Free at the point of care?
From that Q&A session:
Inflation is 4.8 per cent. Nurses pay is to rise by 1.9 per cent. How can you justify that? K GRAIN, by email
We will never do anything to take us back to the days of raging inflation and double-digit interest rates. So this year, while we accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies (including 2.5 per cent for nurses), we also decided to stage the pay rises with 1.5 per cent from April and the rest from November.
Will you be on holiday on 1 August when those unfortunate 12,000 plus doctors without posts join the dole queues? MAGGIE WRIGHT RN, Doncaster
It is simply not true that 12,000 doctors will be without posts. There has always been intense competition for training posts and that is true again this year, even though more training posts are available than ever before. A large number of this year’s applicants are already working in non-training jobs in the NHS, which will still be there in addition to the training posts.
Untrue but then who cares. Even the latest leak from the Review Group admits that they simply do not know.
Why have you taken no action to tackle the systemic failures in some out-of-hours GP services? SANDRA MILNER, London
The local NHS, through the primary care trust, now has to ensure that there are proper arrangements, meeting national standards. Eight out of 10 patients tell us they’re happy with their local out-of-hours service
Lies, lies & statistics.
Which is the greater disaster for the NHS : the IT system nobody wanted or the Private Finance Initiative rip-offs? CHRIS SMITH, by email
Talk to the consultants who are already using the digital imaging system (Pacs). They love it. No more time wasted, waiting for delayed or lost X-rays; GPs and specialists able to view images simultaneously; more accurate, faster diagnosis for patients. As for PFI, we couldn’t have built or refurbished over 100 new hospitals without it.
The introduction of PACS did not require a £12 billion system & should have been possible 5 years ago for about 5% of the price. What the NPfIT was supposed to deliver was the Spine as well as EPR in the acute setting, neither of which look remotely likely according to the original timetables. And Allyson Pollock has already deconstructed PFI.
Do you agree with the opinion of the junior doctors surveyed by the BMA who believed the NHS would be sold to the private sector within 10 years? NADEEM AFZAL, Birmingham
No. We will never change the values of the NHS - a universal service, tax-funded, based on clinical need and free at the point of use. But where the independent sector can help give NHS patients better, faster care, we will use it.
I doubt it will take as long as 10 years if certain people are allowed their way. Though Doctors for Reform try to make the case for it today, I am sceptical. Patients should not have to pay more to obtain the basics of appropriate healthcare. The fact that we are not able to provide it now should not lead us to give up the fight. The FT & the Independent get in on the act.
Let me repeat, it is possible to do better. The reason that I am so critical of the DoH is intense disappointment at the wasted opportunities that are being used by cynics to put forward their own agenda.
And why is the rehabilitation of patients not given as much of a priority as the initial injury?
This article makes for difficult reading but there are similar stories from adults as well.
Every year, an estimated 20,000 children in the UK will acquire a brain injury – some minor, some life-threatening. Here, as in the US, where hundreds of thousands of children sustain brain injuries every year, it is the most frequent cause of disability and death among children and young people. The Children’s Trust in Tadworth, Surrey, which for over 20 years has provided care and therapy for children with multiple disabilities, is home to the only specialist rehabilitation unit of its kind in the country; its 12 beds account for three-quarters of the UK’s total provision.
And antenatal classes are cut across the country with expectant mothers having to pay to make up the deficit. We might be sleepwalking into a two tier healthcare system after all.
The National Childbirth Trust, the charity that provides information for new parents, has discovered that antenatal classes have been reduced or cut in 13 different areas in England. Five Primary Care Trusts have asked the NCT to provide classes after complaints from midwives. There is no statutory duty for trusts to offer classes, making them an easy target for budget cuts.
The struggle for Boots gets bitter as the the parties snipe at each other & there is more speculation about Terra Firma’s plans for BUPA.
The £106 million break fee is payable to KKR if the Boots board goes back on an agreement to recommend the £10.6 billion terms outlined last Friday. Sources within Terra Firma, the investment company headed by Guy Hands, believe that the break fee is at least £50 million too much.
In reports that further suggest deteriorating relations between the protagonists, it is suggested that the Terra Firma-led consortium will strip Boots of valuable assets. These reports, it is thought, emanate from advisers close to the KKR/ Pessina camp. Each side appears to be accusing the other of plotting a Boots break-up that is against the interest of thousands of workers.
April 24th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Well NZ only has population of around 4million so it is limited in how many UK young docs it can absorb. All the best to those who go there tho. Lots of fun and outdoors activities. Mind you, they will face competition with SA docs. Hard to find a NZ doc these days. Maybe they’re all in Europe and elsewhere. Market med economics?
April 24th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Given that the BMA poll suggests that 50% of trainees who don’t get jobs might leave, that gives a figure of around 5000 doctors in the job market. I suspect that Australia / New Zealand will be the most familiar for UK trainees but Canada & the USA are options too.
To be honest, I haven’t seen too many medics from New Zealand here. South Africans & Aussies, yes. Don’t know where they go.