Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

There was some discussion a few threads back about the Hippocratic oath and some surprise when I said that virtually no medical school uses it anymore.

I was just going through some boxes and found my graduation programme with the graduation oath so here it is in full:

I solemnly promise to serve humanity, caring for the sick, promoting good health, and alleviating pain and suffering to the best of my ability.

I will practice medicine with integrity, humility, honesty and compassion, working with my colleagues to meet the needs of patients.

With this profession comes considerable responsibility and I will not abuse my position, and will act in a professional manner at all times.

I will ensure that age, gender, race, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, nationality or social standing will not influence my duty of care.

I will respect patients' values, beliefs and traditions whether or not they differ from my own and I will strive to assist my patients in making informed decisions.

I will endeavour to earn and keep, and never abuse, the trust placed in me as a doctor.

I will seek constantly to improve my medical knowledge and skills, whilst recognising the limits of my own ability.

I recognise the importance of sharing my expertise with colleagues and students to provide the best patient care.

I have chosen to make this declaration and I will abide by it.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

Good for you.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

Did read on line that the BMA and the Government are talking.GOOD

One fact??? stated was that in Feb the BMA excepted 80% of what the Government had asked for.

The sticking point is as I understand was down to double time payments at weekends, Gov wanted to pay the same as week days the BMA wanted more money for working weekends.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

Yes it is good that the BMA and government are talking again especially as it is through ACAS.

Unfortunately it is not a fact that there is only one sticking point left in this contract dispute; although the number of times I have seen this regurgitated in the newspapers I can understand why the vast majority of the public believe this to be a fact.

What is a fact though is that the BMA have been absolutely awful at communication with the public and have failed to challenge many of these statements when they have been made. There are 23 areas of dispute within the contract of which antisocial hours is just one of them. Whilst progress was made on some of these in the last round of negotiation that was conducted with ACAS and the two sides moved together most of these areas still remain in dispute.

For example the new safeguards to protect doctors hours still remains unresolved although progress on this was made, the BMA conceded that in principle a guardian system could work and the government conceded that where financial penalties were instigated a proportion of that money should go to the doctors to recompense them for the extra unpaid hours they have had to work. The main sticking point now for this area of the contract is around the membership of the panel who will make decisions on whether doctors have worked beyond their contracted hours. BMA wanted at least one member of the panel to be independent from the trust, they suggested having a BMA representative on the panel alongside the other members who would all be working for the trust. They could not agree this with the government who wanted all members on the panel to be from the trust.

This is a big worry for me as a doctor who has already used the current safeguarding system to report excessive hours! Under the current system there are independent members including a BMA representative. Under the scheme proposed by the government it would effectively be a panel comprised of senior trust managers and board members who would in effect be deciding whether or not to fine the trust they work for!

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

There WAS a negotiated settlement of this dispute back in February - both sides agreed to the deal, except that Jeremy Hunt wouldn't ratify it and vetoed his negotiating team from signing it.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

No there was not.

Try reading Docs posts and get informed.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

Instead of 'jumping in' mid way through a thread, why don't you try reading from the beginning like most sane people??? This was one of the links I put up right at the beginning of this thread, so what's you view on this???

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...-a6861606.html

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

It's a waste of time Joe. Look at the list of News quotes above yours: all Tory controlled except one. It's going to happen, I'm afraid. The NHS will be stolen and handed over to Big Pharma and other asset strippers. The days of health care free at the point of need will be over before this lot are out of office and it will be too late to stop them. They are ratchetting up the process and deals have already been done behind our backs. Those who don't have private health insurance are knackered and those who have will not have enough to cover their own and their family's costs when fees and prices go through the roof.

Too bad. We got it right and we've been too smug and lazy to stop the crooks from taking over. Our grand-children will curse our names for setting them back a hundred years.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

There was an agreement reached between NHSemployers and the BMA around pay for antisocial hours back in January which involved Saturday's still being classed as antisocial hours and attracting a premium rate of pay, to offset this the BMA agreed to a reduction in the basic rate of pay, from memory I think about a 5% increase instead of the 13.5%, importantly this kept the overall package cost neutral and so in theory should be acceptable to both sides. NHSemployers were actually ready to accept this which firstly would have meant strikes in February being called off and secondly would have allowed negotiations to move forward on some of the other issues which I'm sure would have been pretty easy to sort out once agreement had been reached on Saturdays. NHSemployers took this deal to the health secretary who immediately vetoed it.

Re: Junior Doctors strike.....

Yes must admit from the position of someone working within the NHS it is beginning to look kind of inevitable now.

My hope now is we move towards a private system similar to the ones in European countries such as France, Germany or the Netherlands with compulsory health insurance, subsidised by the state for those who cannot afford it either because they're too poor or because their premium is too expensive due to pre-existing health conditions.

My fear is that we seem to be heading more towards the American model which is as close to a free market as you can get in the health industry. In which case we will see people turned away from hospitals if they cannot afford treatment or the right level of insurance.

Moving to a private system is also unlikely to result in the public paying less tax. In all the countries listed above, the level of funding from the government for health is about equal to what we pay if not more, then with the added cost of health insurance on top of this. It would be nice to think that this extra money goes towards improving patient care but the reality is the vast majority of it goes towards private health companies profit margins!