I don't know what planet you're on, but it's not one of empathy, understanding, and compromise. Stop slagging off other people's life choices for fuck's sake. It's hardly immoral to want a public-funded seven-day healthcare service.
This.
You two couldn't be further off the mark if you tried.
Its precisely because I have "
empathy, understanding and compromise" that I think the current proposals for seven-day services are dangerous. They are dangerous because there is zero additional money being provided to cover the expansion in service provision, which is dangerous in the short-term for immediate patient safety and long-term because of the potential demise of free-at-the-point of contact medical care regardless of your financial means to pay for it (i.e. the demise of the NHS as it was originally conceived).
- The NHS is currently, with a five-day service, under-funded and many sectors rely on the good will of staff to work extra hours.
- It is facing a staffing crisis because conditions have deteriorated and the people who work there are increasingly leaving as they've had enough.
- It is expected to save somewhere in the region of £22 billion in 'efficiency savings'.
I never once said it was immoral to want a publicly funded seven day service, in fact I agreed, and wrote that it is a worthy goal. But living in the real world (
understanding and compromise) I realise that it is
not achievable without additional funding. Pete you have mentioned that the NHS employs expensive agency staff, but aside from the valid reason JB gave, have you paused to consider why? Its because they're sick of the shit working conditions (longer and longer hours, and more and more bureaucracy), but they can actually do the job they want rather than paper work for less hassle by working for an agency. What you describe is a
symptom of the drive to run the NHS into the ground, not a cause of it.
You both seem to have completely missed the human aspect of the health service, the staff working there are humans, they have wants, families and lives outside of work. But no, lets not show
empathy, understanding and compromise towards those people, lets bang our single-issue drum whilst missing the bigger picture and continue to rant that "
I want to have my health seen to at
my convenience", and push these people to breaking point such that they quit the profession and more work is out-sourced to agencies.
Pointing out that something was a choice is not the same as slagging off that choice....
@Lund : You don't seem to have liked my "
Deal with it" comment and think I lack
empathy, understanding and compromise as a consequence. Well I, and everyone else I know who have kids, do whatever they can to care for and bring their children up as best they can. Work is important, but if my child is ill and needs my attention, or my wife is ill and can't do her share of caring then, as important as work is, the child takes priority. So you have my
empathy and understanding with regards to taking time off work in light of having children because
I do it too. But you sound like a child yourself whining that they want something NOW when you go on about how its inconvenient for you not to have access to your health service at the weekends and as a consequence have to take time off of work.
@petejh : You don't seem to have taken kindly to the fact I said that its individual choice to be self-employed and went on to say
there are lots of self-employed people who aren't well equipped for long rainy periods, but that you splashed out £10k on credit to have your health problem dealt with privately but that with hindsight you regretted not taking insurance, and went on to point out that not everyone can afford insurance up front. Well those people who aren't well equipped for long rainy periods will, under the current system, at least have their health taken care of free of charge but currently I, and many others who are capable of forming our own opinions rather than listening to spin, believe that to be under threat. It would be a travesty if we moved away from the current system because firstly healthcare is expensive, secondly it would increase in cost (companies have to turn a profit, look at costs in the US), thirdly the inequality that exists would mean that many simply can't afford it. So you and every other self-employed person out there also have my
empathy and understanding because I want to see the NHS continue in its current form and not discriminate against you and others worse off than you.
I know a few medics (a climbing partner whos a clinical psychologist and two GPs through friends), there are GCW, monkoffunk, webbo and other doctors posting in this thread, all of whom have insight into an increasingly broken system giving their opinion, which yes, might be biased, but its because they no doubt feel as I do, that the NHS in its current form is worth saving. The
compromise is that because you can't have a seven day service without more money you have to stick with the current five-day service until more money comes along. Neither of you have seriously addressed how a seven day service would be funded, instead sticking to "
how you think things should be" (an accusation you levelled at me Pete).
All that said, I'm done with discussing anything serious on this forum. You've both employed a classic Sloper tactic of being myopic and purposefully ignoring the larger picture and consequences of various courses of action (you even stated this was your aim at the outset Lund, kind of like a declaration of trolling) yet big issues like this and many others simply can not be boiled down to a single issue as you have both attempted to do, and I can't be bothered wasting time having such discussions.
@Lund Nor do I have any time for you or the vitriol you have directed towards me. You are a hypocrite to complain that my posts are "
link ridden" as you do exactly the same, further back posting right after me and asking me what I made of a paper and linking to it. I took the time to read it and comment on it (the effect size was tiny) and provided you with a means of reading it in full yourself, but you chose to ignore that, and simply posted a link to another paper that supported your view point a few posts later.
P.S. Pete - Its perfectly natural that differences of opinion on a piece of work arise (viz. your comment about "
Prof xyz of medical institution abc" being contradicted by "
professor efg of medical institution jkl"). That is science. You do a piece of work, put it out there and others review it, criticise it and then improve on it. Go to conferences and at the end of almost every talk when questions are asked you can almost guarantee someone will ask "Did you consider the impact of A, B and C?". Thats how science progresses and we can either take these at face value, read the methods and judge for ourselves the appropriateness of the methods employed and the conclusions that can be drawn or you can trust an expert (after checking who funded the work and whether there are any conflicts of interest) because these
are the people who you should listen to, even if they disagree, eventually with more work a consensus will be reached. The only people who quote statistics you shouldn't listen to are politicians who twist facts to whatever whim takes their fancy. I always got the impression you understood this.
