I am rather pushed for time this morning but I am so furious with the Gov't and so much in support of Junior Doctors that I will spend 10 minutes writing this to maintain my sanity - ha! Here are some points in no particular order:
- First of all while Junior Doctors have withdrawn emergency care - I believe they have only done so in the full knowledge that their consultant colleagues (the most experienced doctors - who incidentally fully support the Junior Doctors action) will be providing emergency care in their place. There is no risk to patients. This has been fully planned and agreed. Junior Doctors are not self serving or irresponsible.
- Doctors & the NHS differentiate between emergency service and elective service. Most of the public do not understand what elective means.
- Elective means - non emergency - when you make an appointment to visit the hospital.
- The Gov't says it has a manifesto right/obligation to organise a 7 day NHS. They do.
- But what does a 7 day NHS service mean? Don't we already have one?
- Yes we do - a fantastic 7 day emergency service with junior doctors working hard 7 days a week to staff it.
- Do we have a fully 7 day elective service. No not fully but many elective operations etc are carried out at weekends.
- Why do we not have a fully elective 7 day service? Because it takes huge resources. Not just doctors and nurses, but administrators, porters, pharmacists, radiographers - blood testing etc etc.
The Junior Doctors position is while the Government have a manifesto commitment to bring in a 7 day elective service it has neither been properly planned and is dangerously under resourced.
The Government is trying to create a cost neutral 7 day elective service using resources currently barely funding a 5 day one.
Junior Doctors rightly are arguing this is madness. They are arguing until there is a proper plan and adequately resourced, stretching existing resources already at breaking point will be dangerous for patients, terrible for NHS morale and detrimental to the well being and sustainability of vocational care by doctors and nurses.
Their position has been totally misrepresented and characterised by Jeremy Hunt. He says it is just about Saturday pay. He says the BMA are misrepresenting and duping Junior Doctors. This is a total insult and totally disrespectful to some of our brightest, most hardworking and most caring young people.
To cap it all Hunt has perpetually used a statistic which is a lie and known to be a lie. He says 11000 deaths are caused because we do not have a 7 day NHS. It is obvious that a higher proportion of people are going to die at weekends if the patients being admitted at weekends are proportionally a much higher percentage of emergency cases. Those same emergency cases taken in on weekdays would have the same outcomes. The misuse of this statistic massively upsets the medical profession.
So to sum up. Hunt and the government are playing politics. They are looking for votes by claiming to have created a fully 7 day NHS. However they do not have a coherent sustainable plan which is adequately resourced to bring it about. They have been found out about by Junior Doctors and the rest of the medical profession who support them. They know it will be dangerous for patients. They know there is not enough resources. They know the application of skills will be stretched even thinner. They vocationally care. How can they agree to an extended 7 day elective service if they know it will undermine and create danger in the existing 5+ day elective service. They are fighting for these issues to be properly understood and addressed. We must get behind them. It is in everyone's interest to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment