more patients diagnosed but same number of staff available for helping patients to commence treatment.

And the government driving Jr doctors to leave the country helps how?

I can only see the effect it is having on the Jr docs doing cancer research in my lab and 2 of the 5 that finish their PhDs are leaving the NHS, directly because of the government forcing this contract through (loosing the pay increments, despite still doing shifts in the hospital and the Ferdinando effect it will have on their family life) and the way they’ve tried to malign doctors and the NHS

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/120753
Petition
Parliament to sit on Saturdays which should be a “normal working day” for MPs.

Bout time MPs where on minimum wage the ****.

Parliament to sit on Saturdays which should be a “normal working day” for MPs.

Many MPs are doing stuff in their constituencies at the weekend already.

Mefty, don’t let common sense get in the way of some gesture politics and froth!!!

Just think of me as one of these – taking off the excess.

The contract award was more than a year ago and Malcolm Rifkind is quite rightly no longer an MP.

Alliance Medical won the contract when Rifkind was an MP and a director of the company.

“Many MPs are doing stuff in their constituencies at the weekend already”
Made up fact of the day ? List 5 MPs who do surgerys on a weekend.

David Warburton, Byron Davies, Chloe Smith, Angela Smith and Khalid Mahmood to name a few, but they do more in the constituency than hold surgeries, my mother’s old MP was out and about in the constituency attending functions all weekend.

So just googled all of them they top out at 4 hours a month on Saturdays maximum excluding Khalid Mahamood for whom there was no information. I actively avoid weekend work and I do more than that . Going to social functions does not count as work .

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/15/weekend-effect-on-hospital-deaths-not-proven-say-hunts-own-officials?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Continuing the spin on the consultants I see:

“When the Guardian interviewed Hunt last Friday he refused to rule out imposing a contract on consultants in England if they did not agree to work at weekends as part of their normal duties..”

The Consultant contracts allow them to opt-out of doing non-emergency elective work at weekends. Hunt has and will focus on this as a reason for “reform”. The actual number of consultants that use that opt-out is tiny (less than 1%), but that won’t be mentioned and the opt-out will no doubt be portrayed as a snidey loophole used by the workshy rather than an option built into their contract.

I think the Guardian stated that Hunt ford not do Saturday surgeries

I dont think its froth to mock our leaders for not doing what they expect others to do…..seems plenty opt out perhaps we should impose a contract on them?

Well I never – what have we here… gosh, it seems to echo what medics have being saying all along. 🙄

Jeremy Hunt’s key argument in his demands for a seven-day service in NHS hospitals has been called into question by his own department.

Surely a TV crossover between Yes, Prime Minister and Holby City cannot be far behind.

gosh, it seems to echo what medics have being saying all along.

His department must have been misled by the BMA or something…

my mother’s old MP was out and about in the constituency attending functions all weekend.

Oh FFS!

His department must have been misled by the BMA

Maybe his own department are the vanguard of a hard-left plot to destabilize and take down the Government*… gosh – this is confusing… ooh, look, a photo of a junior doctor on holiday!

*Let’s all remember the real threat… the reds under the HDU beds.

Be alert.

my mother’s old MP was out and about in the constituency attending functions all weekend.

Oh FFS!

Obviously you are underestimating the stressful nature of attending a WI tea AND a Scout’s jumble sale in the same weekend!!

Obviously you are underestimating the stressful nature of attending a WI tea AND a Scout’s jumble sale in the same weekend!!

The Horror, the horror

To be fair to MPs I think that while I over counted their hours for Saturday surgery to be on the safe side I forgot to add in the Friday surgery hours apparently Friday is viewed as a weekend day by many M.PS.

How times have changed, its almost as if politicians lie to the electorate to get into power…..

[video]https://youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=eHQkhbIHlhE[/video]

Many MPs are doing stuff in their constituencies at the weekend already.

I’ve a strong suspicion that our MP doesn’t even know where his constituency is! Recently Connor McGinn stated that St. Helens was a major northern town. Clear evidence that he’s never been there.

Cynicism aside, MPs have successively voted themselves several significant pay rises, they still have a very generous and “flexible” expense arrangements, most do not do regular surgeries and recess from parliament (holidays) far exceeds any other profession.

Serving the people? Don’t kid yourselves.

Serving the people? Don’t kid yourselves.

Yes living in a Tory heartland I get to hear from landscape gardener friends just how they view the votersgreat unwashed

I appreciate that I am in a small minority on here, but my experience is that most MPs put in a huge amount of hours, however it is one of the misfortunes of the role that as it is a relatively unstructured one so few understand what they do. To say their activities in constituencies are limited to holding surgeries is palpably nonsense. Essentially being a MP becomes a lifestyle where the line between when you are on “duty” and when you are not is blurred, you are constantly on parade, whilst this may not be particularly taxing – although being badgered would annoy me – it is not free time.

Different jobs have different stresses, MPs choose to do what they do so I have no tears for them, but attacking them for not putting in the hours is unfair and sadly the sort of shallow analysis typical of social media.

MPs have successively voted themselves several significant pay rises

The awards are made by an independent body now – as I say few people understand what the MP’s job can entail.

My MP didn’t even bother to campaign in last years general election and barely bothered to leave London as he knows that a dead horse with a blue rosette would win.

He is very busy with directorships though.

well said mefty

but my experience is that most MPs put in a huge amount of hours,

yep, mine does.

just not as an MP…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11940456/Tory-MP-Geoffrey-Cox-resigns-from-sleaze-watchdog-after-failing-to-declare-hundreds-of-thousands-of-pounds.html

The awards are made by an independent body now.

Yes, of course they are. Totally independent.

but attacking them for not putting in the hours is unfair and sadly the sort of shallow analysis typical of social media

Thank you for your opinion, I’ll try and think a little deeper in future. I would also counter your accusation of shallowness by suggesting that you; i) are an MP, ii) are a close friend of an MP, iii) are related to an MP, iv) have aspirations to be an MP. You certainly seem to have very high opinions of them. I’ll concede that some probably do put in the hours and have had to work hard to get where they are. I would suggest that they are the minority.

To be fair, I do agree with mefty on this point, there are honest MPs, ministers and politicians that do work very hard.

I don’t think it’s the cushy number that some people think it is, for the good ones at least.

Even Jeremy Hunt barely has the time left in his day to see his children, manage his Hotcourses business, torture puppies or pull the wings off butterflies. 😉

He is very busy with directorships though.

Which companies?

I would also counter your accusation of shallowness by suggesting that you; i) are an MP, ii) are a close friend of an MP, iii) are related to an MP, iv) have aspirations to be an MP.

None of the above.

Two elections ago – Hunt was at my station at 06:18 campaigning early. TBH, I didn’t know who he was and didn’t really engage much as he represented the neighbouring constituency. Seemed very polite at the time 😉 The Lib Demmers were nice too.

Irrelevant anecdote I know, but I don’t have twitter of FB 😀

On the day he imposed a morale-busting contract on junior doctors, the health secretary also announced… an urgent inquiry into the state of doctor’s morale. Beyond satire?

A leap into the future- The eight key reasons for junior doctor’s low morale

1.One of the key drivers of low doctor morale is the way that the militants have stopped them from not being able to see how right Jeremy Hunt is all the time. To have their pay capped and to work dangerous long hours all seems so sensible until the 98% of militants come along and twist things with their socialist spells. Something urgently needs to be done about this.

2.Low morale is also directly related to being public servants. Junior doctors are desperate to work for private companies who deliver poorer fragmented care and where poor people have no access to comprehensive health coverage. It makes them so sad that payday loan companies aren’t able make fortunes out of vulnerable people.

3. One of the big drivers of low doctor morale was the way that the academic communities insist upon people being careful about the conclusions drawn from uncertain research findings. More than one junior doctor has in the past had to be talked down from a ledge mumbling about “why can’t people just say what they like about uncertain research findings”.

4. When they while away the hours playing ‘throw the paper ball in the bin’ to relieve the tedium of underwork, some junior doctors have reported feeling really low about missing the bin. Longer hours for less pay would be an obvious solution for this.

5.More work for less money would also put pay to one of the most disturbing findings – the gang culture that has emerged among junior doctors in recent years, essentially out of boredom. This simply has to stop. In one hospital junior doctors were mugging patients with flick knives. When caught, one wailed “My morale is just so low due to boredom”.

6.On a related issue, junior doctors themselves feel very strongly about having too much money. Long before this recent crisis erupted demonstrations were found around the country outside hospitals. It was not uncommon to hear the chant “What do we want? To have our pay cut and hours extended? When do we want it? Whenever, we’re free most days due to underwork.”

7.Perhaps one of the key drivers of low junior doctor morale was not being given the chance to make a fatal prescription error due to overwhelming fatigue. Most junior doctors will tell you that falling asleep while resuscitating a motorcycle fatality was why they became a doctor in the first place. To have this taken away by bloody unions is a disgrace.

8. A survey of junior doctors carried out last year on the key challenges to their everyday working environment, found that top of the list was how frustrated our junior doctors were by the lack of vindictive and pathologically ambitious neoliberal poster boys to publicly and routinely denigrate them in the press.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/carl-walker/jeremy-hunt-launches-doctor-morale-inquiry-heres-sneak-preview-of-its-findings

Well well well, what’s this? A private members bill snuck in to talk about removing ewtd protection from doctors.
Sure, it’s all about improving doctors’ lives with these guys…
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2015-2016/0046/16046.pdf

Been away for a week & popped in to see what the Hunt and his mates had been up to in the meantime. You have to admit, that is treating people with top quality contempt 😆

Everybody’s favourite –
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/2573911-Guest-debate-The-imposition-of-the-new-junior-doctor-contract

Don’t ****
With mumsnet
Cos mumsnet
Will ****ing kill you

BMA should have unleashed them sooner 🙂

Great to see the pro-Hunt guy on that debate spinning exactly the same lies:

We have listened to junior doctors’ concerns about pay and the increase we’ve offered in average basic pay has risen from 11% to 13.5%.
…
let’s not forget that no other public sector workers will see this level of basic pay increase this year.

Yeah lets also not forget that at no point did the junior doctors ask for a pay rise. Or forget that you’ve reduced banding components of their pay so that despite the “pay increase” they will be taking less money home at the end of each month.

Even Jeremy Hunt claims the changes are “cost neutral”.

Did Ben gunner come back? I gave up after page 8.
They have less trolls on MN than here though.

On the day of another strike by junior doctors, a potentially huge issue for the safeguarding of patients in the NHS has yet to be mentioned by the mainstream media.

Dr Chris Day, a junior doctor who was involved in a whistleblowing case after witnessing unsafe staffing levels in an intensive care unit, has had his appeal against the way junior doctor whistleblowers are treated turned down.

The crux of the issue is that junior doctors are not covered by whistleblowing laws to protect them and their career in the event of flagging up unsafe practices in the NHS. They are duty bound to report concerns but are not protected against harsh treatment when they do.

There is a gap in the law, through which junior doctors fall, as the courts have determined that Health Education England (our de facto employer) are a “training provider” and not an “employer” in the eyes of the law. NHS Trusts then sub-contract juniors doctors on temporary contracts from HEE, and temporary staff are also not bound by whistleblowing laws.

More info (a pre-judgement article) here