Is The Nhs Safe In Their Hands?

[Sqad]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3853528/Just-one-three-heart-consultants-work-evenings-weekends-experts-warn-patients-risk.html

The report reveals that only 67 per cent of consultant cardiologists contribute to their hospital’s on-call rota.


Mr Hunt wants to remove a clause from consultants’ contracts which lets them opt out of non-emergency shifts at weekends. That clause, which was introduced by Labour in 2003, was supposedly designed to stop highly trained medics leaving the NHS.

Just to balance up the debate, mainly spearheaded by Mikey that the NHS is not safe in the hands of the Conservatives, but only under Labour control.

[Peter Pedant]

hello Sqad
nice to see you contributing

Mr Hunt wants to fiddle with contracts now he knows under the 2002 act he can - without fiddling his own of course

I think it is subspecialisation - if you are on the heart rota then you arent on the general on call ( take) rota. In the childrens sector - the consultants are in day day out as the juniors dont do narfin nowadays .... about the only ones we didnt see were the paed neurologists.

There are big issues - everyone knows if the juniors are doing clinics sat and sun then the consultants are gonna have to be there as well
and so if it is all cost neutral then they wont be there Wed and Thur

and if the cardiac consultants are there sat and sun
are you gonna run the angiography suites 24 h a day ?
oops costs more so perhaps not for a few years

or perhaps you are gonna run the angiography suites mon to Fri when there is no one senior available to supervise them ? and so they are underused

on a more human level
when I was in uncontrolled AF in north manch cas
it took 8 h to get one beta blocker ( no emerg drug cupboards nowadays) down to casualty - it was brought in like the pope carrying a holy wafer ......
and ten h to get me to a ward .....

the reg was correctly in my opinion refusing to start therapy on six patients in cas of which I was one on the grounds he could not adequately monitor their response .....

[cassa333]

I do think all consultants should be on the 'on call rota' in the same way as anyone's else that is part of a team should be.

They get paid handsomely and a proportion of them are on the private register as well so are not short of a bob or two. Maybe that is why they have managed to not have it in their contracts? Private works gets in the way! However as long as they keep up their numbers of operational skill set technically they are fine.

The NHS, Government or whoever it is that is bleating on about safe working practices over the weekend can't have it both ways.

Either the NHS is safe for all users 24/7 or there are gaps in care because of out of hours shortages. Health keeps to no ones timetable and if there are fewer staff (of any skill) at particular times then that has to be addressed.

There are positions that are not essential for out of hours work. Admin, office staff and probably some others that I don't know about but the function of a hospital doesn't end at 5pm on Friday afternoon.

My question to start would be, If you cut all overtime and had everyone work only their allotted hours (spread over 24/7) how many more staff would it need for there to be 24/7 care?

For my money overtime should be the exception and not the rule.

[Sqad]

PP....in my days it was so simple, there was always a Consultant on call(maybe nominally, but accountable) for ALL specialities and an experienced registrar or senior registrar.

\\\I do think all consultants should be on the 'on call rota' in the same way as anyone's else that is part of a team should be. \\\

I agree cassa...... but Labour changed all this in 2008 (I think) and the object of my thread was to balance mikey's endless and repetitive threads that the NHS is only safe in Labour's hands.

[cassa333]

I think you're right about their own Rita's. Perhaps it isn't compatible with the out of hours one.I know that Paediatric cardiologists have a rota system for ward and consultations. Luckily when my son was born it was a Tue morning and a cardiologist met him on the ward when he was taken to SGH.

I don't think this issue I should really just about cardiologists. It is a symptom of the NHS in general and the out of hours issue generally.

[cassa333]

Labourites always seem to trumpet anything and everything only being safe in lAbours hands.

Labour would run it into the ground like they do with everything if they are left with the house keys.

They are like perpetual teenagers left on their own when mum and dad go away and have been given £100 for food for the week but end up spending £500 on a house party that trashes the house and causes untold damage.

Why, when all Hunt or anyone else that wants to bring the NHS into the 21st century, does a section of the population scream fowl?