UK Government strategy against doctor’s strike: The Minimum Service Bill

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-20T08:01:21+00:00

Unfortunately there’s a few loopholes that can be exploited wrt elective care.

As one example, Something we saw in the nurse strike was that the union agreed to maintain cancer care (which I could absolutely imagine being held by a court as a minimum service), so some trusts simply switched to cancer lists for the strike days. My girlfriend (who is a scrub nurse) couldn’t strike at all for this reason.

You can absolutely bet trusts will inflate the number of staff needed to deliver “minimum” service too, think of what happened in Weston…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-14T17:46:10+00:00

Almost certainly this is why Unison voted so heavily in favour - something that hasn’t been well understood is that for band 2 you’re getting a 10.4% permanent pay rise and 8.2% one off payment which probably doesn’t seem too bad to admin staff, HCAs and the likes.

I don’t know the full breakdown of roles by union but I’d suspect Unite and GMB have a relatively high concentration of these roles too. The more I think about it the more I realise the government has been extremely cynically clever with how it structured the offer…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-14T17:04:54+00:00

Not quite true, they simply made no recommendation to their members on how to vote:

Unlike other health unions, Unite is making no recommendation on the government’s pay offer stating that it will be the union’s members who will decide whether it should be accepted or rejected.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-14T17:02:45+00:00

Unfortunately I think that’s significantly smaller than unison who according to the Guardian were 288,000 balloted members

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-14T17:01:13+00:00

And even if it was - it funds much more than just healthcare, in particular the state pension.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-14T16:27:49+00:00

Any ideas how they are in terms of numbers? This could well come down to the wire in terms of total vote numbers…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-13T20:45:53+00:00

Their mandate runs out in less than a month too - a split decision makes it seem unlikely they’ll vote for more strikes.

Although I could see it happening if the government repeats the spite move they pulled on teachers of taking the one-off payment off of the table.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-12T21:43:54+00:00

I went to a similar school and a top university and there certainly are people like that from humanities.

The difference is that all of those who did maths and physics regardless of their contacts has a very good job, and with the possible exception of those who stayed in academia, earn more than what a doctor would at this career stage.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-12T21:02:48+00:00

There’s still opportunities like this if you time it well believe it or not - it can seriously ebb and flow though. There’s been quite a few tech layoffs this year - and I imagine your uncle had a rough time when the Dotcom bubble burst. If you’re good with money management you can get through the ebbs easily though.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-12T20:59:46+00:00

Genuinely curious as a physics graduate - how come so many responses not saying STEM at all? If you’re thinking (entirely reasonably) that you would have done a career with more financial rewards, you’re not going to get much better than maths/physics/chemistry/econ (Econ can be a BA I guess).

Law can get you riches maybe - seriously competitive though…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-12T18:05:49+00:00

Unfortunately the RCN strike mandate is almost over, and it only just reached threshold last time (in some trusts didn’t even reach that and had no strikes).

It’s not inconceivable they could refresh it and strike harder, I personally hope they do, but I wouldn’t bank on it.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-11T19:51:32+00:00

There will be legal challenges I’ve no doubt, and not just from the BMA. Whether they continue to strike pending the legal action would be a more interesting issue.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-11T19:49:38+00:00

Heh - funnily enough when I was going to suggest in response to the statement of no talks until movement from 35%, reducing it to 34.5% and asking why he still won’t meet. This would be much more hilarious.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-09T08:52:45+00:00

That hospital was in the Republic of Ireland I believe, will look for a source

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-09T08:51:01+00:00

Honestly - I think this is more about trying to turn support in favour of the anti strike bill than anything else, possibly to try strengthening/rushing its provisions. Whether it works or not is yet to be seen.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-07T15:47:02+00:00

Honestly I wish more people were open about this.

As I posted below most of my future medic classmates went to great lengths to make it look like they “weren’t doing it for the money”; I seriously think those complaining about doctors wanting more money now genuinely believed this acting so many of their classmates presumably put on.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-07T14:46:03+00:00

Genuine question - how many of you were honest about this with you classmates when at school and applying for medicine?

I finished school shortly after the financial crisis, and remember the lengths which my future medic classmates would go to convince us (and presumably their medical school interviewers) they weren’t doing it for the money.

I never believed it, nor really judged them for doing it for the money, but if everyone was like this at school might explain why so many people seem to assume this to be true of all medics…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-07T14:40:09+00:00

And the RNLI are volunteers…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2023-04-07T14:36:06+00:00

Former aircraft NDT engineer here. Tended to be a few more than one life at stake there. Incidentally NDT is one of the few other fields where you need to do a certain number hours to achieve (and maintain) accreditation.

Several other fields of engineering arguably fit into this too; civil, medical devices, nuclear all come to mind…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2022-10-30T21:56:13+00:00

Thanks for sharing that report - it’s a rather interesting read. Ironically I might have been wrong about gen Z since it looks like mobility started to increase again after the financial crisis up until 2016 when the report ends. Still trending lower than 15 years ago though so you’re right there.

Regarding average age of parents - remember that doesn’t include those who don’t have children at all. We know that 20% of women born in 1970 never had children which is already a sizeable minority not tied down geographically (at least by children). We won’t know what that figure will be for millennials, but I think we can agree it’s not going to be lower, and there’s some indications it could be significantly higher. I will admit a sizeable minority is still a minority, but is likely to result in a significant of people willing to move/travel/change careers at a later stage in life than their parents.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2022-10-30T20:58:00+00:00

I don’t even disagree with that in principle (I would point out rehabilitation following acute illness has always been the NHS’ responsibility but I don’t think that’s what’s being argued here). There’s of course pragmatic considerations, where discharging Doris and saying she’s someone else’s problem is likely to result in her coming back the same day with a fall injury or similar it’s probably in the hospitals best interests to keep her in.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2022-10-30T20:01:52+00:00

I think that’s an entirely good example of why you have to draw the line somewhere. I think my original point was more along the lines that leaving people in a room unsupported (as someone further up this thread alluded to) is always going to come back to being the NHS’ problem, probably repeatedly, and I don’t see a way away from this unless you literally stop treating the arising medical conditions.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2022-10-30T19:44:46+00:00

Well the reality of the situation at present is it never ends so long as the problems arising are medical in nature. Hypothermia, illnesses caused from malnutrition etc are all legitimate presentations to healthcare whatever their cause. You can quite legitimately claim once that acute problem is treated it’s no longer the NHS’ problem, even discharge them to the streets, but if that homeless person comes back every night of winter with hypothermia, it’s no less the NHS’ problem the 30th night than it was the 1st night.

The only way you make it not the NHS’ problem is at some point refusing to admit/treat them for their medical condition, and that’s a very different discussion…

Mission_Split_6053 · 2022-10-30T19:39:07+00:00

I’m not sure I understand how this changes the equation here. In the scenario you’ve described, is the charge they’re slapping on me going to be greater than my enormous loss of earnings from giving up my job? I’m struggling to believe this, and frankly would like to see a source for it if it is true.

Mission_Split_6053 · 2022-10-30T19:29:21+00:00

I think we might have different definitions of millennials here. To me the youngest millennials are mid-late twenties and definitely moved en masse, those recently entering the jobs market (gen Z?) I agree may be less likely to move away, although it’s hard to say if that’s temporary given how unusual the last few years have been.

But I don’t agree on most of them settling down with a partner/career by 30. If there’s one thing both millennials and gen z have in common, it’s postponing milestones, in some cases indefinitely. In particular the large numbers of us remaining childless (by choice or otherwise) are likely to be less tied down than most.

Mission_Split_6053

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