All-out doctors' strike will damage trust - NHS chief

[Northerner]

A strike affecting all care by junior doctors will "irreparably damage" trust and the profession's reputation, NHS England's medical director has said.

Writing in the Observer, Sir Bruce Keogh said the planned walkout in England on 26 and 27 April would put significant strain on services.

Action in the row over a new contract has not affected emergency care so far.

The British Medical Association said disruption was avoidable if the government agreed to return to talks.

Ministers, however, are refusing to reopen discussions, arguing they made compromises earlier in the year but the BMA did not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36008479

 

[robert@fm]

Jeremy Hunt's attitude has already put enormous strain on services and damaged confidence/trust in the NHS (or at any rate this government's handling of it), so what else is new? 🙄

 

[Northerner]

Jeremy Hunt's attitude has already put enormous strain on services and damaged confidence/trust in the NHS (or at any rate this government's handling of it), so what else is new? 🙄

My guess is that the government are going to face the doctors down until the last minute before the strike, then get back to the table saying that even though the doctors don't care about patients, the government does 🙄

Hunt is basing his arguments on the 'fact' that more people die at weekends, which has been shown to be false. He's also tried to make it all about pay, ignoring the doctors' argument that it will endanger patients by trying to spread an overstretched service even thinner. Making it cheaper to make doctors work at weekends won't really help unless they have all the necessary support staff available to enable them to do their job as per weekdays. They are effectively trying to conjure up a 40% across the board increase in service with a workforce that simply cannot meet those demands. Has any of this been properly costed? Not only staff, but all the extra machines and consumables, extra power requirements etc. etc.? Not to my knowledge - the government is giving half what Simon Stevens originally asked for just to make the NHS stand still (as evidenced by the fact that hospitals are now £2bn+ on debt)

 

[trophywench]

They are completely bats. They thought the great unwashed public would be absolutely horrified at 'junior' doctors going on strike, which would lead to 'everybody' castigating them for very daring to do such a thing - instead almost NONE of us has obeyed and done what we were supposed to. In fact - it's had the entirely opposite effect!

Time we had a nationwide CQC inspection for ALL non-medical services/employees/systems within the NHS - I'd volunteer to be a 'lay' representative - who wouldn't?

(And - crowd funding possibilities for medical services ??????)