There's a table here to show things as simply as possible
We will fight contract imposition, says BMA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35548091
I was looking at that table earlier and found it misleading, the synic in me thinks there may be a small amount of deliberate obfuscation of the truth in it.
table on the left presents % as a whole, the other 2 represent amount + x%. eg 120% of basic vs basic + 30%, the second one is actually higher but looks smaller. At least subconsciously anyhow.
This strike is about nothing but money, ok there is a little bit of politics here (oooo look at the nasty tories killing the NHS) but 95% about the money. At every turn the BMA will make you think it is about patient safety but those arguments are simply BS and the arguements don't stand up to scruteny.
BMA: "These plans will affect patient safety"
Interviewer: "Can you explain how? "
BMA: "No, but trust me, I'm a doctor"
We were working long hours in Afghan at the hospital, minimum 8 but upto 14 hours a day 7 days a week. People were working long shifts and dealing with some pretty horrific and busy work patterns, without a pay rise. They looked at patient outcomes and Bastion Role 3 hospital was rated the best in the world for trauma. Why? Because the specialists and the management (leadership) weren't afraid to make some pretty ballsy decisions and changes to the fundemental doctrine we had not changed in decades. Changes such as taking the front door of A&E to the scene of the incident, including damage control surgery in the back of a chinook (which when I saw it in action just blew me away)
If something didn't work we changed it.
Nobody cried. Some still sadly died.
We learned, we adapted and we worked hard. The men and women I had the honour of working alongside did some amazing things and saved many lives.
I think it is sad that what is mostly just a financial isue is being hidden by this "Patient Safety" arguement. It has already been proven that if you have a stroke at the weekend you are more likely to die than if you have one during the week. Where is the patient safety arguement here? Why is nobody on the front line or the BMA suggesting or making fundemental changes to how they work in order to change that?
That is a completely wrong, biased and moronic appraisal of a very complicated and important issue. I will say no more because you cannot have a discussion with someone as mis-informed as you who likes to make blanket statements about someone/something else without understanding anything about it. Of course when it comes to something like cycling, you will spend hours spouting crap and writing up proposals to protect your backside. When it comes to your job or your health; again you spend time bleating about it and making it sound like it is the most important thing in the world. However when it comes to the issue of doctors, you always seem to have some sort of hidden agenda of making it look like they are always wrong.
I will leave you with this question. Show me one study that actually shows increased stroke mortality on a weekend is related to the care (or more specifically to the number of doctors) they receive on a weekend rather than other factors including nurses/physio/OT/speech and language therapists/imagers/interventionalists/drug availability/patient transport etc:
https://fullfact.org/health/ask-full-fact-stroke-patients-and-weekend-deaths/Additionally in response to patient outcomes from Bastion Role 3; there was and still is a lack of information of physiological severity scoring of patients treated and admitted to the unit. And how does comparing outcomes from such a unit apply to a normal NHS hospital. Chinooks which are fully adapted vs tiny air ambulances in the NHS? Level 3 care vs smaller hospitals in the UK, some of whom do not even have level 3 beds? 34% of patients were transferred out to other units. Imagine that in the NHS. 18% were evacuated by a critical care aeromedical evacuation team. None of this happens in the NHS. Why? Because of the level of investment in the above hospital vs what a normal NHS hospital receives.
The average ITU stay in Camp Bastion was 2.5 days. Completely incomparable to a normal NHS hospital ITU stay.
So Jeremy Hunt's explanation of thinning out an already stretched workforce even thinner does not work. What you need is more doctors/nurses/HCA/physios/OT/SALT/images/porters/ phlebotomists to bolster the weekends. Not stretch the workforce and in the process make the weekday less safe.
I am not a junior doctor, but I see the degree of altruism in my junior doctors. Most, if not all of them give up their free time for the patients that they really care about. And you cheapen and insult that dedication by calling it "about the money". Shame on you!
