Stafford Hospital, Council Tax

graphicdesigner said:

Interesting to see Stafford Hospital mentioned in the Telegraph... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...-NHS-hospital-wards-on-brink-of-collapse.html

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The article refers to the European working time directive and says how doctors can't work more than 48 hours a week....

Only in the NHS and public sector would such stupidity be abided by. In every job I take on I am required to sign a form stating that I agree to work outside of the working time directive.
When push comes to shove you need to get the job done, anyone who claims they will stop working after doing the directives 48 hours is work shy.

So someone unwilling to work more than the equivalent of eight hours a day, six days a week is work shy?

Okey dokey.

hop said:

anyone who claims they will stop working after doing the directives 48 hours is work shy.

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What a load of cobblers.

Surely if the staff are regularly required to work more than 20% extra than their contracted hours then the management have failed to gauge staffing requirements by a large margin. Hiring more staff would cost less than paying overtime, so the management have failed to properly manage their budgets also?

As it's a hospital I'm also rather worried about having knackered doctors trying to treat me, even truck drivers are forced by law to take proper breaks. These are people, they have their own lives to lead. Your employer doesn't own you, as long as you meet your contractual obligations anything else is up to you.

tek-monkey said:

Hiring more staff would cost less than paying overtime, so the management have failed to properly manage their budgets also?

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If the NHS are paying overtime to doctors this signifies poor contract negotiation. Doctors are typically salaried staff who earn over 100k per year. Most salaried staff do not receive overtime.
Its not surprise that due to the actions of the last government doctors are earning significantly larger sums of money and working fewer hours.

Do you think doctors should be held accountable for their mistakes? I make loads more mistakes when tired, I expect they will too. As for the 100k jobs, are we talking hospital doctors or GPs? Isn't it odd that we can replace nurses easily with cheaper foreigners but not the doctors?

I still think it's a job, and you agreed a contract. If the contract is wrong they should address that, but expecting more from staff than you actually pay them for on a regular basis is wrong. I often work longer than contracted to, I spent all of last weekend working and often do an extra hour in the evenings, but that's my choice. If my employer demanded it then I'd demand extra payment. They don't own me, they are just a way to pay my mortgage.

tek-monkey said:

As for the 100k jobs, are we talking hospital doctors or GPs? Isn't it odd that we can replace nurses easily with cheaper foreigners but not the doctors?

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Yes you should be accountable for mistakes, however when working in certain areas your are expected to have more due diligence and be more conscientious.
I happen to know and be friends with several people working in the medical profession, my next door neighbour is a GP my neighbour on the next street is a registrar and I am friends with a consultant and his GP wife.
They all earn over 100k.
As for cheap foreign nurses this is wrong. There is a shortage of nurses in this country not enough people are training in this area so we have to get them from abroad and they receive the same payment.
Conversely we have too many doctors so there is no need to get them in from abroad. We had a problem with GPs though since a large majority of our current set came to work in the uk in the 60s an 70s from the subcontinent and are reaching retirement age. Unfortunately many younger doctors do not want to be GPs so perhaps in a few years we will again recruit more from abroad.

hop said:

Yes you should be accountable for mistakes, however when working in certain areas your are expected to have more due diligence and be more conscientious.

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How is it possible to be truly diligent if you aren't allowed enough time off? Why not just hire more of them to actually do the job properly? Why do we even have a 40 hour 'normal' week and a 48 hour extended one if we are expected to work longer? At what point does your job become your life?

hop said:

I happen to know and be friends with several people working in the medical profession, my next door neighbour is a GP my neighbour on the next street is a registrar and I am friends with a consultant and his GP wife.
They all earn over 100k.

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So are they overpaid, or do you feel they are duly compensated for their work?

hop said:

As for cheap foreign nurses this is wrong. There is a shortage of nurses in this country not enough people are training in this area so we have to get them from abroad and they receive the same payment.

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So why don't people want to become nurses? Because they don't feel the pay is worth the hassle I suspect. Certainly not when you know you'll be expected to work more than 20% extra than what you sign up for.

hop said:

Conversely we have too many doctors so there is no need to get them in from abroad. We had a problem with GPs though since a large majority of our current set came to work in the uk in the 60s an 70s from the subcontinent and are reaching retirement age. Unfortunately many younger doctors do not want to be GPs so perhaps in a few years we will again recruit more from abroad.

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Again, the only thing I can gather from this is that people don't think the job is worth the crap that comes with it. If they did we'd have lots of people training to be one. Instead they want to be bankers, business analysts, senior management in large firms - essentially the jobs that don't have anywhere near the responsibility involved but still have the money. Can't really blame them, I'd do the same.

HGV drivers have a maximum daily driving time of 9 hours, and a maximum limit of 90 hours in any 2 week period. Why does driving a truck carry these limitations yet being a doctor where arguably your slightest error can kill someone does not?

tek-monkey said:

So are they overpaid, or do you feel they are duly compensated for their work?

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I believe they are duly compensated for their work, it takes a lot of training and intelligence to become a doctor so you should expect to earn pay which is commensurate with your skillset.

tek-monkey said:

So why don't people want to become nurses? Because they don't feel the pay is worth the hassle I suspect. Certainly not when you know you'll be expected to work more than 20% extra than what you sign up for.

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Nursing isn't that badly paid and is an admirable profession. I think the problem is more the nature of our society and the youth have a false sence of expectation. They expect to have a good standard of living but don't realise it take a good few years worth of hard work before you begin to feel comforable financially.

tek-monkey said:

Instead they want to be bankers, business analysts, senior management in large firms.

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This simply isn't the case, if you think that an investment banker works the same hours as a cashier in a high street branch then you are very much mistaken. If you work in corporate finance at a large bank then typical working hours will be 7-7 and when you are working on a merger working until midnight is the norm.

The same hours apply in the law firms.

Again senior management and CEOs are well renumerated but you fail to see how much they have had to sacrifice to get to this position. Frequently they work very long days and spend a great deal of time on a plane going to meetings. This has a large effect on family life frequently resulting in affairs and divorce.

I said:

Am i missing something...

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Ah, yes i was - i presume you refer to this -
http://www.staffordshirenewsletter....eact-to-Stafford-AE-announcement-12092012.htm
Again it seems fair comment to me. Obviously much has been done to get the hospital 'back on track', but equally obviously they haven't quite managed it.

Certainly everybody would like to see a 24hr A&E service at the hospital, but surely they would want it to be adequately staffed?

One problem is we pay our doctors about twice as much as they do in other countries. They must claim they need the pay due to the long hours they do. But if we halve their pay and double their numbers that would be a good thing. They wouldn't need to work such long hours.

Also, they do private work too. Why? they get enough money!

hop said:

I believe they are duly compensated for their work, it takes a lot of training and intelligence to become a doctor so you should expect to earn pay which is commensurate with your skillset.

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Are they duly compensated for the hours they agree to do, or the hours they actually do? I actually have trouble seeing anything you should be paid over £100k for to be perfectly honest, but I'm not the one employing them.

hop said:

Nursing isn't that badly paid and is an admirable profession. I think the problem is more the nature of our society and the youth have a false sence of expectation. They expect to have a good standard of living but don't realise it take a good few years worth of hard work before you begin to feel comforable financially.

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Less than £22k starting salary for a fully qualified nurse is not well paid considering the training involved, and admirable doesn't pay the bills. I don't think its a false sense of expectation to get at least average wage for being a fully qualified professional in an area with such high responsibility. I'm obviously not alone in this if not enough nurses are training here.

hop said:

This simply isn't the case, if you think that an investment banker works the same hours as a cashier in a high street branch then you are very much mistaken. If you work in corporate finance at a large bank then typical working hours will be 7-7 and when you are working on a merger working until midnight is the norm.

The same hours apply in the law firms.

Again senior management and CEOs are well renumerated but you fail to see how much they have had to sacrifice to get to this position. Frequently they work very long days and spend a great deal of time on a plane going to meetings. This has a large effect on family life frequently resulting in affairs and divorce.

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That is their choice, if they want to work those hours it is up to them. If you signed a contract saying you would then thats your own decision, if you didn't then why should you? Your job doesn't own you, if you let it then I feel sorry for you.

tek-monkey said:

Are they duly compensated for the hours they agree to do, or the hours they actually do?

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Both, if you are in the top 5% income band I don't see how you can complain about working hours or pay.

tek-monkey said:

I actually have trouble seeing anything you should be paid over £100k for to be perfectly honest, but I'm not the one employing them.

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What you propose sounds like communism.

I don't agree with you. If you have a manager who has been with a firm and grown the firm significantly why shouldn't they be rewarded for that growth ? If it wasn't for them the organisation wouldn't make the profits it does or be the scale it is.

If an individual sets up a company they can retain all the profits they wish. If they are employed by someone else included listed businesses and are responsible for growing the company why shouldn't they be rewarded an unlimited amout, just as if it was their own business ? After all if it wasn't for their strategy and execution the company wouldn't be making the same profits.

Rewarding people for failure however is a different matter. But if someone is at the top of their game they should be handsomely compensated.

tek-monkey said:

That is their choice, if they want to work those hours it is up to them. If you signed a contract saying you would then thats your own decision, if you didn't then why should you? Your job doesn't own you, if you let it then I feel sorry for you.

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This is very nieve and fails to consider the fact that in many sectors there is an expectation that you will work many hours. If you were to work for a management consultant and expected to work 9-5 you would be in for a large culture shock.
Contracts don't mean anything when there is a culture of work if someone doesn't toe the line they will be managed out.

I can't imagine wanting to be in the top 5% of earners if I didn't have a social life, what is the point? I'd take a lower paid job and still have a decent amount of free time to enjoy, anything else seems insane to me. We only have one life, why give it to your employer? As long as you can cover your bills and still enjoy yourself I'm at a bit of a loss as to why anyone would want to work longer hours than a standard 40 hour week.

But hey, I don't want to be a management consultant or anything like that. I certainly wouldn't put up with the **** nurses do for their pay either, why bother when a 9-5 desk job pays more? Maybe what we need to do is re-evaluate which jobs are actually worth paying people to do, I'd put nurses/firemen/armed forces above people who merely make a profit every time.

Withnail you ned read my post correctly please. The quote
I didn't get my back up because of that comment, in fact I started that section with "But in fariness to her..."

The quote that got my back up was in one of the news links where she commented she was happy with the decision, her call at the end of the day but came across as soemone who would just rather it shut regardless.

Anyone who is deluded enough to think that the people of Stafford doesn't need a Julie Bailey or a Cure The NHS needs to read this: http://www.cquins.nhs.uk/reports/PR-rpt_Mid_Staffo_Breast_MDT_120517-1058.pdf

Self assesment relies on honesty an attribute that seems to be in short supply at Stafford Hospital, this report shows how dysfunctional our local hospital still is. Without Julie Bailey this report would not have seen the light of day, and we will never know how many people she has saved by highlighting the poor care - Don't shoot the messenger

Gareth said:

The quote that got my back up was in one of the news links where she commented she was happy with the decision, her call at the end of the day but came across as soemone who would just rather it shut regardless.

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Yes, i hadn't seen that one at first but saw it later (#50 above).

It says she 'welcomes' the decision because “Safety must come first” , which comes across to me as someone who would rather it stay shut than open without it being safe to be so. Which seems reasonable to me.

DDT said:

http://www.cquins.nhs.uk/reports/PR-rpt_Mid_Staffo_Breast_MDT_120517-1058.pdf

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That makes pretty dismal reading.

Assuming the report is accurate then the responses from the Trust are actually very worrying and demonstrate a lack of awareness of the reality of the situation. One can only hope that the newly appointed lead clinician can get a grip on the situation and take significant steps to improve the situation.

It does not bode well though that the surgeons appear to be against this new appointment, in an area already described as dysfuntional.

There is a clear picture building up, not only with his report but in others as well that significant numbers of staff cannot seem to get along and work together. This is something that management at the very top level needs to address.

hop said:

This is very nieve and fails to consider the fact that in many sectors there is an expectation that you will work many hours. If you were to work for a management consultant and expected to work 9-5 you would be in for a large culture shock.
Contracts don't mean anything when there is a culture of work if someone doesn't toe the line they will be managed out.

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I don't agree with this. Firstly a little background. I am an educated man. Both formally and informally. Meaning i have qualifications as well as researching topics in my leisure time. I've researched different wars, history, quantum physics, i like to keep up with the latest developments in science and i do it all in my spare time for fun. I am intelligent enough to grasp these subjects though make no claim to be an expert. Just an amatuer enthusiast. Despite this, i'm a warehouse worker.

Here's the important part, i choose to be a warehouse worker, much to my employers dismay. They want to promote me through the ranks so that i can contribute and make a difference and all the other self important things that self important people need to hear. But i've said no everytime. Because what i'm paid keeps a roof over my head, keeps my family clothed and fed, i do 8 - 5 monday to friday and i spend a lot of time with my four year old. Where i work had a culture of expectation of working extra hours. That was until i arrived and forced my employer to honor the contract that they made me sign. Only when i stood up for myself did anyone else.

So it's not naive to expect to work the hours you sign up for. If your employer requires eight hours a day, nine, ten, twelve hours a day, it doesn't matter because they should have put it in your contract. Expectation means nothing in court. You contract means everything because everything comes back to the contract your employer makes you sign.

Arcadesteve said:

That was until i arrived and forced my employer to honor the contract that they made me sign. Only when i stood up for myself did anyone else.

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When is you appraisal ? Given your actions lets see what mark you are given, and how is used as evidence by the mangement to cull you as a poor performer. I hope you have a generous redundancy payment.