It would make you weep

Even though there are a few reasonable people out there with the power to make people hear what is what, there are far more who are trying to get their own point of view, their own political agenda fastened on to the junior doctors dispute.  There is one thing which I don't think has got in to the mix and forgive me if I have got this wrong but in a 7 day N H S who is going to pay all the other staff, the radiographers, the haematologists, the pharmacists, the scanners and cleaners and porters and receptionists.  When you go in to the staff area of car parks at most hospitals at the weekend there aren't many cars.  The cars that are there belong to the doctors and the spaces belong to most of the rest of the staff. These people will need paying too and the doctors I know who work at weekends say that the main difficulty is getting the diagnostics done, getting patients moved around and it isn't just not enough doctor time.  Doctors would love to be able to have a streamlined service at weekends but perhaps the doctors aren't being backed up by other N H S staff.  Jeremy Hunt and the BMA should recognise this and instead of scrapping around the disputed area and driving doctors away from training altogether and not just at weekends, they should get an overview, talk together about how you treat too many people with too few.  It would make anyone weep to see and hear the polemic and political polarisation which is taking place over this shambles and it will get worse if Jeremy Hunt insists on imposing the contract, much much worse.

It takes a brave woman to say what needs saying

GRANDPA'S WOMAN OF THE WEEK

Jenni Russell, what a heroine

It is a woman who has stepped up to the plate and put the whole case relating  to the catastrophic bungle which the politicians are fighting over.  Step down Yannis Gourtsoyannis (whose name should be gobstopolous), step down Jeremy Hunt, shut up Dave and listen to what Jenni god bless her Russell has to say in today's Times.  It is the very first time this august newspaper has had anything sensible to say and I hope that all the other journalists who have had a go at prodding the fire will acknowledge the sound and cool reasoning she has brought to bear.  It takes a practical person to know when the cupboard is bare and she has done just that.  Her final two sentences  "It needs shrewd analysis and intelligent nurturing not further impossible demands.  Step  back Jeremy before the NHS is carelessly pulled apart." totally get our vote. Careful analysis of what she suggests could reveal a way forward to accomplish a world first 7 day a week NHS which after all is what everyone really wants.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that the NHS is already providing exceptional value for money and this need not be lost if her recommendation gains the traction it deserves.  

GRANNIES ARE NOW FEELING THAT THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO GETS IT

Grandpa's message to Junior Doctors, this is what you are up against!

 

Make no Mistake Oh Junior Doctors, this is not going to be easy! 

• For better or for worse the Government has announced the intention of having a 7 day a week N.H.S.
• This doesn't exist anywhere else in the world, East or West.
• Mr Hunt is a career politician and he is banking on achieving the 7 day a week service without any extra budget.
• It is worth remembering that his co MP Mr Boris Johnson failed to create a 24 hour Underground Service.
• Both of these boys are more ambitious for themselves than they are for you, that's the nature of most of today's politicians and trades union leaders and that is a pity, it makes your position difficult because you are mostly there to serve first.
• Most of you don't want to strike, you just want to get on with your valuable service and complete your training.  You are probably completely nonplussed by your employer seeking to downgrade your quite modest financial expectations and your hope of having a half normal family life by his idea of crazy rostering which means that you will be penalised for taking time off for research or raising a family.
• It is unusual to see a "safe pair of hands" taking quite such brutal action at the expense of his core workers welfare and reasonable expectations.
• It is mad to have a Chief of Staff forcing his rising stars to leave the company and country.
• You have the support of many consultants, the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Surgeons and Nurses.  You have the support of many patients.
• The consultants by and large will try to cover for you on Strike Days.
• Mr Hunt will use all means to undermine this support and continue to blame YOU for killing patients at the weekend and of just being left wing.
• Don't lost the suppport of the sane and reasonable by falling in with rabble rousers who have their own political agenda.
• Don't be surprised by Sir Robert Francis's intervention, he is a budget control man, not a man of service.
• The Press especially the so called "Quality" papers appear to be either against you or to be ambivalent.  It seems to me that they haven't been properly appraised of the detail in this dispute and are keen to promote their own ideas with the good old maxim "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up."
• The BMA need to find someone in the BBC and Press who can follow the argument in detail.
• I favour Matt Ridley of the Times.  He is interested in FACTS.  He is/was visiting professor at Cold Spring Harbour, a New York medical research non profit institute.
• Get the PUBLIC onside and take heart, you have got me and I am going to alert every other Grandpa I know.

let's start with Jeremy Hunt

It seems very odd that the Secretary of State for Health is seeking to demoralise and take advantage of the very people who are the core of the National Health Service.  If only he would listen to me! My observation comes from having a daughter who is a doctor and a son-in-law who is a trainee surgeon and means that my comments are coming from a particular angle.  The nub of the issue, it seems to me is about rostering and whether the junior doctors can be rostered in a way that leaves them with some sort of social and family life.  Jeremy Hunt is relying on making a 5 day week into a 7 day week without incurring any extra cost or employing any extra staff.  And he is doing this by blaming those very junior doctors for killing people at the weekend.  He wants to make them appear greedy but he should know that most of these doctors are working off a huge student loan which they were encouraged to take out in order to become doctors.

I am taking to the bloggers life to give all the support I can muster to my daughter and her friends for whom I have enormous admiration and who I hope will be around when I need them. Jeremy Hunt may be a safe pair of hands for David Cameron but Jo Public remembers that Hunt didn't look all that brilliant when he blamed the tragedy for Hillsborough on the football fans in 2010.  He had the grace to apologise for that and I am looking forward to his apologising to the junior doctors for making a similar mistake by blaming them.