Is There Any Point To The Nhs

[pippin 0]

ok well i know i havent been on alot just lately reason for that is work is rubbish! Well actually fucking shite, you may or may not know that i work in the NHS and the reason work is so shite is that everybody is off sick and the reason for that? No one cares anymore due to the fact that our management team are going to down grade two thirds of the staff as Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust is up the creek without a paddle finacially and just to stick the knife in and twist it the goverment as a caring body that supports the health service has cut our budget! The majority of the nursing staff stand to lose 5 grand a year and some of the care assistants two grand ... no bloody joke when you your earnings are about 15k anyway! Then just to ice the cake our esteemed manager mr Dibble( yes really is his name) goes on local radio to discuss it and says we deserve it anyway! its not just surgery staff it will effect each department in turn... and yet as a surgical unit have employed 4 new consultants in the last 18 months ...the average salary for consultant sutgeon is 65k a year ... the total number of surgeons -20! are they getting a wage cut ...er no ...is management ..no! it stinks. They say i am not effected by the cuts as as an assistant practioner i wont have a wage cut but they are extending our ward and shutting two others. we are close to the magic word redundancy. unison have took a vote and apparently it was unanimous for strike action butit all looks bleak. No one gives a toss about giving a service any more its just about balancing the books! So have been working with agency for the majirity of my last few shifts which is no pinic as they never come traned to do the job and need babysitting

sorry for the extended rant but my blood has been boiling just lately!

[Elliott 7]

Sooner or later the management are going to get shafted by their own bad decisions. We need a rise in the unions again.

Glad I never touched medicine as a possible career. Not worth it.

[misschief 24]

ok well i know i havent been on alot just lately reason for that is work is rubbish! Well actually fucking shite, you may or may not know that i work in the NHS and the reason work is so shite is that everybody is off sick and the reason for that? No one cares anymore due to the fact that our management team are going to down grade two thirds of the staff as Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust is up the creek without a paddle finacially and just to stick the knife in and twist it the goverment as a caring body that supports the health service has cut our budget! The majority of the nursing staff stand to lose 5 grand a year and some of the care assistants two grand ... no bloody joke when you your earnings are about 15k anyway! Then just to ice the cake our esteemed manager mr Dibble( yes really is his name) goes on local radio to discuss it and says we deserve it anyway! its not just surgery staff it will effect each department in turn... and yet as a surgical unit have employed 4 new consultants in the last 18 months ...the average salary for consultant sutgeon is 65k a year ... the total number of surgeons -20! are they getting a wage cut ...er no ...is management ..no! it stinks. They say i am not effected by the cuts as as an assistant practioner i wont have a wage cut but they are extending our ward and shutting two others. we are close to the magic word redundancy. unison have took a vote and apparently it was unanimous for strike action butit all looks bleak. No one gives a toss about giving a service any more its just about balancing the books! So have been working with agency for the majirity of my last few shifts which is no pinic as they never come traned to do the job and need babysitting

sorry for the extended rant but my blood has been boiling just lately!

I hear what you're saying and totally understand the frustration. Its all very demoralising, not to mention absolutely gutting, particularly when the redundancies do come and you watch colleagues' lives turned upside down.

The government's an arse, goes without saying, but I have to say I've lost a lot of faith in the unions over the years as well. I don't know of anyone who actually voted in favour of Agenda for Change, yet its implemented anyway and it definitely favours the government more than nursing staff. KSF? who the hell thought it'd be a good idea to make us prove we can do the job we've been doing for god knows how long and have to justify our wages? How the hell do the unions agree to this shit?

But giving up's not the answer. I know staff get fed up and go off sick - which is abusing the system and in the long-term could ultimately result in them taking away the benefit of decent sick pay for those that are genuine - but that really just makes matters worse because we're then forced to book agency staff at over-the-odds prices, taking even more money out of the service. Idealistic maybe, but no matter what chaos the government cause around me, I still go in every day and do the job to the best of my ability with the patient's best interests at heart. I'm one of the mad fools who took the job on 'to make a difference' and I'll continue to do that as long as the NHS is still standing.

Bloody hell, went a bit Gwyneth Paltrow at the end there.

[Elliott 7]

You should organise a nationwide strike of nurses... oh wait you can't do that. So just everyone resign at the same time. The government will be scrabbling so fast to try and keep everyone they're bound to up the wages

[Fulham Broadway 16,953]

With this Government following on from the Conservatives policy of privatising out all the Public Services, it's no wonder the NHS is creaking.

The NHS is allocated so many millions out of our taxes to run an efficient health service for all of us. We've paid for that. The Conservative Government in the 1980's brought in legislation whereby certain facets such as cleaning, nursing, supplies etc had to be put out to Private companies to bid for. It really was the envy of the World.

It was doing a fine job by itself, but some of the Tory MPs set themselves up as Directors of companies that could supply the hospitals, thus making themselves personal fortunes.

The year 2005/6 the bill for Private nurses from agencies has cost the NHS (us) was £1.8 bn. £1800 000 000. All that cash gone to private companies that we have paid for through our taxes.

Many agency nurses have been paid up to £111 an hour.

So the Conservatives started the ball rolling whereby it has got worse and worse. Its time to reclaim OUR National Health Service from the rich scum leeching off it.

[Elliott 7]

What we need is a system similar to the German health system. Privatisation is a good move as it allows for competition, which leads to efficiency and better service, but we also need to make sure everyone has access to it.

Our current system is run by the government. Government's aren't very good at spending money wisely, they're just good at making it for themselves. Governments are corrupt and always will be, so it's no surprise all this money has disappeared.

[Fulham Broadway 16,953]

Privatising the NHS subsidises the private sector. The government wants the private sector to set up in “competition” to the NHS in order to create a market. As an example, to do this, it has subsidised Independent Sector Treatment Centres – clinics carrying out simple operations like cataracts, run by private companies for profit but paid for out of the NHS budget. The Department of Health admits that these centres are paid sometimes 50 % more than the NHS for each procedure. Companies are also given guaranteed contracts for a set number of operations – whether they perform them or not.

Another example is because NHS Trusts have to compete, they've hiked up everyday charges. eg Private companies charge up to £1.50 a minute for relatives to phone their dying and sick relatives. TV costs £2.50 a day in hospital. Car Parking charges have doubled in five years etc etc .

The NHS was working fime before it was Privatised. Why the fuck do you need competition when it comes to Health ? People are dying because of it.

Same with the railways and water, why the fuck have competition over basic human necessities so someone can make money out of it ? Its totally sick.

[Elliott 7]

Competition means that the best hospitals get more patients, and the other hospitals have to improve to compete. Subsidising competition is a particularly stupid way of going about it. The NHS needs abolishing entirely, because it is a money sink and always will be, because it is corrupt.

People are dying because of the current inefficiencies of the NHS, and the artificial competition implemented by our witless government.

[Fulham Broadway 16,953]

That really is the biggest piece of right wing bollocks imaginable. Much worse than the Yid debate you've been attacking. Abolish the NHS , yeah brilliant.

Say you get cancer, have your parents the tens of thousands to pay for your care and chemotherapy before you die under a private, yank style system ?

The only beneficieries of putting the health Service in the Private Sector are fat shareholders of private companies. Absolutely no one else.

The NHS was initially renowned for cost effectiveness and equity based on integrated services, minimal management costs, and a vast and intensely practical pooling of risk. This has dwindled slowly. Firstly because of chronic underfunding, later because a notional internal market began to take it apart, and finally because of the current assault: a burgeoning, divisive, sometimes mendacious for-profit marketisation of a healthcare system that was once an admired public provision and a right of citizenship in the United Kingdom.

[oxfordblues 299]

ok well i know i havent been on alot just lately reason for that is work is rubbish! Well actually fucking shite, you may or may not know that i work in the NHS and the reason work is so shite is that everybody is off sick and the reason for that? No one cares anymore due to the fact that our management team are going to down grade two thirds of the staff as Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust is up the creek without a paddle finacially and just to stick the knife in and twist it the goverment as a caring body that supports the health service has cut our budget! The majority of the nursing staff stand to lose 5 grand a year and some of the care assistants two grand ... no bloody joke when you your earnings are about 15k anyway! Then just to ice the cake our esteemed manager mr Dibble( yes really is his name) goes on local radio to discuss it and says we deserve it anyway! its not just surgery staff it will effect each department in turn... and yet as a surgical unit have employed 4 new consultants in the last 18 months ...the average salary for consultant sutgeon is 65k a year ... the total number of surgeons -20! are they getting a wage cut ...er no ...is management ..no! it stinks. They say i am not effected by the cuts as as an assistant practioner i wont have a wage cut but they are extending our ward and shutting two others. we are close to the magic word redundancy. unison have took a vote and apparently it was unanimous for strike action butit all looks bleak. No one gives a toss about giving a service any more its just about balancing the books! So have been working with agency for the majirity of my last few shifts which is no pinic as they never come traned to do the job and need babysitting

sorry for the extended rant but my blood has been boiling just lately!

i to work in the NHS,& all we seem to be employing at the mo is african migrants,well untill they get deported & the trust don`t have to pay them.british jobs for british workers.

[Elliott 7]

That really is the biggest piece of right wing bollocks imaginable. Much worse than the Yid debate you've been attacking. Abolish the NHS , yeah brilliant.

Say you get cancer, have your parents the tens of thousands to pay for your care and chemotherapy before you die under a private, yank style system ?

The only beneficieries of putting the health Service in the Private Sector are fat shareholders of private companies. Absolutely no one else.

The NHS was initially renowned for cost effectiveness and equity based on integrated services, minimal management costs, and a vast and intensely practical pooling of risk. This has dwindled slowly. Firstly because of chronic underfunding, later because a notional internal market began to take it apart, and finally because of the current assault: a burgeoning, divisive, sometimes mendacious for-profit marketisation of a healthcare system that was once an admired public provision and a right of citizenship in the United Kingdom.

German system here I'm thinking. Everyone has health insurance, and everyone can access health care. Abolishing the NHS is one solution, a complete rehaul is another. What's true is at the moment, it's a shoddy organisation.

[MikeCFC 45]

Abolishing the NHS is definetley not the way.Especially when you have to pay for eyecare and dental treatment as it is already,which i thought that's what National Insurance is for,but that's for another day.

It's the people that administer the NHS that's the problem,not their dilligent workers like misschief,pippin and a few paramedics that i know personally.You try and work the hours they work,and do the job they do?.

When i left school i wanted to be a fireman,but i've seen the wages they're on and i actually earn more now than a fireman/fighter earns.And to think they do the most perilous job out of all the emergency services.

The NHS should be given back to the people.It's the fast-tracked managers that would'nt know heart surgery or long working hours if it smacked them in the face that need abolishing.

[Fulham Broadway 16,953]

Thats very true Mike, Dental and Eyecare used to be free under the NHS, something a lot of our younger members cant identify with. Like you say how much fucking National Insurance do we pay as well as income tax ?

German system here I'm thinking. Everyone has health insurance, and everyone can access health care. Abolishing the NHS is one solution, a complete rehaul is another. What's true is at the moment, it's a shoddy organisation.

We already have Health Insurance in the form of National Insurance and Income Tax. The NHS was set up for everyone to be ''free at the point of delivery'' for everybody by Bevin after the Second World War. Thousands of people died and were wounded and they needed a system that would cater for the brave soldiers returning and the people dying of poverty, just as they do now in the United states, the wealthiest country in the World, that couldn't afford to ''see the Doctor''.

Its a system worth fighting for, tooth and nail, and until you're ill in hospital , you dont appreciate how a great institution is being destroyed by greed and Privatisation.

[misschief 24]

It's the fast-tracked managers that would'nt know heart surgery or long working hours if it smacked them in the face that need abolishing.

Y'know what, you're spot on there. I've probably just had the worst few days Ive ever had since I qualified as a nurse, mainly down to ridiculous shift patterns and it's getting beyond a joke. Dragged myself through a shift yesterday with my eyes barely open I was so tired, could hardly focus on what I was meant to be doing despite the fact I was the nurse in charge of the ward and upset nearly every member of staff by being in a foul mood. Anyway, had a word with the boss today about my hours just getting dangerous and his response ........ "well, there's no-one else to do it" .............. in a team with 34 staff ffs. And they're apparently complaining staff are having too much time off sick now. Is it any bloody wonder?

[Elliott 7]

Abolishing the NHS is definetley not the way.Especially when you have to pay for eyecare and dental treatment as it is already,which i thought that's what National Insurance is for,but that's for another day.

It's the people that administer the NHS that's the problem,not their dilligent workers like misschief,pippin and a few paramedics that i know personally.You try and work the hours they work,and do the job they do?.

When i left school i wanted to be a fireman,but i've seen the wages they're on and i actually earn more now than a fireman/fighter earns.And to think they do the most perilous job out of all the emergency services.

The NHS should be given back to the people.It's the fast-tracked managers that would'nt know heart surgery or long working hours if it smacked them in the face that need abolishing.

Oh I wouldn't dream of criticising the nurses and doctors that work in the system. They are absolutely fantastic and props to every single one. It's the upper management, probably brought in because they have "business experience" when that isn't required for a public service.

Something big needs to be done. A mass upper management purge maybe? Be a HUGE money waste though, they'd all demand compensation no doubt even though they're doing shoddy jobs.

[Fulham Broadway 16,953]

To my mind there shouldn't be a price on health. Call me idealistic. Ok ''ooh, ooh but the drugs cost money'' -''Well fucking pay for them out of our taxes then you profit mad cunts''.

Too many people wanting a slice out of the cake and wanting to make money out of illness. Who suffers ? The poor. Take a look at the US system.

[MikeCFC 45]

Y'know what, you're spot on there. I've probably just had the worst few days Ive ever had since I qualified as a nurse, mainly down to ridiculous shift patterns and it's getting beyond a joke. Dragged myself through a shift yesterday with my eyes barely open I was so tired, could hardly focus on what I was meant to be doing despite the fact I was the nurse in charge of the ward and upset nearly every member of staff by being in a foul mood. Anyway, had a word with the boss today about my hours just getting dangerous and his response ........ "well, there's no-one else to do it" .............. in a team with 34 staff ffs. And they're apparently complaining staff are having too much time off sick now. Is it any bloody wonder?

i'm not going to be patronising and say i know how you feel,although i work 12,sometimes 14 hour shifts myself but our jobs are different,as are the occupational hazzard's that go with the job.

The trouble with manager's is they become 'over dependant' on an employee and start forgetting about that persons feelings and well being.As if that person is'nt human but a robot put on this earth to work.

A management that will no doubt be a 'New Labour voter' come next May

I read the other day in The London Metro that some nursing agencies are getting up to £120 PER HOUR to deal with the staffing crisis in some Hospitals.

This is certainly not the NHS that we know,this is not the institution that we asked for.All this down to Thatcher's privatising of the NHS many years ago.To feed the gormless managers of the NHS with fat pensions,while the likes of misschief gets all the stress as a thank you for your hard work.

It's enough to make you sick!!!!

Edited February 7, 2008 by MikeCFC

[misschief 24]

It's enough to make you sick!!!!

Yeah except we're expected not to get sick