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Can you cope with two massive elections at the same time? – politicalbetting.com

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  • TazTaz Posts: 15,069
    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    The salary is only a part of the package. There are the other benefits. Holiday entitlement which is very good compared to most private sector places and a very good DB pension.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,059

    kle4 said:

    What the hell has happened to the NHS? Why is it on its knees?

    Someone I know, for reasons I won’t go into, seriously tried to commit suicide yesterday. They took a load of paracetamol and took themselves off somewhere secluded to die. The police helicopter had to find them using the thermal imaging camera.

    When they got to hospital they were waiting an hour - an hour - to be triaged, whilst vomiting up blood.

    If someone in this position has to wait an hour to be traiged, to have to wait to be given the drugs they need to counteract the paracetamol while vomiting blood, the system is well and truly broken.

    Who is going to take responsibility for this and fix it? The NHS is falling apart. It was fine in 2010.

    The clinical side of it is falling apart. The administrative side with its Trusts and Chief Execs paid 3 times more than the Prime Minister is in rude health.
    Given the amount of administrative stuff that lands on the front end staff, I wouldn’t say that the admin side is in “rude health”

    I would say fucked up is more like it.
    Lots of administrators create lots of administration.
    Only if the administration is allowed to become and end in of itself.

    To me, the example of perfect management is when the front line people think

    1) everything is working perfectly
    2) what does management do?
    In case I was being too oblique, of course I agree 100%. The system of organisation in the NHS, with arms length trusts, is a disaster. Why do we have a massive DoH, telling a massive NHS England what to do, who in turn tell massive hospital trusts what to do, who in turn tell clinical staff what to do? Just how do all these pen-pushers help? Any organisation that was paid by its users, not via central grant, would aggressively streamline away the vast majority of them and be no worse for it.
    During and after the banking crisis I was contracting at Citi Group.

    After Charlie Prince was told to fuck off, new management realised that there were people whose entire job was attending meetings and compiling PowerPoints from the PowerPoints at said meetings.

    In one case, there were two levels above this (of the same) before you hit to real decision makers. There were two levels below before you got to people doing banking.

    We joked that each day you could hear the crash as the tower got shorter as a whole floor was knocked out of the building…..
    In my experience, reducing layers of management never seems to involve taking out those layers near the top for some strange reason.
    In related news, water is wet and the Pope is Catholic.

    A suggestion - the late pope, when canonised, becomes the patron saint of Anti-Tank missile users?
    Is canonisation just expected now? It's getting very early Roman Emperor-esque.

    In fairness they do share a title with many of them.
    The tender unto Caesar thing is amusing…

    When you realise that Caesar was the High Priest of Rome. And the Pope inherited the title.
    As well as head of a church of over a billion people, Benedict was also a head of state of a country of course, the Vatican City. So his funeral on Thursday will be a full state funeral as well as a Papal Roman Catholic one
  • WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    So the problems in our hospitals are all down to a classic "we don't pay the nurses and doctors enough"?

    Tell me, how did the Labour changes to GP
    contracts massively improve the service to patients? It massively improved the GP's lifestyles and pay but it's fair to say those changes didn't do anything to benefit patients - and arguably things went the opposite way.

    As David L has pointed out, an average nurse's salary is not a pittance, especially in areas where living costs are lower. You then have the other benefits (as well as having virtually guaranteed protection against redundancy).

    How much more money would you like to give them?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,592
    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    That figure hides a lot of if buts and maybes though.

    Overnight and weekend Allowances are what takes nurses over £30,000 and so and those shifts are not available to a lot of nurses with family responsibilities
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    Taz said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    The salary is only a part of the package. There are the other benefits. Holiday entitlement which is very good compared to most private sector places and a very good DB pension.
    Yep, also tremendous sick pay and maternity rights, job security, early retirement and an almost unlimited opportunity to earn more by being on supply if they want or need it.

    That doesn't mean that the government offer wasn't taking the piss of course, or that the very large uptick in inflation from the time that the recommendation was made to the time that it was implemented should not be recognised. The government should move on this to get a deal around 8% in my view. But I do get a little wearied of this claim that nurses are somehow on poverty wages. They aren't.
  • DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,211

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    Blaming Bevan for creating a 1940s style administrative structure would be bizarre.

    Complaining about updating it 80 years later would equally bizarre.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    But it’s a career rather than a job, and hence the average alone is insufficient data.
    The banding in the link header is also useful. So a staff nurse earns between £19,475 when newly appointed to a cap of £42,374. So each year until they get that cap they will also be getting enhancements on their salary in addition to the basic wage increase.
  • WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    So the problems in our hospitals are all down to a classic "we don't pay the nurses and doctors enough"?

    Tell me, how did the Labour changes to GP
    contracts massively improve the service to patients? It massively improved the GP's lifestyles and pay but it's fair to say those changes didn't do anything to benefit patients - and arguably things went the opposite way.

    As David L has pointed out, an average nurse's salary is not a pittance, especially in areas where living costs are lower. You then have the other benefits (as well as having virtually guaranteed protection against redundancy).

    How much more money would you like to give them?
    So the reason why the government can't pay nurses enough money to live on is because of what Labiur did to GP contracts 15 years ago?

    As I said to David, Capitalism and a market economy only works when people's salaries leave then enough surplus cash to consume. Would have thought you right wingers would understand these basic principles.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,069
    DavidL said:

    Taz said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    The salary is only a part of the package. There are the other benefits. Holiday entitlement which is very good compared to most private sector places and a very good DB pension.
    Yep, also tremendous sick pay and maternity rights, job security, early retirement and an almost unlimited opportunity to earn more by being on supply if they want or need it.

    That doesn't mean that the government offer wasn't taking the piss of course, or that the very large uptick in inflation from the time that the recommendation was made to the time that it was implemented should not be recognised. The government should move on this to get a deal around 8% in my view. But I do get a little wearied of this claim that nurses are somehow on poverty wages. They aren't.
    I agree. There is also the opportunity to retire and return once they get to a certain age too.

    The govt offer is poor and they should increase it and could increase it. Especially given the recent spike in inflation. However the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,162

    I'm against competition in the NHS because we simply can't afford it. Competition by definition means having surplus capacity. I can't choose Hospital B over Hospital A if B is full. We can't afford to provide the basics in terms of capacity, so how do we move to having a surplus?

    I don't think we can afford *not* to have surplus capacity. If you try to run the NHS at 100% utilisation then any little thing that comes along (slightly worse than usual flu season, for example) pushes the system into not having the capacity to deal with the workload, which means response times go up, staff get massively stressed, and the whole system runs badly -- and then when the load drops back to normal there's no spare capacity to work off the backlog. We should be sizing the NHS so that most of the time it runs with a decent amount of slack, not so every bed is always full and every consultant's diary has no gaps for six months.

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,211

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    One issue is the insistence by both government and the unions on national pay levels. London allowance etc have never been enough, in any job, to account for living in high cost of living areas.

    Pay should be negotiated at the area level, between the employers and the employed.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,069
    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    But it’s a career rather than a job, and hence the average alone is insufficient data.
    The banding in the link header is also useful. So a staff nurse earns between £19,475 when newly appointed to a cap of £42,374. So each year until they get that cap they will also be getting enhancements on their salary in addition to the basic wage increase.
    They also still have increments until they get to the top of the salary scales.

    These may not be as good as they once were but they are still a part of the pay package especially for the lower paid.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,739
    I hear a lot about NHS funding under Labour, the extra 1p on NI, and how that solved everything.

    I hear far less about the 40p top-rate tax, child benefit for all, lack of 60% (marginal rate) withdrawal of the personal allowance above 100k, and the fact our debt to GDP ratio was far lower - even though we were still running a sizeable deficit at the time.

    Anyone would think matters were simpler pre-2008 because state revenues were derived from an asset boom, and suggesting it only takes a change of administration to get us back there is a chimera.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,739

    When Labour come in the NHS will improve a bit because they actually care about it.

    But fundamentally we need to move to a Swiss system, I think only Labour can be trusted to deliver that.

    I totally agree we need to move to a Swiss system, but I don't see any sign that Labour are interested in that.
  • WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    So the problems in our hospitals are all down to a classic "we don't pay the nurses and doctors enough"?

    Tell me, how did the Labour changes to GP
    contracts massively improve the service to patients? It massively improved the GP's lifestyles and pay but it's fair to say those changes didn't do anything to benefit patients - and arguably things went the opposite way.

    As David L has pointed out, an average nurse's salary is not a pittance, especially in areas where living costs are lower. You then have the other benefits (as well as having virtually guaranteed protection against redundancy).

    How much more money would you like to give them?
    So the reason why the government can't pay nurses enough money to live on is because of what Labiur did to GP contracts 15 years ago?

    As I said to David, Capitalism and a market economy only works when people's salaries leave then enough surplus cash to consume. Would have thought you right wingers would understand these basic principles.
    I think David L has quite comprehensively demolished the argument that nurses are all on the breadline given their average pay is well above the national average. And that when take all the other advantages nurses have, they have a much better deal than many in the private sector.

    Re your question on GP contracts, nice try but you know as well as I do that wasn't my point nor is it an argument. What happened with GP pay and conditions is a perfect example of why just increases wages on demand in the name of better patient outcomes rarely works. All that happens is the workers pocket the increases and the service doesn't improve - or, in the case with GP. actually deteriorates.



  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,554
    Taz said:

    DavidL said:

    Taz said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    The salary is only a part of the package. There are the other benefits. Holiday entitlement which is very good compared to most private sector places and a very good DB pension.
    Yep, also tremendous sick pay and maternity rights, job security, early retirement and an almost unlimited opportunity to earn more by being on supply if they want or need it.

    That doesn't mean that the government offer wasn't taking the piss of course, or that the very large uptick in inflation from the time that the recommendation was made to the time that it was
    implemented should not be recognised. The government should move on this to get a deal around 8% in my view. But I do get a little wearied of this claim that nurses are somehow on poverty wages. They aren't.
    I agree. There is also the opportunity to retire and return once they get to a certain age too.

    The govt offer is poor and they should increase it and could increase it. Especially given the recent spike in inflation. However the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.
    Agreed. The pay offer ought to be similar to pay increases in the private sector.

    However, nurses’ (or doctors’) pay is by no means bad.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    eek said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    That figure hides a lot of if buts and maybes though.

    Overnight and weekend Allowances are what takes nurses over £30,000 and so and those shifts are not available to a lot of nurses with family responsibilities
    Unless there is another income coming into the house those with family responsibilities will receive in work benefits in addition to supplement their costs.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,001
    Taz said:


    I agree. There is also the opportunity to retire and return once they get to a certain age too.

    The govt offer is poor and they should increase it and could increase it. Especially given the recent spike in inflation. However the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.

    We're also told striking nurses are "agents of Putin" by the Conservative Chairman which is extraordinarily offensive.

    As for some of the other comments of late, it seems "the private sector" is replete with workers who get paid almost nothing, get no holiday, no pension and are basically not far removed from slavery.

    Apparently "the public sector" workers are by contrast living in luxury with weeks of holidays and pensions so generous they'll enjoy a better standard of living when they stop working.

    Yes, the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.
  • DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    Here's the thing. I have been part of a very large running group in North London for well over a decade. As a result of where we are, we get a lot of NHS workers at all levels - from nurses and midwives through to lab technicians through to GPs and doctors.

    During that time, not a single person in that group who works for the NHS has actually left the NHS. They are still doing pretty much the same jobs (bar advancements) as before. They haven't moved to the country, they haven't said 'we can't afford to work for the NHS in London etc'. Sure, they will say they deserve more pay.

    I would point out that, in contrast, to primary school teachers for example where I can give you multiple cases where they have switched out of London because of the cost of living (or gone to Dubai).
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,554
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
  • Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    New career idea: ChatGPT prompt expert. Get the best out of your AI through professional prompting.

    Not dissimilar to the new careers of digital marketing expert or SEO (search engine optimisation).
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    TimS said:

    New career idea: ChatGPT prompt expert. Get the best out of your AI through professional prompting.

    Not dissimilar to the new careers of digital marketing expert or SEO (search engine optimisation).

    Yeah, no, that career will last about 9 weeks 2 days until someone programs GPT4 to do great prompts for GPT5
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,211
    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,069
    stodge said:

    Taz said:


    I agree. There is also the opportunity to retire and return once they get to a certain age too.

    The govt offer is poor and they should increase it and could increase it. Especially given the recent spike in inflation. However the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.

    We're also told striking nurses are "agents of Putin" by the Conservative Chairman which is extraordinarily offensive.

    As for some of the other comments of late, it seems "the private sector" is replete with workers who get paid almost nothing, get no holiday, no pension and are basically not far removed from slavery.

    Apparently "the public sector" workers are by contrast living in luxury with weeks of holidays and pensions so generous they'll enjoy a better standard of living when they stop working.

    Yes, the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.
    No. It is not unreasonable to point out what Nurses salaries are and what enhancements they get and how these compare to the private sector.

    The NHS pay scales are publicly available as is the rest of their package.

    The basic pay is not the only element of their reward package.

    No one has made any of the above claims about the private sector in relation to Nurses or the public sector.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    New career idea: ChatGPT prompt expert. Get the best out of your AI through professional prompting.

    Not dissimilar to the new careers of digital marketing expert or SEO (search engine optimisation).

    Yeah, no, that career will last about 9 weeks 2 days until someone programs GPT4 to do great prompts for GPT5
    Then there’ll be a new career. So long as you’re adaptable and of above average intelligence there will always be a career. The future favours the arts and humanities graduates.
  • OK, possibilities for that NHS pay story.

    It could be an anchoring device by the government; leak something insane so that a merely stingy real offer looks relatively generous. Sort of the 19% claim in reverse.

    It could be a "run it up the flagpole and see who boos" leak from the Department of Health, to try to get more cash from the Treasury.

    Or it could be real. Hunt's budget doesn't really have any cash for pay rises built in. That would require the government to have reached Berlin 1945 levels of bunker delusion, though. Because it's obviously not going to fly and cuts off a way out of the current farrago.

    But maybe that's where the government is. If so, it's going to be a long two years.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,739
    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    I'd have thought as a partner in your firm it'd be much higher?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,483
    edited January 2023
    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,001
    Taz said:

    stodge said:

    Taz said:


    I agree. There is also the opportunity to retire and return once they get to a certain age too.

    The govt offer is poor and they should increase it and could increase it. Especially given the recent spike in inflation. However the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.

    We're also told striking nurses are "agents of Putin" by the Conservative Chairman which is extraordinarily offensive.

    As for some of the other comments of late, it seems "the private sector" is replete with workers who get paid almost nothing, get no holiday, no pension and are basically not far removed from slavery.

    Apparently "the public sector" workers are by contrast living in luxury with weeks of holidays and pensions so generous they'll enjoy a better standard of living when they stop working.

    Yes, the way the whole debate is framed is tiresome.
    No. It is not unreasonable to point out what Nurses salaries are and what enhancements they get and how these compare to the private sector.

    The NHS pay scales are publicly available as is the rest of their package.

    The basic pay is not the only element of their reward package.

    No one has made any of the above claims about the private sector in relation to Nurses or the public sector.
    As someone who lives in London, a £32k salary isn't a lot and with housing and especially rental property being he price it is I'm not surprised to hear some are struggling.

    That being said, I'm sure what's available compares very favourably with what's on offer in many other countries and I'm sure our old friend the English language is another big draw if any nurse wants to move on to America, Canada or Australia.

    I'd also point out the nature of the work isn't the same as many other professions or disciplines.

    I'm more interested in the continued idolisation and martyrdom of "the private sector". If wages are so low and benefits are so meagre, you'd expect there to be labour and capacity shortages which of course there aren't....

    Why aren't we campaigning to get better pay and conditions for private sector workers so they can more closely match the public sector? At least there's a minimum or living wage which is a start.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    I'd have thought as a partner in your firm it'd be much higher?
    It all depends on what you do and where you do it. A partner in a legal aid firm in Carlisle will earn significantly less than a partner in an American firm in the City. Like low five figures compared to low seven figures.
  • dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    Moral backbone.

    After all, being paid by the state is basically stealing from the taxpayer.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,830
    dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    Many years ago, it was the case that you went in for a job in the public sector and accepted a poor wage.

    But what did you get instead?

    High social status - because working for a lower wage for the greater good was respected;
    A decent pension, which was available relatively early;
    Generous holidays, which made up for the long hours you worked.

    Now, at the lower end, we still have the lousy pay, but the pension has been if not scrapped certainly eroded, the holidays are still there but are much less generous, and everyone treats you like shit, because the ones at the upper end still have all of those and are paid obscene and frankly unjustifiable sums of money so everyone assumes you're coining it.

    And then people wonder why these vacancies are unfilled.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,830
    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    I'd have thought as a partner in your firm it'd be much higher?
    It all depends on what you do and where you do it. A partner in a legal aid firm in Carlisle will earn significantly less than a partner in an American firm in the City. Like low five figures compared to low seven figures.
    Low five figures? Ten thousand a year?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,059
    dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    The average worker and below would leave for the public sector as on average they would be paid more and get a better pension.

    It is only the most skilled in the private sector who get paid more than their public sector counterparts, especially in the City of London and Canary Wharf and directors of large companies including bonuses
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,944

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,554

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    I'd have thought as a partner in your firm it'd be much higher?
    Mine is a suburban firm. That’s not an unusual income. Now I’ve made a couple of investments that paid off, and my wife earns a decent income, so life is comfortable.

    Overall though, I don’t think public sector terms and conditions compare unfavourably with their private sector equivalents.
  • ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    I'd have thought as a partner in your firm it'd be much higher?
    It all depends on what you do and where you do it. A partner in a legal aid firm in Carlisle will earn significantly less than a partner in an American firm in the City. Like low five figures compared to low seven figures.
    Low five figures? Ten thousand a year?
    Legal aid, Carlisle, I think you would be satisfied with 30,000
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,059

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,830
    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    If the mother has not reached school age, then that implies the father is guilty of various paedophilic acts.
  • HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    The average worker and below would leave for the public sector as on average they would be paid more and get a better pension.

    It is only the most skilled in the private sector who get paid more than their public sector counterparts, especially in the City of London and Canary Wharf and directors of large companies including bonuses
    I know we've had this before, but...

    You can't just compare average pay in public and private sectors, because they are different mixes of jobs and skill levels.

    It would be like saying to a florist, the average price of your flowers is higher than the average price of vegetables in greengrocer next door. I mean, you can do the calculation if you want, but the number doesn't mean anything.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    I think we have more of these sorts of peaceful transitions from populists or oligarchs than we used to. I think it’s one think we have social media to thank.

    Several examples in recent years in sub Saharan Africa notably in DRC as well as Nigeria, Niger, Kenya. Argentina has managed multiple times. Trump didn’t manage to cling on although he did try. In Georgia first Shevardnadze and then Sakashvili left when the time was up. Poroshenko gave way in
    Ukraine.

    The big test this summer - and quite possibly a scene setter for whether 2023 is a good or bad geopolitical year - will be Erdogan in Turkey. Can’t see him going without a fight.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807
    edited January 2023
    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Yay! Back to the Fifties!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,059

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Yay! Back to the Fifties!
    My mother did it in the 1980s
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,944
    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Even less in the pot in that instance, and of course jumping off the employment ladder for a number of years doesn't always mean one steps back onto the same rung. And anyway that wouldn't work perfectly for a divorced single mother nurse on £33,000 pa. now would it?

    Do you live in the 1950s?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,483
    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    The average worker and below would leave for the public sector as on average they would be paid more and get a better pension.

    It is only the most skilled in the private sector who get paid more than their public sector counterparts, especially in the City of London and Canary Wharf and directors of large companies including bonuses
    So. Why aren't they then?
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    TimS said:

    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    I think we have more of these sorts of peaceful transitions from populists or oligarchs than we used to. I think it’s one think we have social media to thank.

    Several examples in recent years in sub Saharan Africa notably in DRC as well as Nigeria, Niger, Kenya. Argentina has managed multiple times. Trump didn’t manage to cling on although he did try. In Georgia first Shevardnadze and then Sakashvili left when the time was up. Poroshenko gave way in
    Ukraine.

    The big test this summer - and quite possibly a scene setter for whether 2023 is a good or bad geopolitical year - will be Erdogan in Turkey. Can’t see him going without a fight.
    He’s currently trying to get his likely opponent jailed under some ridiculous law . The Mayor of Istanbul would have given him a very difficult time . He’s destroyed the secular set up of Turkey.
  • Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,059

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Even less in the pot in that instance, and of course jumping off the employment ladder for a number of years doesn't always mean one steps back onto the same rung. And anyway that wouldn't work perfectly for a divorced single mother nurse on £33,000 pa. now would it?

    Do you live in the 1950s?
    But if all she is working for is to pay travel and childcare costs what is the
    point?

    Most couples even now are not divorced.

    Of course in the 19th and early 20th century wealthy upper middle class and aristocratic families would have a nanny and only see their children for dinner or tea once or twice a week
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,944
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    If the mother has not reached school age, then that implies the father is guilty of various paedophilic acts.
    That sort of thing is probably still legal in whichever decade of recent history HY currently resides.
  • Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s

    I am from the 1960s. But yes he is more like my dad than like me.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,059
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    The average worker and below would leave for the public sector as on average they would be paid more and get a better pension.

    It is only the most skilled in the private sector who get paid more than their public sector counterparts, especially in the City of London and Canary Wharf and directors of large companies including bonuses
    So. Why aren't they then?
    Cleaners, kitchen staff, junior admin, receptionists, security guards etc certainly do try and move from the private to public sector
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    nico679 said:

    TimS said:

    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    I think we have more of these sorts of peaceful transitions from populists or oligarchs than we used to. I think it’s one think we have social media to thank.

    Several examples in recent years in sub Saharan Africa notably in DRC as well as Nigeria, Niger, Kenya. Argentina has managed multiple times. Trump didn’t manage to cling on although he did try. In Georgia first Shevardnadze and then Sakashvili left when the time was up. Poroshenko gave way in
    Ukraine.

    The big test this summer - and quite possibly a scene setter for whether 2023 is a good or bad geopolitical year - will be Erdogan in Turkey. Can’t see him going without a fight.
    He’s currently trying to get his likely opponent jailed under some ridiculous law . The Mayor of Istanbul would have given him a very difficult time . He’s destroyed the secular set up of Turkey.
    He’s that tricky combination of dangerous populist and wily old operator. Same as we used to think Putin and Lukashenko were until they demonstrated their limits.

    Turkey is still beholden to the military though.
    Just like Pakistan. If they decide Erdogan’s time is up then he’s gone.

    It’s the big election to watch this year, along with Pakistan. No other really meaningful ones.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,211

    Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s

    1570s, surely?
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 4,059
    edited January 2023
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    New career idea: ChatGPT prompt expert. Get the best out of your AI through professional prompting.

    Not dissimilar to the new careers of digital marketing expert or SEO (search engine optimisation).

    Yeah, no, that career will last about 9 weeks 2 days until someone programs GPT4 to do great prompts for GPT5
    Then there’ll be a new career. So long as you’re adaptable and of above average intelligence there will always be a career. The future favours the arts and humanities graduates.
    Thus Spoke the Eloi.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,830
    HYUFD said:

    Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s

    1870s please, the 1970s was far too radical for me!
    The decade of secret ballots and Gladstone's social reforms? You'd have hated it.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    No-one should shed any tears for Bolsanaro, especially given his typically graceless and Trump-like departure from office, but the return of Lula, who presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in Brazilian history (and that is a very high bar) does not fill me with optimism.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225

    Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s

    I am from the 1960s. But yes he is more like my dad than like me.
    The thing is the economics just don’t stack up. Unless the father is earning a fortune it will still always be better for the mother to work. Childcare is expensive, but not usually to the extent of 100% of net income.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    ohnotnow said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    New career idea: ChatGPT prompt expert. Get the best out of your AI through professional prompting.

    Not dissimilar to the new careers of digital marketing expert or SEO (search engine optimisation).

    Yeah, no, that career will last about 9 weeks 2 days until someone programs GPT4 to do great prompts for GPT5
    Then there’ll be a new career. So long as you’re adaptable and of above average intelligence there will always be a career. The future favours the arts and humanities graduates.
    Thus Spoke the Eloi.
    Yes, the future will be more troubling for the morlocks. But I was reassuring Leon (who in any case will be retired by then).
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,483
    edited January 2023

    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    No-one should shed any tears for Bolsanaro, especially given his typically graceless and Trump-like departure from office, but the return of Lula, who presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in Brazilian history (and that is a very high bar) does not fill me with optimism.
    And yet his administration had 80% approval ratings as he left office. And personal 87% ratings.
    So he can't have been all that bad.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807
    A sonnet about the current UK government

    ChatGPT:

    The current UK government, a troubled state,
    With leaders who seem more intent on fighting,
    Than working for the good of the nation's fate,
    Leaves many people feeling quite unsettling.

    Their choices and their actions, steeped in scandal,
    Have caused a rift that's left the country torn,
    The people's trust in them, now quite vandalized,
    Their credibility, forever worn.

    But still, they cling to power, with stubborn will,
    Refusing to step down and make amends,
    Their actions causing further chaos still,
    While the nation's future hangs in the balance, my friends.

    Oh government, when will you learn to lead
    With integrity, and put the people's needs ahead of your own greed?


  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
    It’s endearing that the AI is still flawed and less good than talented humans at exercises like this, but telling that it is already at the stage of a pretty decent, well educated English student (and leagues better than anyone on earth at instant recall general knowledge).

  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,774

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
    See if it has a sense of humour. Ask it to write a limerick with a contextual prompt.

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,483
    edited January 2023
    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    The fact is that the public sector is already not paying the market rate for the job across a range of professions. You can tell by the vacancies. Whereas the private sector largely is. And where they aren't, the response is a hefty pay rise till the vacancies are filled.
    If it's so cushy why aren't tens of thousands of folk lining up to leave their appalling private sector jobs for a life of ease in the public sector?

    The average worker and below would leave for the public sector as on average they would be paid more and get a better pension.

    It is only the most skilled in the private sector who get paid more than their public sector counterparts, especially in the City of London and Canary Wharf and directors of large companies including bonuses
    So. Why aren't they then?
    Cleaners, kitchen staff, junior admin, receptionists, security guards etc certainly do try and move from the private to public sector
    Are there many of them?
    They're often outsourced. And hence private sector.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
    It’s endearing that the AI is still flawed and less good than talented humans at exercises like this, but telling that it is already at the stage of a pretty decent, well educated English student (and leagues better than anyone on earth at instant recall general knowledge).

    Indeed.

    I reckon even I can knock out a better sonnet, but in hours rather than seconds.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    dixiedean said:

    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    No-one should shed any tears for Bolsanaro, especially given his typically graceless and Trump-like departure from office, but the return of Lula, who presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in Brazilian history (and that is a very high bar) does not fill me with optimism.
    And yet his administration had 80% approval ratings as he left office. And personal 87% ratings.
    So he can't have been all that bad.
    Like the French with Chirac. “Vote for the crook, not the fascist”.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,944
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Even less in the pot in that instance, and of course jumping off the employment ladder for a number of years doesn't always mean one steps back onto the same rung. And anyway that wouldn't work perfectly for a divorced single mother nurse on £33,000 pa. now would it?

    Do you live in the 1950s?
    But if all she is working for is to pay travel and childcare costs what is the
    point?

    Most couples even now are not divorced.

    Of course in the 19th and early 20th century wealthy upper middle class and aristocratic families would have a nanny and only see their children for dinner or tea once or twice a week
    Because she ( or he ) may want their career to remain on the tracks.

    As it happened I also paid for au pairs to lighten the load for myself and my wife. And for the record I was always back by seven to see them off to bed. No absent parents in this house. No Sir!

    A bit late now, but thanks for your childcare tips
  • HYUFD just doesn't seem to have any bants at all, he's the fun sponge
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807
    geoffw said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
    See if it has a sense of humour. Ask it to write a limerick with a contextual prompt.

    Just tried that - the limericks are decidedly poor tbh.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    edited January 2023
    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    Upon a field of opium poppies,
    Their petals soft and bright and proud,
    A sea of red, a sight so choppy.

    I wandered through the rows, so neat,
    The poppies swayed in gentle breeze,
    Their beauty pulled me from my feet,
    Their scent, a heady, sweet release.

    I thought of all the tales I'd heard,
    Of psychedelic trips and altered states,
    Of peace and love, of one world's blur,
    Of hazy visions and mind-blowing fates.

    I lingered there, so lost in thought,
    My mind awhirl with new sensations,
    The poppies' spell had quickly brought
    A sense of freedom and elation.

    But as the setting sun did show,
    I knew I had to say goodbye,
    To leave that field of magic, glow,
    And return to the world outside.

    But still I carry with me, deep,
    The memory of that poppy field,
    A place of beauty and of sleep,
    A moment that my heart will yield.
  • TimS said:

    Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s

    I am from the 1960s. But yes he is more like my dad than like me.
    The thing is the economics just don’t stack up. Unless the father is earning a fortune it will still always be better for the mother to work. Childcare is expensive, but not usually to the extent of 100% of net income.
    It jolly well shouldn't be, thinking in terms of 1 adult: 1 child at home vs. 1 adult: several children in childcare. Plus it's clearly better for the employer if the caring parent is back sooner rather than later. Must be more productive.

    But spending money now so that things work better in the medium term? Not the English way.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    edited January 2023
    dixiedean said:

    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    No-one should shed any tears for Bolsanaro, especially given his typically graceless and Trump-like departure from office, but the return of Lula, who presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in Brazilian history (and that is a very high bar) does not fill me with optimism.
    And yet his administration had 80% approval ratings as he left office. And personal 87% ratings.
    So he can't have been all that bad.
    That was a function of the unprecedented growth (a period in which very one wanted to invest in Brazil, when they won bids for the Olympics and the World Cup). The failure of his regime to use that as an opportunity to invest in infrastructure, instead of providing back handlers to all and sundry is to my mind utterly unforgivable.

    Brazil is a country I know well, and a place I love deeply. It lost a historic opportunity to join the first world, and no-one is to blame more for that than Lula.

    He also helped facilitate the ascent of Bolsonaro, whose election was very much a reaction against the endemic corruption of the Lula years.
  • HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Why not the father to stay at home?

    Your misogyny is astonishing.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807

    HYUFD just doesn't seem to have any bants at all, he's the fun sponge

    Captain Mainwaring had a better developed sense of humour tbf.
  • geoffw said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
    See if it has a sense of humour. Ask it to write a limerick with a contextual prompt.

    Just tried that - the limericks are decidedly poor tbh.
    No computer will ever match the giddy height of the old whore from Silesia. No point even trying.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,774

    geoffw said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Parrot poem is chatgpt btw.

    Are you serious?!

    That's incredible. It reads like quite sophisticated surreal/comic poetry by a pro
    Dead serious

    And it was instantaneous
    Honestly?

    If I was asked I would say that was written by a professional poet. Maybe ee cummings somewhat off form, or Wendy Cope drunkenly playing with repetition
    Honestly

    Prompt was Write a poem beginning [first two lines]. Give it a try.
    Hah - this is great fun! Ask it to write a sonnet, giving it the first line or two.

    The result is a bit iffy - Shakespeare, Donne or Rossetti need not worry - but the sonnet form is applied quite well. And so fast!

    (Seems to have an obsession with 'winter's icy grip' which has appeared in a couple.)
    See if it has a sense of humour. Ask it to write a limerick with a contextual prompt.

    Just tried that - the limericks are decidedly poor tbh.
    That's what I found too. But there was an interesting if rather lame attempt at drollness in the last line.

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,994
    edited January 2023
    TimS said:

    dixiedean said:

    nico679 said:

    A good day for humanity and the climate . Lula inaugurated as Brazilian President .

    Thankfully enough Brazilian voters realized that another term of Bolsonaro would have had devastating effects for democracy there and the rain forest .

    With these wannabe dictators if you don’t remove them the first chance you get you’re in trouble .

    No-one should shed any tears for Bolsanaro, especially given his typically graceless and Trump-like departure from office, but the return of Lula, who presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in Brazilian history (and that is a very high bar) does not fill me with optimism.
    And yet his administration had 80% approval ratings as he left office. And personal 87% ratings.
    So he can't have been all that bad.
    Like the French with Chirac. “Vote for the crook, not the fascist”.
    Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard was my favourite.

    Humorous unofficial bumper stickers were created in support of Edwards over Duke, despite Edwards' negative reputation. One bumper sticker read "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard", while another read "Vote For The Crook: It's Important.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Louisiana_gubernatorial_election
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,904

    A sonnet about the current UK government

    ChatGPT:

    The current UK government, a troubled state,
    With leaders who seem more intent on fighting,
    Than working for the good of the nation's fate,
    Leaves many people feeling quite unsettling.

    Their choices and their actions, steeped in scandal,
    Have caused a rift that's left the country torn,
    The people's trust in them, now quite vandalized,
    Their credibility, forever worn.

    But still, they cling to power, with stubborn will,
    Refusing to step down and make amends,
    Their actions causing further chaos still,
    While the nation's future hangs in the balance, my friends.

    Oh government, when will you learn to lead
    With integrity, and put the people's needs ahead of your own greed?


    Execrable.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225

    HYUFD just doesn't seem to have any bants at all, he's the fun sponge

    Captain Mainwaring had a better developed sense of humour tbf.
    I dont know. If he is actually being funny, then his dryness and straight face are world beating. The closest PB has to real AI.
  • HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Why not the father to stay at home?

    Your misogyny is astonishing.
    You're the most woke Tory I've ever met and I am 100% here for it lol
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Why not the father to stay at home?

    Your misogyny is astonishing.
    I am anything but astonished at HYUFD's misogyny.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,944
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Yay! Back to the Fifties!
    My mother did it in the 1980s
    Good for her.

    Mine did too, and until she returned to work in 1968 and even beyond we lived like church mice. My dad's salary paid for everything. Not a holiday in sight and the only luxury being a used Austin 1100. Some people choose not to live like that.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,109
    ...
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,069

    TimS said:

    Do you sometimes feel like HYUFD is from the 1970s

    I am from the 1960s. But yes he is more like my dad than like me.
    The thing is the economics just don’t stack up. Unless the father is earning a fortune it will still always be better for the mother to work. Childcare is expensive, but not usually to the extent of 100% of net income.
    It jolly well shouldn't be, thinking in terms of 1 adult: 1 child at home vs. 1 adult: several children in childcare. Plus it's clearly better for the employer if the caring parent is back sooner rather than later. Must be more productive.

    But spending money now so that things work better in the medium term? Not the English way.
    No, that’s holding on in quiet desperation.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807

    A sonnet about the current UK government

    ChatGPT:

    The current UK government, a troubled state,
    With leaders who seem more intent on fighting,
    Than working for the good of the nation's fate,
    Leaves many people feeling quite unsettling.

    Their choices and their actions, steeped in scandal,
    Have caused a rift that's left the country torn,
    The people's trust in them, now quite vandalized,
    Their credibility, forever worn.

    But still, they cling to power, with stubborn will,
    Refusing to step down and make amends,
    Their actions causing further chaos still,
    While the nation's future hangs in the balance, my friends.

    Oh government, when will you learn to lead
    With integrity, and put the people's needs ahead of your own greed?


    Execrable.
    You are right, of course but... it's still quite impressive to see it churned out within seconds of you typing the request.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807
    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    All three of them?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,807
    TimS said:

    HYUFD just doesn't seem to have any bants at all, he's the fun sponge

    Captain Mainwaring had a better developed sense of humour tbf.
    I dont know. If he is actually being funny, then his dryness and straight face are world beating. The closest PB has to real AI.
    It's a huge 'if'.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331

    A sonnet about the current UK government

    ChatGPT:

    The current UK government, a troubled state,
    With leaders who seem more intent on fighting,
    Than working for the good of the nation's fate,
    Leaves many people feeling quite unsettling.

    Their choices and their actions, steeped in scandal,
    Have caused a rift that's left the country torn,
    The people's trust in them, now quite vandalized,
    Their credibility, forever worn.

    But still, they cling to power, with stubborn will,
    Refusing to step down and make amends,
    Their actions causing further chaos still,
    While the nation's future hangs in the balance, my friends.

    Oh government, when will you learn to lead
    With integrity, and put the people's needs ahead of your own greed?


    Execrable.
    Indeed. Simon Armitage is secure for the time being.
  • HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    You are a smart man and yet post some utter guff to defend the indefensible. I am sure that a nurse on an average wage living not in an expensive area with a partner at work will not be using one.

    But what about the ones below that average? In expensive cities? With no money left at the end of the month and their boiler packs in? That's what a MINISTER said about it, and I'm sure she's right.

    Our system of capitalism has collapsed because people work full time and can't pay their bills, never mind have enough cash left over to consume - or pay unexpected bills like a broken boiler. If wages don't allow people to consume then we have no market economy. Would think that advocates of said market economy like your good self would understand this.

    It is immoral for our society to have some nurses reliant on foodbanks set up in their own hospitals. Those of you who see no problem with it - or blame the nurses like Lee Asderson - I can't help.
    A market economy requires that the going wage for the job is paid. There are clearly a lot of experienced nurses leaving but there is absolutely no shortage of people queuing up to be nurses. The wages are not putting them off.

    There is nothing unusual about people earning less at the start of their careers. My daughter is currently a trainee solicitor on £24k a year living
    in Edinburgh. Her standard of living reflects that despite having a partner who earns more. That is
    not some moral outrage, its life.
    But I do agree with much of your proposed
    changes to the NHS. I do agree the service is not only badly run but also over managed. I would
    very much support more of the spend available being directed to the front line. As I have said I
    think the government should move on the pay review recommendation. The quantity of money, however, is not limitless. The proportion of our
    GDP taken by health is remorselessly climbing and a government needs to be very conscious of that.
    As you say, it’s life. I’m a 30 year qualified solicitor and my income is typically around £50 - £60k.
    £33k would be fairly shit to live on in London

    In other parts of the country, due to vastly lower housing costs, it would be effectively double.
    It's still pretty poor.

    I was struggling to bring up a family on more than that figure 25 years ago, and my wife was working and her salary was added to the pot, and I wasn't living it large, but the childcare costs ..
    Or mother could stay home with the children so no childcare costs and then return to work once they reached nursery or school age
    Why not the father to stay at home?

    Your misogyny is astonishing.
    You're the most woke Tory I've ever met and I am 100% here for it lol
    I'm not too keen on the woke, to a lot of them I'm a coconut/Uncle Tom.

    Remember I've been told, on more than one occasion, that I don't know what racism is because I'm a privately educated, middle class, Oxbridge graduate chap.

    If only I could put them in contact with the EDL people who really didn't like me for having a white girlfriend.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,225
    Merging the two current topics, I got ChatGPT to imagine a terse HYUFD response on the subject of parental working.

    "The role of a mother is to nurture and care for her children. It is not the place of government to dictate how a mother should fulfill this sacred duty. If a mother wishes to work and pay for childcare, that is her prerogative. However, it is important to remember that the traditional model of the mother staying at home to raise the children has proven to be the most successful for both the mother and the children."
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,204
    edited January 2023
    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    WillG said:

    The idea that you can manage something as complex as a healthcare system with only centralized management at a national level is ridiculous. If you look at privatized systems from Germany to the US, they have regional management. Managing a huge work force at various skill levels, masses of specialized real estate, continuous capital expenditure with rapid technological improvement is genuine work. The bloat in the NHS is at the hospital and national level, not in the Trusts.

    All very true and rational. However, with the NHS, rationality plays little in the decision making process. It's a religion and to advocate radical change - or, Heaven forbid, design a service that puts patients first - will get you burnt at the metaphorical cross.

    The ultimate blame for this lies with Labour - it ramped up the NHS myth for its own political purposes for decade after decade. Political gain over patients lives.
    So we are back to blaming Aneurin Bevan.

    There are one or two Tories on here who are so unashamedly myopic that they can pin the blame for everything and anything on all comers bar the Conservatives.

    "Political gain over patients lives" now there's a thought. I'll bat that one back and suggest fast track PPE contracts for friends and family is an easier finger point.
    Labour was the one who talked about "our" NHS as though it was some sort of political property as well as "you can't trust the Tories" mantra. They also have been the ones that have pinned the myth of the 1948 NHS as the Gold Standard that can't be changed. That has stymied any meaningful attempts at reform.

    And if you want an example of how it gets used by Labour as a political weapon, look no further than today's thread. We have a heartbreaking story of somebody trying to commit suicide and what do we get from certain sections of the left as to who is to blame for it? That's right "The Tories".

    To blame for the horrendous state of the NHS, not the suicide. If your explanation for the perilous collapse in service delivery in recent years is "Labour" then you are bonkers.
    It's not (and you made good suggestions earlier) - it's that a lot of the reason why health reform is difficult in this country is because the NHS has been made into a political football. Labour is to blame for that - any attempts by a Conservative government to look at any change in the NHS is met with a chorus of "evil Tories trying to destroy the NHS". So we never get any meaningful reform because one party is too scared to do anything while the other is in hoc to its public sector union supporters.
    This is nothing to do with any of that. This - very simply - is about the government choosing not to pay nurses enough money. That is a political choice, but its a Tory one not a Labour one. Quote a turnaround though in 2 years from people being told to go out clapping for our NHS heroes to people being told the nurses are greedy and if they rely on a foodbank at their own hospital its their own fault.
    The average salary of an NHS nurse is £33,382 a year: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/NHS-Staff-Nurse-Salaries-E12873_D_KO4,15.htm#:~:text=How much does a Staff Nurse at NHS,can range from £19,475 - £42,374 per year.

    That is comfortably above the average wage in the country. I frankly find it hard to believe that someone who has such a salary is dependent on food banks although no doubt they will take free food if it is offered.

    I am not saying that this is a fortune or anything. But it is not poverty wages.
    But it’s a career rather than a job, and hence the average alone is insufficient data.
    The banding in the link header is also useful. So a staff nurse earns between £19,475 when newly appointed to a cap of £42,374. So each year until they get that cap they will also be getting enhancements on their salary in addition to the basic wage increase.
    That isn't how it works. Promotion between bands is not automatic. Mrs Foxy is a band 5 Staff Nurse with 30 years experience with 10 years experience in a specialist area. She doesn't get a weekend or out of hours bonus as she works in the daycase Operating theatres, the top of the scale is just under £33 000 for a Whole Time Equivalent.

    She would only become Band 6 if she did a lot of admin work as team leader, and less clinical work.

This discussion has been closed.