagu hospital with a broken ankle. There was 2 on reception, 2 nurses checked my ankle initially, then sent for an x-ray where 2 other members of staff were on reception in the x-ray department, then another 2 nurses carried out the x-ray. That’s 8 different people I dealt with.

Now I’m in no way having a dig at the NHS or its staff, I appreciate every single one of them. However, I do believe this is mismanaged, I wouldn’t say make redundancies but retrain for the areas we are over staffed and utilise them in areas where we are clearly at breaking point.

It’s easy for me to sit here and say that on a message board though.

 

it’s hard for me to answer because I don’t know the structure, but personally I would always go front line staff first and tweak with training / skill requirements.
Dr’s definitely need including as we need to keep them in the service not ostracise them.
Directors would be definitely achievement driven for me, as far as I can see too many get too much for providing a crap service.And by achievement based I don't mean doing a hatchet job to provide funds I mean providing a properly balanced service in procurement and not wasting money on stupid projects, management consultants etc

 

Go on I will give it a go .
Start with a huge nursing recruitment and nurses are not charged. start to pay them £25000 then £35000 when qualified.
Bring back proper ward sisters and nurses to actually nurse rather than auxiliaries and low paid staff.
Get rid of middle management and use people that actually can manage.
Doctors surgeries should open triage and stop sending people to A&E constantly .
How do we pay for this ?
Stop Nhs trusts hiring agency nurses and bank nurses who are earning up to £80,000 a year . Imagine what the agencies are charging .This applies to consultants as well. I’ve read reports of them costing up-to £4000 per shift.
Stop nurses working for the Nhs and agencies at the same time . This does happen before anyone says it does not. Stop management wasting money on frivolous crap and pointless training. The list is endless

The wastage is appalling in the Nhs and it needs sorting.
Some of these ideas are from my mother in law who did 35 years as a nurse and ward sister and also a good friend who is currently a nurse .
Obviously there’s the huge amount the government spunked away on covid provisions !

 

I've had to use A&E three times in the last year. Twice for me (football injuries) and once for my daughter (playground injury). None of these were emergencies in the sense of critical care, but there was literally no other alternative. My daughter had potentially broken her wrist and needed an x-ray. I had a suspected complete hamstring rupture, and my GP said there was no point seeing them as they couldn't scan to check. The other time I'd gashed my leg and the flesh was sticking out and it needed glueing and steristrips.

On each I had no alternative, but in no way - daughter's aside perhaps - needed to be in A&E. I would say 80% of people were limping and although many wouldn't have broken bones would certainly need an x-ray to check. Very rarely would they need a doctor. All three of my instances needed no doctor at all, just brilliant nurse practitioners (it should be noted my hamstring never got scanned because the doctor wasn't available to look at it and the nurse practitioner could only order a scan if it affected my ability to work).

There must be a better system to separate out that part of the service. I appreciate at A&E I will have been triaged out to a minor injuries unit, but does this need to coexist? Maybe there are some other PCTs that have this system in place? Maybe the efficiencies of co-location make it worth while? What I will say were the staff were, inevitably, brilliant.

 

It could if the Government clawed back all the COVID related fraud, including the £37 BILLION spaffed on Test Track and Trace by Dido Harding. A woman who should be in prison...

 

I thought the intention of the PCT buildings which were built were to do exactly that. Start offering services that are not an emergency out in the field.

All it has done is put numerous GP surgeries into new buildings. 4 separate reception functions for each GP etc. No sign of any x-ray or intermediate care etc. With exception of blood tests and injections.

The buildings were built for the right reasons, but.....

 

Very true. The magic money tree of furlough has changed the mindset of people who now expect more when the country is absolutely skint. Any money that can be found should go to the NHS over other strikers like train staff.

 

It's a shame how divided the country has become.