E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Every govt has dicked with the NHS under the guise of 'improving' it. Bevan himself probably took one look at his creation and thought 'this is a ****ing mess, someone should probably sort this out...'.

Where the parties differ is what they consider 'improvement'. The current govt, who may as well have a 'Department for outsourcing everything to G4S', idea of 'improving' things, NHS included, involves flogging off what they can and outsourcing what they can't.

 

The NHS is like democracy: the least bad system of all tried. Successive governments dicking with it has just been a denial of the obvious: good healthcare costs. There is no magic way to cut the cake so you get more slices. There is no clever new technique, no special new knife, no inventive new cake stand. You want more cake, you have to pay for more cake.

 

So all it needs is more cash and everything there is done in the most effective manner possible, and there's nothing to learn from other countries?

 

Depends on the country, since we generally seem to take all our ideas from the US that’s probably a relatively bad idea.

 

While I agree that successive governments have dicked about with the NHS without fully understanding the pressures the system faces, there are problems from within the NHS that need addressing too. I worked in the NHS for a number of years and I saw some of these problems myself. I worked as a porter at our local hospital. What I saw was too many chiefs and not enough Indians. There were also too many chiefs with conflicting ideas on how services should be run and delivered, to the point where the Indians were often left wondering what their responsibilities actually were. All too often new and revised targets were expected to be achieved, across all medical and ancillary services, by NHS bosses (not from Whitehall) that had never worked a day in any of these services. That in itself caused frustration, contempt and a hit in morale. At my local hospital the staff sickness rates were astounding, it was a real problem then and I'm not so sure it's been resolved now. I still have friends who work at the hospital and they often tell me it's worse than when I left.

I do agree that government meddling and penny pinching is crippling the NHS, but the system has faults that are entirely in house and need rectifying too. We often hear about how nurses and junior doctors are suffering as a result of pay freezes/ cutbacks, you never hear about how ancillary staff suffer the biggest brunt of any pay freezes or cutbacks, due to the minimal wages they receive. Ancillary staff are the people that keep any hospital ticking over and they may not have people's lives in their hands but those that do rely on the ancillaries to do their job efficiently and effectively. Take the role of a porter for example. The pre-conceived view of the job is often that of someone who pushes trollies and wheelchairs for a living. They do so much more, often they get paid the minimum wage but yet there are important tasks such as mortuary duties, medical gas management (manifold and bottle exchange etc.), security, theatre portering, cleaning, patient movement and anything else that needs doing to keep the hospital ticking over. Same as with domestics, cooks, catering assistants, laundry assistants etc. etc. It boils my piddle when everyone feels for the nurses and doctors but no-one stops to consider how ancillary staff suffer too. Share some thought for the grass roots workers who love and believe in the NHS just as much as anyone else above their pay grade.

Another problem I personally experienced; I left my job in the NHS because I was on a 38 hour contract, I was a relief porter. So I was guaranteed 38 hours work a week but I didn't find out which department and shifts I was working the following week until a Thursday morning. It meant I couldn't plan ahead for anything. I enjoyed it in some ways because I never got bored, one week I could be working A&E, the next I could be working the theatres, central services, maternity theatres or on the wards. I didn't enjoy it because I was reliant on unsociable hours or night shift enhancements to be able to break even every week. It was a scramble every Thursday morning, with us relief porters trying to get a decent amount of hours where we could get the enhancements to our wage. If you weren't fast on a Thursday morning, the cream of the shifts were gone. Employment contracts like this do absolutely nothing for morale. You were having to compete with your fellow employees so you could earn a decent wage. The system in place also meant we were asked to work illegal hours, like pulling double shifts etc. The reward for that was extra hours and a canteen voucher for a meal. We used to say yes not for the money, but because if we didn't then there would be no cover for the departments that needed it. I'd frequently worked 18+ hours straight before, with a quick cuppa when the job allowed. These types of contracts have become more widespread now here.

For me personally, my time as an NHS worker was one of my happiest in my career. There were definitely problems, the wage I earned was the lowest in my career but I met some of the hardest working and loyal people I had and do still have the pleasure of calling friends. I had some rubbish jobs that left a mark on me, like preparing cadavers for viewings etc. and seeing people at their lowest times in their lives, but all that was outweighed by a sense of purpose and feeling like being part of a real team. I hate the fact that the NHS is a political bargaining chip, it should never have come to that. Having said that though, the NHS DOES need a big shake up in house if it's going to survive at all.

 

The first thing that the UK can learn from other countries is that they spend more on healthcare than the UK does.

It doesn't need fewer managers; it already has a third of the management that the private sector does. It doesn't need to be more efficient; it already has better health outcomes than the US for half the cost, and comparable health outcomes to the rest of Europe for 75% of the cost. It doesn't need a more dedicated workforce; it does, on average, already do 20% unpaid overtime to keep things functioning, while not having had a pay rise for five years (which is why it is still performing at 75% of the budget of other countries). There is no more cake to be had. This is all the cake there is. The only way to get more cake is to buy more cake.

 

And merely throwing cash at a problem never really actually fixes the problem. How about addressing the problem of a lack of real understanding from within the senior NHS management echelons of what it is they are actually expecting their staff to do, whether what they are requiring is actually achievable and start working with staff to address issues? Maybe even start supporting their staff instead of merely treating them as a commodity? Both problems that stem from within the NHS and are as much of a real and present danger to the survival of the NHS than the underfunding is. If we are going to see the NHS survive we have to be brutally honest about the problems it faces, whether we like that or not.

 

There can be no final decisions on the future of the Irish border until the UK and the EU have reached a trade agreement, Liam Fox has said.

Top-notch team here.

 

Yup. The EU already has stated its opinion about that:



Liam Fox is a ****ing idiot. Everybody abroad (not just in Europe) thinks he is a lightweight moron. Ireland has been saying since the day after the referendum that the only way to maintain a soft border is for the UK to stay in the CU and/or SM. Moreover:

The "end state" has also already been made abundantly clear. The UK has stated that it will not stay in the CU or SM. The EU stated in turn that therefore the only arrangement available is a CETA-style FTA. That is the end state. This has been clear since May's October 2016 speech. The only people still in denial are the UK government.

The same Brexiteers who currently say that the Irish situation will be fine say in the same breath that a No Deal outcome is possible --even that it may desirable. But in that case the UK would be duty-bound to erect the hardest of hard borders between NI and Ireland. And at the same time they claim that Brexit is a huge economic and political revolution, they also say things in NI can remain more or less the same as they are now. It cannot be both.

 

Be interesting if the EU and to some extent Ireland sticks to there guns and refuse to progress to trade talks.
It would force the UK govt into making a decision to either stay in the customs union or go with wto/hard border around March next year.

 

Get it right... it's 'Disgraced former Defence Secretary Liam Fox'

They want it to walk, quack and look like a duck, but they're adamant that what they want is a chicken. They most certainly don't want a duck.

 

Sorry, disgraced idiot former Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

They can have either a turkey (CETA) or a dead parrot (WTO).

 

Maybe we should throw them a bung like we did with the DUP and the neocons.

That decision was made long ago, the plan is to fall out into the WTO while making it seem like the EU are to blame.

 

It was but it will force its acceptance rather than the current situation of "leaving everything on the table" debate.

I think the conservative blame game is beginning to unravel especially amongst the under 45s.

 

There are Tory voters under 45? Isn't the average age of a Tory voter higher than the state pension age?

 

Exactly, trouble is they keep dying and its very hard to convince a corpse to vote for you.
Its ok tho a rail card should entice the fickle millennials....

 

You! Young person! You can't afford a house but here's a railcard so you can afford the next best thing, a rail ticket! [but off peak, so if you commute by train, sucks to be you...]

 

Yo. Right here.

 

You are so representative of the average twentysomething.

 

**** sake... now you've got Kate Hoey more or less shouting 'build a wall' at Ireland...

...and surprise surprise, the Brexit impact reports have been redacted to oblivion.