Junior Doctor's contracts petition

Junior Doctor's contracts petition

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Discussion

Ali G

3,526 posts

284 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
Note the use of a weasel word even so..."could" was used when of course if the 'weekend effect' was eliminated then by definition it would, not could, save lives.
I have no research paper to hand, but there may have been a part of the world (not UK) where Friday night mortality rates were reduced by moving employees (not medical) from weekly pay settled on Friday, to monthly payment patterns.

Alcohol was suspected to be contributory, when combined with cash in pocket.

ucb

971 posts

214 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
Ali G said:
C2H5OH, possibly.

No graphs of consumption v days of week, though.
Or if not alcohol how about the athelete's curse of wrongly timed nooky. Both pieces of research could be problematic. Staffing hospitals at weekends to the same level as weekdays seems a better bet but the govt would need to incentivise the private sector to get the tax-take up first.

Meanwhile...

NHS Medical Director Prof Sir Bruce Keogh did his best to keep up a facade of uncertainty around preventability but let the cat out of the bag when he said:
There is an avoidable ‘weekend effect’ which if addressed could save lives. This is something that we as clinicians should collectively seek to solve.
Note the use of a weasel word even so..."could" was used when of course if the 'weekend effect' was eliminated then by definition it would, not could, save lives.
The use of your so called weasel words are used by Sir Keogh as he has no evidence on which to say that the deaths are avoidable. The research which he has authored and related to that quote merely evidenced a greater 30 day mortality for those people admitted at the weekend.
There remains no research as to why this global phenomenon exists. Most doctors I know and work with are keen to understand why this effect occurs. It is certainly real and has been seen in a number of research papers.

However this effect bears no relation to junior dr contracts. The reason the two are being mixed up is that the Secretary of State for health has decided to use this weekend effect as a means of forcing cheap medical labour at the weekend. He has chosen this course of action rather than a positive investment into further research in the area. Given that junior doctors already cover 24hrs a day everyday of the year one has to question why he thinks changing medic staffing will have anything other than a small effect.

And please don't resort to petty insults. It's a discussion, you're not going to win a prize.


spaximus

4,250 posts

255 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
Perhaps the study fails to understand that those admitted at weekends tend to be emergency patients who by the nature of their admittance are seriously ill.
If you read the press anyone going in at the weekend is more likely to die at the weekend, this is not true. Many of those in the article quoted died several weeks afterwards, but yes they did arrive at the weekend. As the previous poster said, there is insufficient research to say why, are these accident victims, old people who cannot get GP Doctors appointment and leave it too long, what is the age groups?

No ignore the lack of evidence just try to twist this to blame Doctors who are working 24 hours a day providing 24 hour care in a 24 hours hospital.

mph1977

12,467 posts

170 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
spaximus said:
No ignore the lack of evidence just try to twist this to blame Doctors who are working 24 hours a day providing 24 hour care in a 24 hours hospital.
i don;t know who is more deluded the 'doctors don;t work 24/7 ' camp, or the ' doctors work 24/7 and everything is fine', the reality is that even in acute and specialist tertiary hospitals the service you recieve 'in hours' monday to firday is superior to the service you recieve out of hours ...

turbobloke

104,578 posts

262 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
spaximus said:
Perhaps the study fails to understand that those admitted at weekends tend to be emergency patients who by the nature of their admittance are seriously ill.
Interesting point. How does it turn out that as a group British patients are more frequently seriously ill over two days at weekends but not during five weekdays? There must be quite a skew in the seriousness of illness for it to outweigh the 2:5 factor.

spaximus

4,250 posts

255 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
I have never said everything is fine. I have never said that there are not issues in the NHS. Doctors at present do provide 24 hour cover in hospitals.

What I and the previous poster to me was pointing out was that there had not been enough study to come to any conclusion as to what the truth is. You would have to spend time analysing every case to decide if those who died, after being admitted at weekends, actually got worse medical treatment than those admitted during the week.

Hunt has decided without having such research that it is because he wants to get the same number of Doctors to work at the weekend but for less. No where I have read that these changes he proposes will get more Doctors in at a weekend. If it did then there will be less in during the week, unless he is magically going to employ more, which he has not suggested he would do.

The NHS has to change, of that there is no doubt but I suggest it is not the Doctors practices that need to change. I also note that few have commented on why the Doctors contracts need to be changed but not in Scotland or Wales. is that because they do anything differently medically, of course they do not but the assemblies have control not Hunt in those countries.

turbobloke

104,578 posts

262 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
spaximus said:
Perhaps the study fails to understand that those admitted at weekends tend to be emergency patients who by the nature of their admittance are seriously ill.
It's only one set of conditions but a key set - Mondays don't look too good and that's definitely a weekday.

http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/106/3/430.f...

s3fella

10,524 posts

189 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
jjlynn27 said:
It should be quite obvious that English is not my native language.
What is your native language?

IanA2

2,764 posts

164 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
The connection between the junior doctors’ contract and the American corporate takeover of the NHS

http://koshh.org/the-connection-between-the-junior...

Worth a read.

Ali G

3,526 posts

284 months

Saturday 21st November 2015
quotequote all
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/nh...

NHS said:
that it meet the needs of everyone
that it be free at the point of delivery
that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay
Delivery of NHS services may, or may not, be improved/worsened by ring-fencing cost within a privatised corporation.




Dixy

Original Poster:

2,958 posts

207 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
The junior doctors may get sympathy from fellow travellers and Labour supporters who are yet to come to terms with the election defeat, but I'd wager an unprescribed antibiotic that a lot of sympathy was lost when the overtly political messages appeared alongside a natural desire for the deposit on their next Porsche. Any benefit of the doubt I had for their cause was lost when their political slogans and chants revealed another side to the claimed grievance. They won't care two hoots for that, but the esteem in which the medical profession has hitherto been held won't return once lost.
You keep demonstrating your total lack of any knowledge or understanding of junior doctors in the same way as that vacuous bint Katie Hopkins, unlike her I hope you do not need to fall on your face to have your esteem for their dedication and skill restored.
You may like to consider the concept that the Doctors motives are apolitical, they just want a better, safer NHS and reasonable remuneration for their undoubted professionalism.

turbobloke

104,578 posts

262 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
Dixy said:
turbobloke said:
The junior doctors may get sympathy from fellow travellers and Labour supporters who are yet to come to terms with the election defeat, but I'd wager an unprescribed antibiotic that a lot of sympathy was lost when the overtly political messages appeared alongside a natural desire for the deposit on their next Porsche. Any benefit of the doubt I had for their cause was lost when their political slogans and chants revealed another side to the claimed grievance. They won't care two hoots for that, but the esteem in which the medical profession has hitherto been held won't return once lost.
You keep demonstrating your total lack of any knowledge or understanding of junior doctors in the same way as that vacuous bint Katie Hopkins, unlike her I hope you do not need to fall on your face to have your esteem for their dedication and skill restored.
Your assertions don't make it so. Thanks for your kind wishes over accident avoidance, I do aim to take care out and about particularly at weekends for obvious reasons.

Dixy said:
You may like to consider the concept that the Doctors motives are apolitical, they just want a better, safer NHS and reasonable remuneration for their undoubted professionalism.
Use your eyes and ears more; the biased rhetoric above is transparently off-target, remaining personal rather than on-topic.

When junior doctor protest chants and placard statements contain anti-Conservative slogans such as 'Save Our NHS' (when Labour rejected pressure to match Coalition plans to inject an extra £8bn into the health budget there was not even a squeal from the BMA) and 'Stop Privatisation' (when Labour was more about this than the Conservatives are) this is a clear sign that the context goes beyond pay reviews and that their position is politicised.

I for one don't hope that junior doctors fall on their face over this, but they need to keep sore loser Labour support out of it, cut the dopey slogans and stick to making their case on the issues they claim the strike vote was about. Their supporters might like to follow suit, if credibility matters.

IanA2

2,764 posts

164 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
See:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3328912/Health-Secretary-Jeremy-Hunt-savages-striking-doctors-warning-lives-risk-walk-out.html

It seems that JH has misjudged "middle England". Below the line comments not what he was expected. I wonder who will be the next SoS for Health?

turbobloke

104,578 posts

262 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
IanA2 said:
See:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3328912/Health-Secretary-Jeremy-Hunt-savages-striking-doctors-warning-lives-risk-walk-out.html

It seems that JH has misjudged "middle England". Below the line comments not what he was expected. I wonder who will be the next SoS for Health?
Misjudged Middle England or misjudged the number of JDs commenting alongside Labour supporters looking for a fight? Not that there's a lack of support for JDs, I'm not disputing that.

Here's one recent hilarious comment:

Never thought id see the day when DOCTORS WOULD GO ON STRIKE IT SEEMS THE DEMOCRATIC OATH MEANS NOTHING TO THEM

Democratic oath, surely Hunt should have signed that one smile

ucb

971 posts

214 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
There is thought that mortality rates on the strike days will fall. Maybe striking is actually a good thing for patients?

Dixy

Original Poster:

2,958 posts

207 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
'Save Our NHS'
This was one of call me Daves oft spouted phrases over the last 7 years, you will no doubt claim he is one of the looser left as well.


eccles

13,754 posts

224 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
spaximus said:
I have never said everything is fine. I have never said that there are not issues in the NHS. Doctors at present do provide 24 hour cover in hospitals.

What I and the previous poster to me was pointing out was that there had not been enough study to come to any conclusion as to what the truth is. You would have to spend time analysing every case to decide if those who died, after being admitted at weekends, actually got worse medical treatment than those admitted during the week.

Hunt has decided without having such research that it is because he wants to get the same number of Doctors to work at the weekend but for less. No where I have read that these changes he proposes will get more Doctors in at a weekend. If it did then there will be less in during the week, unless he is magically going to employ more, which he has not suggested he would do.

The NHS has to change, of that there is no doubt but I suggest it is not the Doctors practices that need to change. I also note that few have commented on why the Doctors contracts need to be changed but not in Scotland or Wales. is that because they do anything differently medically, of course they do not but the assemblies have control not Hunt in those countries.
The NHS shouldn't have 'weekends' as such. People don't stop being sick just because it's a certain day of the week. Nurses have the same level of cover 7 days a week, so why should doctors be different?

mph1977

12,467 posts

170 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
eccles said:
The NHS shouldn't have 'weekends' as such. People don't stop being sick just because it's a certain day of the week. Nurses have the same level of cover 7 days a week, so why should doctors be different?
although there isn;t the same level of Nurse cover ( actually on the physical wards/ units rather than none job clipboard carriers) in terms of seniority 24/7 (purely budget driven BTW - used to be quite usueful when ward based band 6s were aloowed to do nights - got an awful lot of the appraisals etc done in the quiet hours)

numbers wise the variation weekday / weekend is small ( if it varies it;s usually one more in theweek but often on management duties rather than hands on ) and there is variation between days and nights , it;s far smaller variation than there is for medical cover ...

eccles

13,754 posts

224 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
mph1977 said:
eccles said:
The NHS shouldn't have 'weekends' as such. People don't stop being sick just because it's a certain day of the week. Nurses have the same level of cover 7 days a week, so why should doctors be different?
although there isn;t the same level of Nurse cover ( actually on the physical wards/ units rather than none job clipboard carriers) in terms of seniority 24/7 (purely budget driven BTW - used to be quite usueful when ward based band 6s were aloowed to do nights - got an awful lot of the appraisals etc done in the quiet hours)

numbers wise the variation weekday / weekend is small ( if it varies it;s usually one more in theweek but often on management duties rather than hands on ) and there is variation between days and nights , it;s far smaller variation than there is for medical cover ...
My Mrs is a band 6, and currently doing nights this weekend, though she's in the current disaster that is mental health.

spaximus

4,250 posts

255 months

Sunday 22nd November 2015
quotequote all
eccles said:
The NHS shouldn't have 'weekends' as such. People don't stop being sick just because it's a certain day of the week. Nurses have the same level of cover 7 days a week, so why should doctors be different?
That is just not true doctors are no different. In the wards there are the same Doctors as nurses as in the week. If it is deemed a quiet period they have less. A&E for example has known patterns that they rota for busy periods late on a Saturday night for example.
Anyone who is sick and needs to be seen in hospital is seen, yes might not be as quick as they would like but they are seen.

It is the clinics that do not operate at weekends and elective surgery, when this happens the nurses are not needed.
Hunt is trying every thing he can to get the public on his side with lies, and twisted reports. He is failing badly.