Train strikes resume despite hopes of breakthrough | Rail strikes | The Guardian

Second strike of week begins after TSSA union accepts pay deal with Network Rail

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So many strikes currently and virtually every one of them is affecting the public who have no influence in any of them.

Yes, in the UK remunerations for work done are not good in virtually every area of employment, unless you are MPs or captains of industry. The austerity cuts imposed since 2010 only made matters so much worse. Also, there are any so much more worse off, those in care, agriculture, and hospitality and many more.

With the Railways many unions have settled but not the RMT so why are they different they say because it is not all about money but safety. However, technology is forever improving and so some parts of jobs will be lost, that is inevitable. Network Rail have apparently said there will be no compulsory redundancies, but there will need to be changes to some working practices. Travellers are already moving away from rail travel and will most likely never return, so even less jobs eventually.

As to nurses no one would begrudge them a good remuneration for the work they do and there are tremendous shortages but so are in other employments causing many problems some which are interrelated; shortages of care workers which seriously affects the NHS and in turn nurses.

Also, the NHS is not only reliant on nurses for there are Doctors, support workers, porters, catering, administration and others all of whom will be wishing remuneration increases, so whatever the nurses receive will be required by them also.

When remunerations have been agreed it will not be fully funded by the Government for it never is and a good part of any increase will need to be funded from current NHS budgets which means less money available for NHS treatments.

Why not bring in compulsory independent arbitration which is legally binding on all parties.

Source: Train strikes resume despite hopes of breakthrough | Rail strikes | The Guardian

Learning disability training for all nurses set to be mandated in law | Nursing Times

While I so agree that Learning Disability training should be mandatory for all nurses, why just restrict to nurses as both Learning Disability and also autism training should be mandatory training for all staff within Health and Social Care. When I say all staff within Health and Social Care I mean all staff starting with the Chief Executives and all Board directors down to every level within all of these organisations.

Also it mentions co-production and co-design, but it should mean real co-production and co-design, 2 different but similar concepts and in many organisations co-production is simply just consultation and no way meets the standards of co-design, let alone the standards of co -production and in many instances it is just a ‘tickbox’ exercise and therefore there is no real intention to comply.

It does not state it, but in true co-production and work and especially outcomes are the property of the co-production team and not anyone of the individual partners in the co-production, so it will not be the property of the NHS, Social Care, etc, so any instances to change or amend should be a reforming of the original Co-production members.

Source: Learning disability training for all nurses set to be mandated in law | Nursing Times

Petrol queues: Doctors and emergency medics must be given priority access at petrol stations, says leading GP

Professor Dame Clare Gerada, former president of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘If it’s going to go on for any length of time, then we’ve got to make sure that essential services take priority’

 

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Yes, this sounds good, but Doctors, nurses and emergency medics are not the only ones, for all those employed in health are essential, domestics, support workers, administration workers, then there  are  the police and fire services, care workers, in Residential/nursing homes, home carers, and other care workers, then the are workers in food supply organisations, utility workers and many others.

For these days no one organisation is an island, for we are all interdependent.

Professor Dame Clare Gerada is not thinking it through.

The whole employment structure in the UK needs to be looked at for in many ways we are all interdependent. The UK can’t, well certainly in the short term be solely dependent on the UK workforce and in many areas we do need persons from outside the UK, so the UK immigration policy needs to be flexible enough to accommodative all aspects of #employment.

 

Source: Petrol queues: Doctors and emergency medics must be given priority access at petrol stations, says leading GP

I’m going to have to leave my job as an NHS nurse – I just can’t take it anymore

Many employment areas of the UK are underfunded for pay, while a few areas are not underfunded and are overpaid, perhaps MPs could be included in this, but the ‘Captains of industry’ more so.

It is said you have to pay the rate for the job to obtain the right calibre of people, which is mainly quoted re ‘Captains of Industry’, is that correct, do Captains of Industry even respect their high pay.

Whether they do or not is important, but not as important as the phrase ‘you have to pay the rate for the job to obtain the right calibre of people’ for is this not true in many, if not all professions and that is certainly so with nursing.

So lets not use a phrase just for the top 1%, but for all in employment, especially nursing.

If the country can not afford it, then it can not for ‘Captains of Industry’.

Lets bring equality into employment.

Better funding for social care needed now to avoid staffing crisis | Care Industry News

A leading social care group has warned that any predicted increases in NHS pay must be matched by better funding for the independent care sector to avoid a

Source: Better funding for social care needed now to avoid staffing crisis | Care Industry News

Social care: what’s in a name? | The King’s Fund

Katie Mantell argues we need to do more to raise understanding of what social care is and how it’s provided and funded.

Source: Social care: what’s in a name? | The King’s Fund

Who provides social care?

The NHS underfunding is a choice. And people are dying. [video]

juniordoctorblog.com

It’s really hard to capture and keep even the most interested and motivated persons attention long enough to explain how and why the NHS is being underfunded and the truly catastrophic impact of this.

This rather excellent video series does this perfectly.

https://vimeo.com/189849180/8b41b9e6e5

Share and RT, write to your MP. It’s your choice too; stand by and let the NHS die, or do something about it.

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The NHS is Collapsing. Part 3: The collapse is a choice, not a necessity

juniordoctorblog.com

It’s my job as a doctor to interpret trends and analyse hodgepodge information to predict an outcome. I look at the NHS and see a single direction of travel: collapse without rapid and drastic intervention.
In a series of posts we will look at exactly why and how this is happening. This is what I see- you can decide yourself what you see.

In the part 1 here, we looked at why the NHS budget must rise 3-4% per year just to stand still.

In part 2 here we saw exactly how this isn’t happening and the catastrophic effect it’s having on the National Health Service.

Now we examine why.

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It’s clear the trend of rising demand and falling budget is not compatible with a sustainable health service, and after six years, the NHS is about to collapse. The question we have to ask is why would our leaders stand…

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NHS Privatisation: Cuts to My Local Health Centre

The current

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

Visiting our local health centre the other day, my parents, along with the other local people enrolled there, were handed a letter, explaining that due to funding cuts the health centre was having to cut back on services. It also advised its patients that if they wanted to raise their concerns about the restriction in their service they could contact:-

1. NHS England at FAO Linda Prosser, Director of Assurance and Delivery, NHS England South West (BNSSG), 4th floor Plaza, Marlborough Street, Bristol BS1 3NX
2. your local MP who is Karin Smyth at the House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 0AA
3. Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, via his website http://www.jeremyhunt.org

Unfortunately, this is happening to the NHS and GPs’ services all the country. It is no accident, and it is certainly not the fault of the many dedicated doctors, nurses and other health professionals working in…

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The Significant Seven: an Exploration of the Counter-Evidence for a ‘7-Day NHS’

juniordoctorblog.com

The Department of Health’s favourite line is “There are 8 independent studies showing a ‘weekend effect'”. I’ve been through these 8 before, and the terms “independent” and even “studies” are used fairly loosely. This has been the stick Jeremy Hunt and co have used to justify their unfunded and unmodelled 7-day NHS plans, and to beat the junior doctors with. This week the stick broke.

To borrow the Ministry of Truth’s own language: “There are now 7 independent studies showing that the 7-Day NHS plan is a bad idea”.
Juniordoctorblog explores the counter-evidence against the 7-day NHS spin.

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The ‘Weekend Effect’

Three separate studies this week came out against the established narrative of ‘poor care’ at weekends creating excess deaths.

“Higher mortality rates amongst emergency patients admitted to hospital at weekends reflect a lower probability of admission” by Meacock et al in 2016

All previous research has…

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