frank ward
20-Dec-03, 08:46
To:
The Editor
Dear Sir
Incompetence beggars belief
I refer to recent press coverage of changes to pay and working conditions for senior staff in the Health Service.
The incompetence of this and the previous government beggars belief.
The EU working Time regulations did not fall from the sky. They have been known about for years. This government actually helped to draft them. New Labour even negotiated a delay in the UK implementation, and still exempts large sectors of the workforce.
Yet in full knowledge of the implications for the health service, there have been NO strategic decisions made to provide adequately for the recruitment and training of medical staff. Other European governments have taken steps. Germany, for instance, now has twice as many doctors per head of population as the UK. The Labour/LibDem ruling coalition, now in its fifth year, has failed dismally to plan for Scotland.
Under their cosy new contracts, consultants will spend less hours doing NHS work yet be allowed to continue with lucrative private practice. Consultants in part-time private practice can dodge the Working Time regulations.
Yet while it allows the pampered medical elite to restrict and control entry into the profession, and dictate its working patterns, the government is willing to pay ever more generous terms to this same elite.
An NHS salary exceeding £170,000 per year will be paid to consultants from 2004, but even more staff will be required as locum cover etc. The net result will be an immediate 30% increase in related salary costs for the NHS.
Yet private practice by NHS doctors increases waiting times for the less wealthy and sees the more wealthy pay twice for their treatment.
Our local GPs will now be paid an extra £30,000 per year for a 35-hour week, plus £200 per hour on stand-by, and an unknown greater amount as a locum. In the Highlands, you will get out-of-hours service more by luck than organisation.
So, GP’s are to get a whopping 42% wage rise “to encourage recruitment and retention.” yet the numbers entering medical service is but a trickle compared to what is needed. Meanwhile 30,000 nurses a year leave for better-paid jobs, and these hardworking nurses, cleaners and porters can expect but a pittance to encourage their ‘recruitment and retention’.
Dentists – trained at the expense of the NHS and the taxpayer – can now expect income in excess of £100,000 - but only if they refuse to treat NHS patients, forcing them into private contracts. Under Labour, private practice has seen the decimation of NHS dentistry across much of the UK.
Prior to the election in May 2003, Jamie Stone promised us a new dental college. Maybe he can tell us what happened to it.
Perhaps incompetence is the wrong word. Perhaps this is a deliberate and cynical political decision, allowing the NHS to wither on the vine and accelerate the move along New Labour’s favoured path to privatisation.
A socialist government would reduce the restrictive academic qualifications needed to get into the exclusive medical schools, which presently favours the sons and daughters of the wealthy. We would open the colleges to existing medical staff who may lack the ‘A’ levels but possess the aptitude. By opening up access without reducing standards we would see sufficient qualified graduates entering the NHS in a planned and manageable programme.
But these are not strictly socialist ideas. They could be implemented by any common-sense government of any hue, given the will. But the shambolic and misguided efforts of the ruling parties should serve as an indictment of their politics and be a reminder to everyone to dump them at the next opportunity.
Yours sincerely
Frank Ward
Caithness & Sutherland SSP
St Barr’s
Dornoch
Sutherland
IV25 3LJ
01862 811233
The Editor
Dear Sir
Incompetence beggars belief
I refer to recent press coverage of changes to pay and working conditions for senior staff in the Health Service.
The incompetence of this and the previous government beggars belief.
The EU working Time regulations did not fall from the sky. They have been known about for years. This government actually helped to draft them. New Labour even negotiated a delay in the UK implementation, and still exempts large sectors of the workforce.
Yet in full knowledge of the implications for the health service, there have been NO strategic decisions made to provide adequately for the recruitment and training of medical staff. Other European governments have taken steps. Germany, for instance, now has twice as many doctors per head of population as the UK. The Labour/LibDem ruling coalition, now in its fifth year, has failed dismally to plan for Scotland.
Under their cosy new contracts, consultants will spend less hours doing NHS work yet be allowed to continue with lucrative private practice. Consultants in part-time private practice can dodge the Working Time regulations.
Yet while it allows the pampered medical elite to restrict and control entry into the profession, and dictate its working patterns, the government is willing to pay ever more generous terms to this same elite.
An NHS salary exceeding £170,000 per year will be paid to consultants from 2004, but even more staff will be required as locum cover etc. The net result will be an immediate 30% increase in related salary costs for the NHS.
Yet private practice by NHS doctors increases waiting times for the less wealthy and sees the more wealthy pay twice for their treatment.
Our local GPs will now be paid an extra £30,000 per year for a 35-hour week, plus £200 per hour on stand-by, and an unknown greater amount as a locum. In the Highlands, you will get out-of-hours service more by luck than organisation.
So, GP’s are to get a whopping 42% wage rise “to encourage recruitment and retention.” yet the numbers entering medical service is but a trickle compared to what is needed. Meanwhile 30,000 nurses a year leave for better-paid jobs, and these hardworking nurses, cleaners and porters can expect but a pittance to encourage their ‘recruitment and retention’.
Dentists – trained at the expense of the NHS and the taxpayer – can now expect income in excess of £100,000 - but only if they refuse to treat NHS patients, forcing them into private contracts. Under Labour, private practice has seen the decimation of NHS dentistry across much of the UK.
Prior to the election in May 2003, Jamie Stone promised us a new dental college. Maybe he can tell us what happened to it.
Perhaps incompetence is the wrong word. Perhaps this is a deliberate and cynical political decision, allowing the NHS to wither on the vine and accelerate the move along New Labour’s favoured path to privatisation.
A socialist government would reduce the restrictive academic qualifications needed to get into the exclusive medical schools, which presently favours the sons and daughters of the wealthy. We would open the colleges to existing medical staff who may lack the ‘A’ levels but possess the aptitude. By opening up access without reducing standards we would see sufficient qualified graduates entering the NHS in a planned and manageable programme.
But these are not strictly socialist ideas. They could be implemented by any common-sense government of any hue, given the will. But the shambolic and misguided efforts of the ruling parties should serve as an indictment of their politics and be a reminder to everyone to dump them at the next opportunity.
Yours sincerely
Frank Ward
Caithness & Sutherland SSP
St Barr’s
Dornoch
Sutherland
IV25 3LJ
01862 811233