GPs and the swine flu vaccine...

[djstaffs]

Good Morning all ye good citizens of staffordforum.com.

Heard this little snippit from a GP being interviewed on BBC breakfast at 6.40ish. Concerning swine flu vaccines. The nice GP lady person said how there was going to be millions of flu vaccines which would be pressures pn GPs and their practice nurses to administer them.

"...and we would of course expect to be paid for doing this..." notice she said they expect to get paid for it, for providing the service. She wasnt talking about the funding to buy the vaccines and she wasnt talking about having to work extra hours.

WTF doing what?...its your job, why on earth do they expect extra pay for doing nothing more than their job? Which in most cases will just fall to the practice nurses to do anyway. What kind of a broken system do we have that allows such a thing to happen-paying overpaid GPs to delegate vaccinating high risk patients to practice nurses and then paying said GPs for it. No extra work for them but loads extra pay. BUT my real big gripe here is what about all the other people who do actually have extra work loads because of swine flu? When your office has half the number of people in and your working harder and longer is the goverment going to pay you extra for keeping things going.
And then to our hospitals...already overworked, with the extra pressures will the doctors,nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers etc all get extra pay for working under extra pressure and in many cases working over??....will they 'eck, so why are GPs so special?

OK soap box away for a bit...what does everyone else think?

 

[Gramaisc]

GPs are special - because they say they are - and we feel that we have to agree with them or there'll be trouble.

Did you spot this one a few weeks ago? Some GPs may refuse to work if the swine flu pandemic spreads throughout the UK, union leaders have warned.

 

[djstaffs]

Bl***Y cheeky F*****g B*****D T***POT W****RS

Where to satrt on this....how can they presume they can just stop? And how do they think this is going to make people feel more at ease about swine flu? If your GP is so worried about catching it and dying from it, shoudlnt we all be a little be more concerned?? The article points out GPs are self employed so instead of moaning and complaining to the BMA and the NHS why arent they talking to insurance companies and asking them the situation?

I like this line "Doctors are only human and some will not want to go on the front line" I am very sorry doctor but being a GP you are on the front line, if you dont want that, DONT BE A BL***Y GP!!

"In the worst-case scenario, the health service expects hospitals to become clogged up with patients and it would be left to GPs to work with Health Protection Agency officials to treat patients in the community with anti-viral drugs" Where on earth do GPs normally work then if not in the community? And do you really think they will be going out to patients just to give Tamiflu? No of course not, they will send out practice nurses or comission district nurses to go do their work for them.

Have feeling my soap box is going to be well used today...

 

[Gramaisc]

They're self-employed. They can do what they like. We just pay for it.

I do like the use of the word 'union' to describe their professional organisation. Thirty years ago we were destroying most of these closed-shop cartels - we seem to have missed one.

 

[djstaffs]

lol got to admit though, it does a great job, not of the other unions have ever fether the nests of its members quite as well as this lot have...

 

[djstaffs]

Can i just say, just to balance thiungs up a little. There are some great GPs out there as well who actually are there for the patients. I have had great pleasure in working with some of them. Particularly impressed with the GPs at Browning Street and Wolverhampton Road. They may have their odditites, but pretty much a good bunch truly working for the patients not just their pocket.

If only the rest were like that

 

[Gramaisc]

There are good ones and there are bad ones. Part of the problem is that that may make little difference to their remuneration packages. I deal with a lot of wrinklies and so come into peripheral contact with their healthcare - the variety of their experiences is illuminating.

 

[djstaffs]

There are good ones and there are bad ones. Part of the problem is that that may make little difference to their remuneration packages. I deal with a lot of wrinklies and so come into peripheral contact with their healthcare - the variety of their experiences is illuminating.

Yep very much so. I htink i have alluded a few time on here i am in healthcare. I am actually a nurse. And i thank god i am. On several occasions i have been thankful that i have an indepth knowldge of health when having to had to see a GP (as well as hospital docs). Som eare very very good, and some are very very lazy and bad. Renummeratuion...interesting thing is GP pay. Pay by results, excellant idea except when you set the targets so so low that an untrained 5yr old can hit them. And of course those bad GPs may, and of course i wouldnt dare say they DO, just may, fiddle the figures to get more money.
So maybe there is some difference in pay, poor (sorry the not so well paid) GPs may be the better GPs. (another disclaimer-That doesnt mean richer GPs all fiddle figures) :

 

[Wyred]

Is it true that GP Surgeries receive additional funding if they encourage you to attend certain healthcare projects, such as wellbeing healthcare clinics etc,I think these vary depending on your age.

 

[Florence]

As far as I understand, they get paid if you get your blood pressure checked, if they ask you about smoking, health promotion stuff like that. Most of what they get paid for is done by the practice nurses, who get paid by the practice. It's a business that the NHS pays for.

 

[John Marwood]

(most)nurses keep people alive and healthy

everyone else just counts numbers

 

[Gramaisc]

Only a third of nurses willing to have the swine flu vaccine - it says here, anyway.

 

[Florence]

I'll have it!
Really nurses do need a little more sense. It's based on the same tried and tested method that is used every year to produce the seasonal flu vaccine.
I am part of the third that will have it. I already look after wine flu patients, and it ain't pretty. (neither am I when I'm in a face mask, but that's another story)

 

[Gramaisc]

wine flu

I'll have some of that!

 

[Florence]

That'll be the Magners!

 

[Florence]

And Gramaisc before you say it I'll do it for you...
"I'm surprised any of them can stand up."

 

[Gramaisc]

I wouldn't say such a thing. It was said by my GP when I showed him one of your texts - as you know.

 

[djstaffs]

I'll have it!
Really nurses do need a little more sense. It's based on the same tried and tested method that is used every year to produce the seasonal flu vaccine.
I am part of the third that will have it. I already look after wine flu patients, and it ain't pretty. (neither am I when I'm in a face mask, but that's another story)

The method used to try and test it doesnt matter, its what is being tested and this is a new virus we dont know much about. Need a little more sense? Well i look at it with a more logical, pragmatic point of view.

I'm one of the nurses in the other 2 thirds who certainly at his point wont have it. Tried and tested it may be but i would rather have swine flu. I love vaccines and think they are one of the best medical break throughs we have ever had (studied it for a masters degree). But i think we should respect them. Why take a vaccine, that is actually the swine flu virus, to try protect you from a mild illness? We know every year of those who take the seasonal swine flu vaccine a significant proportion will suffer from flu like symptoms. Using my common sense it tells me its not worth taking the vaccine.

I too look after swine flu patients and have seen it at its worse, (no one up manship here but guarantee i have seen worse) but still wont be taking the vaccine.


But i do welcome those of you who take it, the best way to prove its efficacy is through large scale human trials, which is what we will get. I may then consider it.

 

[gdavies]

i agree and one thing evolution has shown me is that the human race is pretty slow to adapt which is a shame but not when we face so many illnesses that we have. I do think as the human race this just goes to show how quick we adapt and just how well we cope with it all. I am pretty much sure other animals would struggle for example the gator feeds on just meat but can live for a week without food by adjusting heart rate etc where as the giraffe although a much larger creature has a lot less inside due to only eating veg food yet we can not control our heart rate etc we do well to survive these problems hats off to the people we save stafford hospital need the praise there are becoming the scape goat for all hospitals for the people they don't save

 

[djstaffs]

stafford hospital need the praise there are becoming the scape goat for all hospitals for the people they don't save

DONT GO THERE!! treading on dangerous ground there matey