Wednesday 27 April 2016

Junior Doctors Strike

Can someone out there explain why this strike is about safety? I get that it's about pay as well, and I don't have a problem with someone saying they aren't paid enough and going on strike about it, but what's the safety thing. Anyone?

15 comments:

Antisthenes said...

This strike is only about pay. Junior doctors can ramp up their earnings considerably by working weekends as it currently stands. The new contract does away with the time and half payments etc and offers an across the board pay rise of 13% instead. The doctors want more money plain and simple. A similar problem existed when the NHS was founded. The government had to stuff the doctors mouths with gold to get them to participate.

The answer of course is to privatise the provision of health care then the doctors would have to compete for patients as they do in France so would have to modify their pay demands or price themselves out of the market. To stop patients from abusing the system so much again part privatisation of funding is required. It works well in France the health care there is considerably better than that provided by the NHS.

Lola said...

A. I prefer to use the term 'denationalisation' to 'privatisation'. The UK had a functioning private health care system until it was progressively nationalised from about 1911 onwards. The real downfall came in 1947, of course. My mum trained at Bart's in London. It had massive endowments and property assets, all of which seemed to have been subsumed on nationalisation.

The MGW patented 'voucher' system would enable the poor and unfortunate to access health care 'free at the point of delivery' as they do now. (In fact Bart's provided charitably care to the P and U prior to nationalisation).

DBC Reed said...

@L A new low.Are there no lows you can't sink to? Get this clear: nobody wants to live in your sub-fascist world where, although land owning rent clippers have got the elbow , you and your Establishment mates, want the rich corporations to move instead into rent-seeking off people's health, schools and transport systems.
Can't you imagine an England where there's affordable publicly built housing you can move to where there's work, good free schools and cheap public transport (if not free as Dave Wetzel of TFL and the Labour Land Campaign proposed).You should be able to: its the England you were born into and given as a birthright.

Lola said...

DBCR Yay! I knew that'd bring you out of the woodwork. And nothing I said in my post, and nothing I have ever said, does not recognise that there isn't an issue with public housing and 'rent'. Ever. You know very well that I am very pro LVT and 'public housing' - that is I'd would rather that we didn't pay housing Benefit to private landowners.

So you comment was almost, but not quite, something quite unlike on topic.

I am though very pleased to see that you support 'Free Schools'.

And lastly, as you will also have noted had you actually read what I have been writing (actually my whole life from about 11 or 12 years old) that I am determinedly anti-establishment.

You are becoming a parody of yourself. But then lefties were never very good on facts or analysis.

Antisthenes said...

Lola I am glad you responded to DBC. I wanted to but found what he said somewhat incomprehensible akin to something out of Mien Kampf or the Communist manifesto both of which spout the kind of rubbish he does. I guessed he was from the political left which fortunately you confirmed. His ramblings for some strange reason made me think of this quote I came across.

The politician dispenses wealth which other men have produced, and we say he is “compassionate,” while the businessman who produces the wealth is dismissed as “greedy” and “materialistic.” H/T Cafe Hayek

He I think would find what said there not much to his liking as it exposes the left's mind set to the charge that it is both hypocritical and irrational.

Lola said...

A. I welcome DBCR contributions. It is very important indeed that we have competing arguments. It enables progress as we challenge each other. I am sure that Mr DBCR is a charming bloke in real life and that his beliefs are honestly held. I just don't agree with them, and the evidence is on my side.

In nay event there is no left and right any more, if there ever really was. What there is, is those that love and respect liberty (personal and economic) and responsibility and self-ownership against those who espouse economic and political philosophies that produce the opposite - slavery, irresponsibility and dependency. That latter includes Toryism and socialism.

Anonymous said...

I think the strike is mostly about pay to be fair. Concerns about some docs being forced to work more anti social hours than officially sanctioned seems to be a minor issue. But still think the health secretary has a very handy surname. The argument that seven day working for junior docs was voted on by the general public last election is a bit disingenuous bearing in mind most support the docs and few if any would have cited 7 day working for junior docs as a reason for voting Tory...and most didn't vote Tory in any case.

That aside, Antisthenes declaration that France offers considerably better healthcare "than that provided by the NHS" should be tempered by two things.
Firstly the Commonwealth Fund's comparison of 11 advanced countries healthcare system including the French health service and the NHS flatly contradicts this
...and perhaps more telling, the French spend a damned site,(about a third as much again, per capita as in the UK) more on their health than does the NHS (link below). So Antisthenes, it's a case of no shit Sherlock!
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective

Also worth a look is Frankie Boyle's take on the strike in this morning's Grauniad. most here might reckon it bollocks but it's bloody hilarious bollocks all the same.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/27/jeremy-hunt-doesnt-understand-junior-doctors-book-dismantle-nhs

Anonymous said...

For those who don't cut and paste. Frankie Boyle:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/27/jeremy-hunt-doesnt-understand-junior-doctors-book-dismantle-nhs

Antisthenes said...

Lola agreed left and right is too black and white and politics is not like that I used Mien Kampf and the Communist manifesto together although they are dissimilar they are not entirely so I would postulate that fascism is just another form of socialism.

I believe that we can categorise politics by using the words "entitled" (that is, those who feel themselves to be entitled) and the “unentitled” (that is, those who understand that neither they nor others are entitled) not by the words left and right. Although we can substitute and we do left for entitled and right for the latter. We could equally use the words responsible, independent, logical, rational and others of that ilk to describe the right and the opposite the left. So we can say that the left has a culture that believes in dependency and entitlement and is against personal responsibility and self-reliance. We can also say they practice the politics of envy are illogical and irrational.


As to listening to a lefty espouse his opinions and views feel free to do so for me I cannot be bothered. I have high blood pressure and when I hear the rubbish they spout that pressure rises even further. As I know I am powerless to change their minds and they will continue their harmful ways whatever I do.

Antisthenes said...

Paulc the French system is funded differently than the NHS as a proportion of GDP it costs the taxpayer directly not much more than it does here in the UK. The government pays 65% toward the cost and the individual 35%. The 35% the individual takes out insurance to cover that the less well off are given help to cover the premiums. Health is expensive and it can only be sustained on a per capita bases so that means eventually we will have to move to something similar to the French system and the individual will have to supplement the taxpayers contribution. If we started that now and part privatised it we could enjoy very much the same level of care the French enjoy and that would be a case of no shit Sherlock.

Anonymous said...

"Paulc the French system is funded differently than the NHS as a proportion of GDP it costs the taxpayer directly not much more than it does here in the UK."

Simple arithmetic is your enemy Antis. Whether Joe English pays all his loot via taxes and Marcel pays his partly through taxes and partly via a health insurance company makes diddly squat difference. It's another £700 more per individual however you dress it up. If it were better results for the same money then you'd be making sense. As for the gains you get for that extra wedge under the French system, they are arguable and marginal, quite apart from being expensive. No waiting lists is good other stuff is bad. It comes in 9th out of 11 health services in the Commonwealth Fund's comparison. The NHS came first.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror

Antisthenes said...

Your enemy paulc is your narrow minded thinking you simply cannot see outside of the box. First I can assure you that the French get more bucks for their money from their healthcare system than the British do from the NHS. I can attest to that from personal experience.

It does not matter where it comes in the league table of healthcare providers for this exercise as long as it is above that of the UK as we are comparing why one is better then the other. Not which makes one top or bottom of the table. All the league table tells us is that there are even better ones than the French (maybe it depends how the research was conducted and that we do not know) those of which I have had no experience of but if true it would be good idea for the NHS to find out why and emulate them.

It does make diddly squat how that healthcare is funded because provision and funding has a considerable bearing on how good the service is. The NHS is provided and funded by the government because of which it is a dysfunctional provider and underfunded.

To overcome these discrepancies the French decided to part privatise the provision and funding. By doing so they opened their healthcare to competition thereby motivating medical practitioners to give a good service or lose customers(patients) to someone that would. On funding the state realised they could not raise enough in taxes to fund their healthcare service to the standard that the public demanded so passed the problem over to them by demanding that they contribute directly as individuals for the medical care they received. So yes that is why per capita more is spent on French healthcare and GDP is more or less the same. Your assertion about being £700 per person more only tells us the French are prepared to pay that much more for a better service than we get. That £700 appears to be about the average yearly healthcare insurance cost could be a coincidence or not. Of course you can claim that that insurance is the same as just increasing taxes to pay for healthcare. However insurance is discretionary whilst tax is not and insurance companies have an incentive to ensure medical practitioners are not ripping off their customers as ultimately their profits depend upon it.

If your table is correct and there are better healthcare services then we should learn pretty damn quick what make them so and copy them. I suspect not one of them is run along the NHS lines.

Lola said...

A "fascism is just another form of socialism" Yes. Both Hitler and Stalin knew that.

Otherwise, paraphrasing. "I will see your rights and raise you my responsibilities".

(Also that common wealth fund health service report cited by P156 has been widely condemned as very poorly made)

Anonymous said...

Antis. I'm not interested in ideology so much where health is concerned. Nor do I think are the vast majority of folks in the UK. So private better than public dogma doesn't really cut it tbh. If private is better from where we stand today then that's just dandy. You cite the French in support of the 'private better than public' claim but the facts don't support your claim. The French service is bloody expensive and the service is not clearly better than ours,(9th out of 11th) in fact it doesn't even seem to match up in many respects. So all the rest is just so much hot air. i already explained the UK came first in that study. So maybe the French can learn something from us too?

When you say "However insurance is discretionary", excuse me whilst I fall off chair laughing. Not it isn't, not where basic health provision is concerned. Or about as discretionary as running water and electricity, but possibly less so.

As for Lola's claim that the study is is "widely condemned as very poorly made", that's wildly exaggerated or more accurately...nonsense. Please direct me to the 'condemnations'. Are they by right wing bloggers (in which case take with shovel load of salt) or other reputable groups Lola? Only my understanding is the Commonwealth Fund is a highly regarded organisation. I've seen a caveat (not a condemnation) from the Economist which simply states that results depend on metrics used (obvious) and Commonwealth stress 'equity and efficiency' whilst other folks (Bloomberg for example) emphasise other metrics. Nothing wrong with the results unless you wish to downgrade both those metrics in favour of others...which you would of course...in order to get the result you'd like! ;)

Lola said...

P156 - Being right wing does not in itself make something wrong. Indeed, the criticism was of the metrics selected which favoured a nationalised system. (I am off out now so no time to find the links).