Paying for the NHS

@Percy-Vere, Yeah, thats possible , depends what the fillipino exchange
rate to the£ was at the time l spose ??
As an aside l met my wife at a hospital dance back in fifties, she was
a pupil nurse living in nurses home full board and lodgings which was in
the hospital grounds , she also recieved english lessons and attended
courses in medical matters for which she had to qualify !!
She earned a pittance but didnt really need much due to the full board!
She eventually qualified and her money went up, after four and a half
years she got british citizenship and left the hospital business !!

last time I was in hospital for some investigations the entire personnel seemed to be Filipino. The doctor was Greek.

no double dutches then?

cockney rhyming slang?

you may be too young to remember that expression?

That was back in the days when nursing was seen as a vocation and not as a profession without a doubt. Trouble is, there are still a good many people in high up places that still consider nursing to be a vocation which, IMHO, is totally and utterly wrong. Ever since the advent of nursing degrees, the job has become more and more professional and, today, nurses are being tasked with jobs that, not that many years ago, were strictly in a doctor’s domain.

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@Percy_Vere , Yeah thats right, they were expected to it for love !! Pay
was secondary ?
Praps lawyers and such should do that too ??
I think the old nursing colleges are better than uni for nursing as they get
hands on experience at the same time and so are fit for purpose straight
away !!

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A lot of nurses leave the job because it is extremely hard work. physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting. The sort of work nurses did in the old days has been replaced by far more complex monitoring and decision making because technology of healthcare has moved on vastly. They also carry far more responsibility because they can be subject to investigations if a patient dies on their watch. In the past that would be the doctor’s responsibility but things have moved on. They have to take on more and more and it’s just not sustainable given the recruitment shortages. Having fewer staff in post puts more stress on everyone, then others get sick and you end up with just a couple manning the ship. Who would want to stay in a job like that in another type of business?

On the topic of GPs interesting debate on Sky news tonight where some newspaper editor or journalist was ranting about how doctors shouldn’t complain because they are only working three days a week and they should be doing more, blah blah… Then she shot her argument in the foot by saying that the problem is that GPs only want to do 37.5 hours a week (this is the three days. Now that is a full week of normal hours for most people - how many hours should GPs be expected to do? Well she said that they should be available 24/7 because people get sick at all times. Is that fair?

it was once!

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Doesn’t she realise that Doctors are human beings too, with lives and families? It must take its toll on a Doctor to spend every working hour with sick people who may or may not get better. :frowning_face:

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The NHS is a bottomless money pit, a bit like Africa. The 8th largest employer on the planet with over 1.34 million employees ( mostly management I suspect)
With a budget of £136.1 billion.
Yet people say it needs more staff and more money? Really?

I suspect you’re right on the money Vlad. Too many chiefs, not enough indians as the saying goes. Without any knowledge whatsoever of the employee structure, I would suggest the NHS is top heavy with far too many managers and administrators and not enough peeps at the sharp end. And that probably starts with the Ministry of Health or whatever it’s called.

Provisional figures show that as of January 2021, there are a total of 123,813 doctors and 301,491 nurses working in the NHS…so let’s say 425000…front line staff
That’s what.? Nearly a million back room staff?

900,000 is nearer the mark but, OK, still far, far, far too many. I’ve just Googled the number of people employed by the Department for Health and Social Care and, as of 31 December 2020, the department employs 3,030 full-time equivalent employees, who work in locations across the country in 28 different agencies and public bodies. This suggests to me that there is a tremendous amount of overlap and much duplication of effort going on.

:thinking: What are full-time equivalent employees?

I wonder if that figure includes students? Just saying cos my daughter is on placement at the moment in a stroke ward…she graduates this year.

@PixieKnuckles , lm surprised at you pixie !! Doctors should not be doctors
lf they they are not prepared to respond at any time of the day or night to
an emergency imo, if they cant fit it in then they should construct a rota
system or a seperate section to deal with it
Doctors should do this themselves and not wait for the useless “Trusts” to
do this

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It was from 2021…
My wife was an SRN at a local hospital, her new ward manager insisted that the door to her office be converted to double doors floor to ceiling and replacement of all the interior furniture with oak…:grinning:

My daughter will be a nurse, not a doctor though! :smiley:

Fully agree with you on this one though. That’s why they go through years of training and get paid oodles of money. The least they can do is respond to a sick person.
However…they are still human. And if every person they see day in and day out is sick, or dying…imagine how demoralising that must be :slightly_frowning_face:

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@Vlad , So, near enough twice as many administrators as doers ,
Didnt it used to be the other way round ??
I remember the companies l worked for the office staff was about 10%
of workers !!
Sounds like a lot of empire building going on to me !! :-1::frowning::frowning::-1:

Like I said Donks, too many chiefs and not enough indians!

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