Current Affairs 2024

[oldbluefox]

Statistics aside there are parts of the country where it is very unlikely you will get a face to face appointment any time soon. At best you will be seen by a physician associate, who is much cheaper for the practice to employ.

[Onelife]

To get back to the points you were making Foxy I couldn’t agree more.

Of course, it’s good to see the numbers of doctors increasing, but where’s the continuity in using locums in GP practice and where’s the commitment to service development?

You can’t count numbers alone as the demand on the services change and numbers alone do not reflect the skill mix required. I would have thought the commitment to a service comes through stability and experience.

We need to keep attracting more youngster into medical training in this country so were not stealing doctor away from less fortunate countries who need them there themselves.

We need to train them and retain them so we’ve got competent, experienced and invested medical workforce for the future.

[Mervyn and Trish]

We need to keep attracting more youngster into medical training in this country so were not stealing doctor away from less fortunate countries who need them there themselves.

We need to train them and retain them so we’ve got competent, experienced and invested medical workforce for the future.

Prepare for a shock..... I agree with you 100%. But to achieve that we need cross party agreement on the future course of the NHS. Training medics is a long term thing. Shortages of consultants and GPs now goes right back to decisions the previous Labour government made. But will any party relax their grip on this valuable political football?

[Stephen]

I don’t know about training, re-training wouldn’t be a bad idea going by the cr*p doctors PA Associates and nurse practitioners at our practice where the favourite diagnosis is a blood test or antibiotics. A bl**dy monkey could do that.

[Onelife]

We need to keep attracting more youngster into medical training in this country so were not stealing doctor away from less fortunate countries who need them there themselves.

We need to train them and retain them so we’ve got competent, experienced and invested medical workforce for the future.

Prepare for a shock..... I agree with you 100%. But to achieve that we need cross party agreement on the future course of the NHS. Training medics is a long term thing. Shortages of consultants and GPs now goes right back to decisions the previous Labour government made. But will any party relax their grip on this valuable political football?

Let’s hope this trend continues and just to show that I also give credit where credit due I also agree with you 100%

I also think this is what 100% of the public would welcome.

[Stephen]

Steady on Merv, you'll become an anti-royalist next.

[Onelife]

With regard to the labour parties handling of the NHS I would say this…Blair did try and reform the NHS by trying to make it more cost effective. Unfurtunatly, this resulted in setting one hospital against the other resulting in smaller hospitals losing services to larger Hospital (in what had now become a competitive market place). This, over time resulted in smaller hospitals being downgraded to satellite hospitals which in turn put more pressure on the larger hospitals inadequate administrative systems and its ability to cope with increased patient referrals and treatment thereafter.

I don’t dispute that there are many other contributing factors as to why our NHS has failed to meet the needs of its patients, but as you have said working collectively on a way forward would bring better outcomes, I believe.

[Onelife]

Steady on Merv, you'll become an anti-royalist next.

It’s an increasing trend Stephen

[oldbluefox]

I've just had to have a lie down!!! OL agreeing with me!!! Must be my birthday, I'll go and check my lottery numbers.

There is another aspect to the shortage of GPs and a part of the reason we are haemorrhaging young doctors to the likes of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. There are young doctors newly trained who want to go into GP practice but cannot get a job because practices are opting for the cheaper alternative of APs.

OL mentioned Blair. It was he who changed the GPs working conditions. GP practices became self financing under an NHS budget. Complaints from doctors I knew centred on the fact they went into medicine to treat the sick and the elderly not to spend their time sorting out finances and organising staffing. Yet another Blair cockup.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Yes Labour cocked up the GP contract, and the Dentist contract, and pursued PFI zealously even where it didn't add up (they took 200 beds out of the plans for our new hospital to engineer it so PFI looked good, against the advice of the clinicians and now it's too small), they introduced more layers of bureaucracy and bean counters to measure targets. Etc etc.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Steady on Merv, you'll become an anti-royalist next.

It’s an increasing trend Stephen

It won't go that far. Long live the King.

[oldbluefox]

Faced with the prospect we could end up with a President Trump, Corbyn, Truss, Blair or Boris fear is bringing him round to our way of thinking. Won't be too long before we see the Royal Standard flying over Keefy Towers

[towny44]

With regard to the labour parties handling of the NHS I would say this…Blair did try and reform the NHS by trying to make it more cost effective. Unfurtunatly, this resulted in setting one hospital against the other resulting in smaller hospitals losing services to larger Hospital (in what had now become a competitive market place). This, over time resulted in smaller hospitals being downgraded to satellite hospitals which in turn put more pressure on the larger hospitals inadequate administrative systems and its ability to cope with increased patient referrals and treatment thereafter.

I don’t dispute that there are many other contributing factors as to why our NHS has failed to meet the needs of its patients, but as you have said working collectively on a way forward would bring better outcomes, I believe.

There may be very many inefficiences in the NHS but I doubt that there are enough financial savings to pay for all the extra staff that would be needed to provide the quality of care from cradle to grave that we all crave.
So whoever is in power will eventually have to bite the bullet and find the funding from tax revenue.

[david63]

So whoever is in power will eventually have to bite the bullet and find the funding from tax revenue.

As I have have said many times that will only come after we, as a nation, decide what we want as a health service - do we want an all singing, all dancing service or do we want one that we can afford. The problem is that no political party will ever have that discussion because whichever way it goes it will be a vote looser.

[oldbluefox]

I wish our political leaders would bite the bullet and do what our European and Scandinavian neighbours have done and put up taxes to pay for an NHS which is fit for purpose.....after they have got rid of all the leeches and freeloaders feeding from it and cut out wasteful practices caused by sheer laziness and incompetence.
If all the parties agreed to it there could be no backlash....although this is UK! No chance.

[towny44]

I wish our political leaders would bite the bullet and do what our European and Scandinavian neighbours have done and put up taxes to pay for an NHS which is fit for purpose.....after they have got rid of all the leeches and freeloaders feeding from it and cut out wasteful practices caused by sheer laziness and incompetence.
If all the parties agreed to it there could be no backlash....although this is UK! No chance.

The Scandinavian countries have several big advantage over the UK, they have much smaller populations, especially Norway which also has the Sovereign wealth fund based on its surplus oil revenues.
This gives them a massive advantage over the UK with our much larger population, and massively bigger demand on the welfare state.

[Mervyn and Trish]

One thing that Sweden does is levy a small charge on appointments, something like £5 for a GP appointment, £15 for A&E. Sufficient to deter time wasters and drunks with hangovers. Not enough to put off anyone with a genuine need.

[Onelife]

So whoever is in power will eventually have to bite the bullet and find the funding from tax revenue.

As I have have said many times that will only come after we, as a nation, decide what we want as a health service - do we want an all singing, all dancing service or do we want one that we can afford. The problem is that no political party will ever have that discussion because whichever way it goes it will be a vote looser.

I would be happy with something in-between those two options.

I’m not so sure raising taxes for an improved NHS would be a vote loser, labour has enough time to turn it around and they would only have to demonstrate that services were improving to keep voters on their side.

I’m willing to take the hits now for decision making that gets our country back on its feet.

[Onelife]

One thing that Sweden does is levy a small charge on appointments, something like £5 for a GP appointment, £15 for A&E. Sufficient to deter time wasters and drunks with hangovers. Not enough to put off anyone with a genuine need.

I would agree 100% if it concedes with a reduction/freeze on prescription charges.

[Onelife]

I've just had to have a lie down!!! OL agreeing with me!!! Must be my birthday, I'll go and check my lottery numbers.

Don’t build your hopes up Foxy, the odds of this happening again is about the same as you would get with me having an outdated symbol of the past flapping around in my garden

[towny44]

One thing that Sweden does is levy a small charge on appointments, something like £5 for a GP appointment, £15 for A&E. Sufficient to deter time wasters and drunks with hangovers. Not enough to put off anyone with a genuine need.

That sounds eminently sensible, but no doubt those on benefits or low pay would probably be exempt, so you and I would end up being the only ones paying the fee.

[towny44]

So whoever is in power will eventually have to bite the bullet and find the funding from tax revenue.

As I have have said many times that will only come after we, as a nation, decide what we want as a health service - do we want an all singing, all dancing service or do we want one that we can afford. The problem is that no political party will ever have that discussion because whichever way it goes it will be a vote looser.

I would be happy with something in-between those two options.

I’m not so sure raising taxes for an improved NHS would be a vote loser, labour has enough time to turn it around and they would only have to demonstrate that services were improving to keep voters on their side.

I’m willing to take the hits now for decision making that gets our country back on its feet.

I am not convinced we are flat on our backs at the present, only the Labout party, pre election, and the left wing media, eg the Beeb, seemed to be playing that tune.

[oldbluefox]

As my friend put it.............We are not broken but the country is. It doesn't seem to matter in which direction we look whether it be infrastructure, housing, education, NHS, social welfare, housing, immigration, law and order, there is nowhere we can speak with any confidence.

I deplore the riots wholeheartedly but I wonder if the underlying root of the matter lies with our politicians and their attitudes towards immigration and the numbers we are allowing in, into a country already on its knees. If you live in the leafy glades you will be little affected but it will have an impact on the more deprived areas. Add into the mix the lack of integration so we now have immigrant communities which have not integrated at all.
I repeat I do not approve of the violence at all but the blame lies with the politicians who have failed to address the problems of immigration and integration and are still not listening.

[Onelife]

As my friend put it.............We are not broken but the country is. It doesn't seem to matter in which direction we look whether it be infrastructure, housing, education, NHS, social welfare, housing, immigration, law and order, there is nowhere we can speak with any confidence.

I deplore the riots wholeheartedly but I wonder if the underlying root of the matter lies with our politicians and their attitudes towards immigration and the numbers we are allowing in, into a country already on its knees. If you live in the leafy glades you will be little affected but it will have an impact on the more deprived areas. Add into the mix the lack of integration so we now have immigrant communities which have not integrated at all.
I repeat I do not approve of the violence at all but the blame lies with the politicians who have failed to address the problems of immigration and integration and are still not listening.

You need to stop this Foxy…two 100% likes in 24 hours isn’t doing our debating rivalry any good at all

[oldbluefox]

It's all part of my cunning plot. Merv told me to do it.