The NHS and “junior doctors”

A comment from our forum that is worth repeating 

The government is doing its best to dismantle all state services and the NHS is no exception.  There have been some good articles on this subject in The Canary recently.

Also, I don’t know if anyone listens to James O’Brian on LBC, but he has spent a lot of time on his radio phone in to discuss this, with many “junior” doctors interviewed.  A “junior” doctor is nothing of the kind, it can be a hospital doctor with 20-30 years’ experience – it just means that he or she has not reached consultant level.  They are the backbone of the hospital service, and are the doctors we all come into contact with when we visit hospital.

From The Canary, re the new contract that have just been forced on doctors 

“The contract redefines Saturday work from 7am-5pm as ‘social hours’- with no pay increase, but offers a 30% premium for junior doctors who work more than one in four Saturdays. Hunt also announced he would lift basic pay from an 11% rise to a 13.5% rise. However, junior doctors called the rise a “cynical attempt” to “manipulate the figures”, claiming it would in fact amount to a real-terms pay cut of 26%, because of extra hours worked.”…….

“However, there is a gaping hole in Hunt’s claim that his imposed contract will bring safer services for patients. The Nuffield Trust thinktank has found:

While the number of patients attending hospital as an emergency is growing by 3.6% a year, hospitals are only receiving 1% more money a year to treat them.

This is entirely unsustainable. The Conservative government’s austerity programme is a threat to the safety of patients, and the imposed contract does nothing to address the gaping hole in funding.

The Department of Health just received an emergency bailout of £205m, but even this is taken from the budget for 2016-17. The Tories are deliberately setting the NHS on course to crash and burn, so the private sector can swoop in and ‘save the day’. Indeed, public dissatisfaction levels with the NHS are at the highest level for 30 years. This is all part of the plan.”

All this is very frightening, combined with the attack on trade union rights, access to legal aid and increased court fees, etc., etc.

The cattle voted to carry on with the slaughterhouse in the last election; but the figures I saw recently were that only 66% of the electorate voted, with only 24% voting for the Tories.

Some democracy.