I'm all in favour of doctors not having to work 80+ hours a week but if senior consultants feel that it reduces care for patients what is the answer?
If information is being incorrectly passed then there is very definitely a problem. The brain tumor that I was diagnosed with turned out to be a mix up of records by people I'd never seen. The scary thing is that somewhere out there is some poor bastard who has been given the all clear but actually has what I was told I had. That scares me; it scared me when they told me I had it but it frightens me more that someone doesn't know they have the condition because of a cock-up in file transfers.
> I'm all in favour of doctors not having to work 80+ hours a week but if > senior consultants feel that it reduces care for patients what is the > answer?
This has to be nonsense. Doctors who work 80 hours are going to be /less/ competent, not more so than those who work the same hours as people who are not working at such a high pitch of stress to begin with.
> If information is being incorrectly passed then there is very definitely a > problem.
But the problem is not caused by doctors working hours that ensure they will be reasonably alert when attending patients. It's caused by normal human incompetence; the solution would be to introduce better checks to guard against this, not to make people work long past the time when they can be effective.
> The brain tumor that I was diagnosed with turned out to be a mix > up of records by people I'd never seen.
This is a Good Thing if it means you don't have a brain tumour.
> The scary thing is that somewhere > out there is some poor bastard who has been given the all clear but > actually has what I was told I had. That scares me; it scared me when they > told me I had it but it frightens me more that someone doesn't know they > have the condition because of a cock-up in file transfers.
But presumably there will be other checks for that person; one hopes these will come in time to be useful to them, though given the current state of the NHS this isn't all that likely.
This isn't peculiar to the NHS, though. My father has had pain in his right knee for some time, and eventually his doctor sent him for x-rays, which were taken of his right knee only. The radiologist's report came back that there's nothing at all wrong with his knee, with enough detail to make it clear to the GP that the report was about someone's left knee.
-- Lesley Weston
The addy above is real, but I won't see anything posted to it for a long time. To reach me, use leswes att shaw dott ca, adjusting as necessary.
>> I'm all in favour of doctors not having to work 80+ hours a week but >> if senior consultants feel that it reduces care for patients what is >> the answer?
> This has to be nonsense. Doctors who work 80 hours are going to be > /less/ competent, not more so than those who work the same hours as > people who are not working at such a high pitch of stress to begin with.
>> If information is being incorrectly passed then there is very >> definitely a problem.
> But the problem is not caused by doctors working hours that ensure they > will be reasonably alert when attending patients. It's caused by normal > human incompetence; the solution would be to introduce better checks to > guard against this, not to make people work long past the time when they > can be effective.
>> The brain tumor that I was diagnosed with turned out to be a mix up of >> records by people I'd never seen.
> This is a Good Thing if it means you don't have a brain tumour.
>> The scary thing is that somewhere out there is some poor bastard who >> has been given the all clear but actually has what I was told I had. >> That scares me; it scared me when they told me I had it but it >> frightens me more that someone doesn't know they have the condition >> because of a cock-up in file transfers.
> But presumably there will be other checks for that person; one hopes > these will come in time to be useful to them, though given the current > state of the NHS this isn't all that likely.
> This isn't peculiar to the NHS, though. My father has had pain in > his right knee for some time, and eventually his doctor sent him for > x-rays, which were taken of his right knee only. The radiologist's > report came back that there's nothing at all wrong with his knee, with > enough detail to make it clear to the GP that the report was about > someone's left knee.
I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma once after a blood workup. They did it again and it said the same thing. Then they took a new sample and I was all well again. My Doctor (a friend of mine I really like) asked me, sort of tentatively, "Did you have lots of people praying for you?"
-Ferd Burfle -- Poop, once slung, can never be unslung. Given enough time, it will decorate the slinger.
On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:55:34 +0000, GaryN wrote: > I'm all in favour of doctors not having to work 80+ hours a week but if > senior consultants feel that it reduces care for patients what is the > answer?
The main problem is that, despite having been given plenty of notice of the new rules the NHS did nothing about it because it would have meant employing a lot more junior doctors at a time when the money isn't there because some moron (Gordon Brown when he was Tony Blair's Chancellor of the Exchequer) decided to run the NHS using Private Finance Initiatives (a Tory invention from the days when John Major was Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer) which are bleeding the NHS dry. The PFI is an accounting scam so outrageous even Enron would have been embarrassed to try it but because it's the government doing it it is legal. Having seen what the PPP[1] has done to the London Underground I can understand the problems the NHS is going through. The money isn't there because it is being creamed off by private companies which charge through the nose for everything and the ones that carry out operations cherry pick the easy profit making ones and leave the poor old NHS to deal with the more complicated and less lucrative stuff. The demise of Patientline, the PFI company which charged patients extortionate amounts of money for phone calls[2] and bedside TV and internet, happened because it was individual patients who had to foot the bill and couldn't afford to. Unfortunately for the UK tax payer, the government would have paid the bill and the PFI scheme would have continued. Patientline blamed the Dept of Health but the real reason they went bust was their own blinkered greed looking at the goose without checking to see if the eggs it laid were gold or just cheap plastic with a respray. I used to think the background hum you hear in hospitals was something to do with the various machinery in the place monitoring patients' health etc but a nurse told me that it was the sound of Aneurin Bevan, Clement Atlee and William Beveridge turning in their graves.
[1] LUL's PFI scheme which handed maintenance over to Metronet and Tubelines. The PPP includes clause that should the consortium go tits up as happened with Metronet the UK tax payer has to pay for 95% of the debt so the companies in the consortium basically had next to no risk. Costs under the PPP are outrageous. For example, when LUL wanted a repeater signal put into the platform monitors at Finchley Road on the Metropolitan Line (similar to the one at Wembley Park) because the station starter is not best placed for the drivers to see it from the stopping mark, Tubelines wanted £60,000 to install a small unit with 6 LEDs (3 yellow, 3 green) or £200,000 if a route indicator was included - just to repeat the signal that is already there. LUL declined to be held hostage and there is no repeater. [2] Regulators capped outgoing calls at 10p per minute so Patientline charged incoming calls which weren't capped at 49p per minute quite apart from the £3.50 per day to watch TV. -- Andy Davison andy [ at ] oiyou [ dot ] ukfsn [ dot ] org
> > I'm all in favour of doctors not having to work 80+ hours a week but if > > senior consultants feel that it reduces care for patients what is the > > answer?
> This has to be nonsense. Doctors who work 80 hours are going to be > /less/ competent, not more so than those who work the same hours as > people who are not working at such a high pitch of stress to begin with.
But, but, they are so much more experienced! They may not /remember/ the experience though :-)
I think doctors' management - not necessarily the NHS itself - digging their heels in to resist the Survivable Without Drugs Or Going Mad Working Time Directive, is a big part of problems living up to it now.
PFI has problems, but one large bit of cleverness I think as far as the NHS goes, if the NHS doesn't own the hospitals and schools then when the Tories can't sell them. Privatisation of the service, which I think has been in Tory manifestoes since 1997, can go ahead on ideological grounds but won't raise so much cash.
Robert Carnegie wrote: > On Oct 12, 5:19 pm, Lesley Weston <brightly_coloured_b...@yahoo.co.uk> > wrote: >> GaryN wrote: >>> I found this in (well actually on the front page of) The Sunday Times >>> yesterday. >>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6869585... >>> I'm all in favour of doctors not having to work 80+ hours a week but if >>> senior consultants feel that it reduces care for patients what is the >>> answer? >> This has to be nonsense. Doctors who work 80 hours are going to be >> /less/ competent, not more so than those who work the same hours as >> people who are not working at such a high pitch of stress to begin with.
> But, but, they are so much more experienced! They may not /remember/ > the experience though :-)
And what kind of experience? Experience of desperately longing for sleep, perhaps.
-- Lesley Weston
The addy above is real, but I won't see anything posted to it for a long time. To reach me, use leswes att shaw dott ca, adjusting as necessary.
Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote: > I think doctors' management - not necessarily the NHS itself - digging > their heels in to resist the Survivable Without Drugs Or Going Mad > Working Time Directive, is a big part of problems living up to it now.
> PFI has problems, but one large bit of cleverness I think as far as > the NHS goes, if the NHS doesn't own the hospitals and schools then > when the Tories can't sell them. Privatisation of the service, which > I think has been in Tory manifestoes since 1997, can go ahead on > ideological grounds but won't raise so much cash.
So... they can't be sold off to business interests, because they already have been sold off to business interests? Somehow, I don't see how clever that is, unless you mean that it has now made Labour rather than the Tories some money. Which, given that it's still less than the nation's health is worth, is only clever from a political POV.
> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote: > > I think doctors' management - not necessarily the NHS itself - digging > > their heels in to resist the Survivable Without Drugs Or Going Mad > > Working Time Directive, is a big part of problems living up to it now.
> > PFI has problems, but one large bit of cleverness I think as far as > > the NHS goes, if the NHS doesn't own the hospitals and schools then > > when the Tories can't sell them. Privatisation of the service, which > > I think has been in Tory manifestoes since 1997, can go ahead on > > ideological grounds but won't raise so much cash.
> So... they can't be sold off to business interests, because they already > have been sold off to business interests? Somehow, I don't see how > clever that is, unless you mean that it has now made Labour rather than > the Tories some money. Which, given that it's still less than the > nation's health is worth, is only clever from a political POV.
Well, it's not so much sold off, as that business interests created the new assets of the NHS in the first place - except that they aren't assets of the NHS strictly, they're leased. Or something. But the only thing you can do /with/ them is provide the NHS. And the only way to turn it private is to charge for admission. Which isn't to say that they won't do that.
Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote in news:d4745b53-3748-4448- a74f-aecec9b94...@k17g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:
<snip>
> Well, it's not so much sold off, as that business interests created > the new assets of the NHS in the first place - except that they aren't > assets of the NHS strictly, they're leased. Or something. But the > only thing you can do /with/ them is provide the NHS. And the only > way to turn it private is to charge for admission. Which isn't to say > that they won't do that.
Ummmm I think that £2.50 an hour for car parking almost qualifies, particularly since they charge their own staff as well as visitors!
gary
-- "I really like this jacket but the sleeves are much too long"
|
