Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

These NHS excess death figures are terrible for Sunak – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited January 2023 in General
imageThese NHS excess death figures are terrible for Sunak – politicalbetting.com

Several papers pick up the the comments by a senior health chief above the impact of delays in the NHS at the moment which could be causing 500 excess deaths per week.

Read the full story here

«134

Comments

  • A real downer. First rule of politics, even before learning to count, is Don't kill large numbers of people closely related to surviving voters.
  • Perhaps the second rule of politics is Don't Make Steve Barclay Health Secretary.
  • ITV 9pm Stonehouse. Drama-doc about the Labour MP, failed businessman and Czech spy who faked his own death.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited January 2023
    Deleted.
  • Is this the dullest bank holiday ever? Only one Premier League match, and routine, low-grade racing.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    Is this the dullest bank holiday ever? Only one Premier League match, and routine, low-grade racing.

    The darts is top drawer
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    edited January 2023
    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    It’s not a question of fault. It’s a question of responsibility, accountability and not stepping up when the moment demands it.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
  • Perhaps the second rule of politics is Don't Make Steve Barclay Health Secretary.

    Waiting excitedly for the first 'it's the unions who are actually to blame' of 2023.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    edited January 2023
    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Jonathan said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    It’s not a question of fault. It’s a question of responsibility, accountability and not stepping up when the moment demands it.
    Quite - when are the striking workers going to do it?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Perhaps the second rule of politics is Don't Make Steve Barclay Health Secretary.

    Waiting excitedly for the first 'it's the unions who are actually to blame' of 2023.
    Delete the 's' and money will go on Stuart...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,097
    The NHS really matters to a large number of us voters and we all know it is on its knees.

    I do get a slightly irritated with some right-wingers who very obviously have private healthcare and who don't get it about the current situation.

    I mentioned the other day to someone (Moonshine maybe) that it's no good shoring up the triple lock and their house values if they feel they won't be cared for when they're ill. This matters more than anything and it ought to have been a priority of the tories to sort it out.

    Another example of Sunak being out of touch.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    edited January 2023
    I'm shocked that we see 'NHS on its knees stories' in the press during the winter. Who knew!?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    The charts don't lie, but oddly have different start points, which makes me mildly suspicious about the cropping.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Clearly you have never been in an NHS ward and noticed where the nurses are from.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    edited January 2023
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    The charts don't lie, but oddly have different start points, which makes me mildly suspicious about the cropping.
    I'm surprised and disappointed that the one on 'PM after next election' has been cropped so we can't see that 25% of people are on Sir Ed Davey...

    (When was the last time that two of three party leaders had titles of some description? My guess would be 1902 - Lord Salisbury, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and John Redmond.)
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    IanB2 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Clearly you have never been in an NHS ward and noticed where the nurses are from.
    That's why he's called Lucky Guy I guess.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited January 2023

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
    So you're saying that we should take learning back to the Middle Ages? Because it was sort of OK then as it is in Africa now?

    (And it did definitely hinder them from becoming scientists well into the mid-twentieth century. Although that may have been due to the narrow curriculum of most public schools as well. There is a reason why Germany jumped so far ahead of us.)

    I'm genuinely puzzled that anyone is making this argument.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    IanB2 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Clearly you have never been in an NHS ward and noticed where the nurses are from.
    I've been on a Scottish NHS ward, the nurses were all Scottish.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    Because destroying the NHS is actually their plan?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    edited January 2023

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
    A free bit of advice: don’t even think of ever going into politics.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    Because destroying the NHS is actually their plan?
    And yet after 12 years the NHS has still not been privatised? Some seem obsessed with this
    The issue seems to be multi factorial. It's clear that things have been slipping since 2008 when the GFC hit. The Cameron government took a decision to impose austerity lite, and cash was somewhat restricted. This has continued. Costs have risen, more older and sicker patients and the NHS can't keep up. Brexit has impacted a bit, although it's not impossible for the UK gov to accept other nations training as suitable and let them work here without 6 months further training, so thats not really Brexit.
    So a stressed system met first COVID, leading to lots of missed and delayed diagnoses, and now the attempt to recover while a huge flu epidemic rages
    There are no simple solutions, but lots of things can be done. Start by agreeing a sensible pay offer with the nurses. Then start recruiting overseas again and stop playing silly buggers about mutual qualifications.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    Because destroying the NHS is actually their plan?
    It’s hard to say. There are certainly plenty of right wing folk who would prefer an insurance/co-pay setup for ideological reasons. There are other Conservatives who actually like the NHS. Either way you can’t argue with the charts. They look like managed decline.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
    A free bit of advice: don’t even think of ever going into politics.
    Thanks, very prescient of you to know that 'free' is exactly the value that I would ascribe to your advice.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    IanB2 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Clearly you have never been in an NHS ward and noticed where the nurses are from.
    I've been on a Scottish NHS ward, the nurses were all Scottish.
    Anyone who has been in hospital knows that is not true.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    Because destroying the NHS is actually their plan?
    No, I don't think it is. This government knows that a well functioning NHS is the key to getting elected, after all "why send £350 million a week to the EU, let's spend it on the NHS instead" was the most potent of the straplines in 2016. "40 new hospitals and 50 000 new nurses" were similarly promised at the last GE.

    Private insurance works for non emergency stuff here (though many exclusions in policies) but if you have a heart attack, car accident, premature labour or suicide attempt there is only one place to go, and at present you cannot get in.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
    So you're saying that we should take learning back to the Middle Ages? Because it was sort of OK then as it is in Africa now?

    (And it did definitely hinder them from becoming scientists well into the mid-twentieth century. Although that may have been due to the narrow curriculum of most public schools as well. There is a reason why Germany jumped so far ahead of us.)

    I'm genuinely puzzled that anyone is making this argument.
    Well frankly I'm puzzled that you're puzzled. Clearly school buildings need to keep the rain off, and keep an even and tolerable body temperature. If they're not doing those things (or they're falling down and killing people, as I am aware happened in a few extreme examples), yes, learning is difficult. If they are, I struggle to see how lack of educational attainment can possibly be blamed on building stock, when those students learn (or not) in comfort undreamed of by their ancestors. My school had shitty classrooms and better classrooms - we didn't learn worse in the shitty ones and better in the nice ones. Poor teaching methods and lack of control/discipline are far likelier culprits.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Yes it's stupid to talk of mud huts etc but there is something in the argument about what is needed. My buildings roof leaks in the rain, has done since I've worked in it. It's shit. Doesn't stop me doing my job. If stuff you need to teach isn't working then that's an issue. Minor stuff should be less so. I don't have huge experience of schools (you can probably tell from nativity) but the ones I have seen are very different places from the ones I was educated in. Huge TV/monitors rather than blackboards. Generally more modern buildings.
    None of this is simple. There were comments about TAs yesterday. I went to a grammar school and never saw a TA. But that seems to be because the kids who need them were very much were in other settings. That's a choice that's been made but needs paying for.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    I would say after my couple of months in hospital, which ended just before Christmas, that the majority of non-British nursing and care staff were Filipino (or Filipina)!
  • There's another thing that needs to be mentioned here.

    Most people accept that, at least at the moment, being out of the economic arrangements of Europe is making the UK poorer than it would otherwise be.

    That includes some Brexit backers; either those who think that the price is worth paying in national freedom (David Frost, for example) or those who argue for a Nike swoosh trajectory (BoJo used the phrase, it's also in JRM's "50 years to see the benefits" thing).

    That does reduce the money we have as country to pay for nice things like healthcare. At least for now, possibly forever.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited January 2023

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
    So you're saying that we should take learning back to the Middle Ages? Because it was sort of OK then as it is in Africa now?

    (And it did definitely hinder them from becoming scientists well into the mid-twentieth century. Although that may have been due to the narrow curriculum of most public schools as well. There is a reason why Germany jumped so far ahead of us.)

    I'm genuinely puzzled that anyone is making this argument.
    Well frankly I'm puzzled that you're puzzled. Clearly school buildings need to keep the rain off, and keep an even and tolerable body temperature. If they're not doing those things (or they're falling down and killing people, as I am aware happened in a few extreme examples), yes, learning is difficult. If they are, I struggle to see how lack of educational attainment can possibly be blamed on building stock, when those students learn (or not) in comfort undreamed of by their ancestors. My school had shitty classrooms and better classrooms - we didn't learn worse in the shitty ones and better in the nice ones. Poor teaching methods and lack of control/discipline are far likelier culprits.
    Leaving aside the fact that half the time literally they are not doing that, my actual point, which I will admit I could have elaborated, was that a mixture of poor ventilation, inadequate heating and overcrowding because of the dreadful build quality of our schools meant that our schools were an ideal vector for the spread of the disease.
  • ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    You raise a great point. And I remember going round schools on my Journalism course towards the back end of the Major era - crumbling Sheffield schools in literal holes, one with a steel endoskeleton to hold the ceiling up to stop it crashing down on the kids.

    So we needed to throw money at building new schools - the Tories hadn't fixed the roof when the sun was shining. But then this is the British disease. We can't build stuff we need, because subsidy is communism. Hence PFI where we got brilliant facilities on bonkers contracts. Tories criticised this, then greatly sped up PFI. And now yet another Tory decade when investment has supposedly been made, a load of spivs have made a fortune but schools and hospitals are crumbling again.

    Can we not do like everyone else does? When our kids need a school just build it? When we need a new hospital just build it?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    You raise a great point. And I remember going round schools on my Journalism course towards the back end of the Major era - crumbling Sheffield schools in literal holes, one with a steel endoskeleton to hold the ceiling up to stop it crashing down on the kids.

    So we needed to throw money at building new schools - the Tories hadn't fixed the roof when the sun was shining. But then this is the British disease. We can't build stuff we need, because subsidy is communism. Hence PFI where we got brilliant facilities on bonkers contracts. Tories criticised this, then greatly sped up PFI. And now yet another Tory decade when investment has supposedly been made, a load of spivs have made a fortune but schools and hospitals are crumbling again.

    Can we not do like everyone else does? When our kids need a school just build it? When we need a new hospital just build it?
    One point - we did not get brilliant facilities in education on PFI. The quality of the schools built it under it is absolutely appalling. In some cases, they are in a worse state than their predecessor schools were in after 50 years after just 20 years. Plus most of them have far too much glass in them making them impossible to heat in winter and far too hot in summer.

    But we're still paying through the nose for them.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    Re interview with front line doctor on Today programme this has nothing whatsoever to do with COVID. He warned about politicians giving that as a reason, which one has just done on the radio within minutes. We are not talking about delays in appointments, but not coping with stuff coming through the door as emergencies. My Aunt recently couldn't get an ambulance and when taken by car waited 14 hours. My father faired much better on Christmas day
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    There are endless anecdotes doing the rounds and it is bad for the government, one thing I've heard of recently is an ambulance not turning up for over an hour (for a stroke) and then the person being paralysed as a result. On the other hand the hospitals and GP surgeries seems to be overwhelmed with all kinds of non fatal/life threatening conditions.

    Despite everything the NHS is a good deal though considering that, even someone on 50k only pays 7.5k income tax per year. What is a bit unfortunate and unjust though is that those who are funding the NHS by paying large amounts of tax cannot access care.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    Because destroying the NHS is actually their plan?
    It’s hard to say. There are certainly plenty of right wing folk who would prefer an insurance/co-pay setup for ideological reasons. There are other Conservatives who actually like the NHS. Either way you can’t argue with the charts. They look like managed decline.
    I think at the moment it's simply a matter of priorities. The higher priority for the Tories in government at the moment is to cut the deficit without increasing taxes.

    The one lasting achievement of the Truss Event was to see the end of the NHS and Social Care levy.

    I happen to think there are better ways of raising the necessary money, and the levy was introduced cynically as a way to fund income tax cuts, rather than NHS spending, but nevertheless it's an interesting sign of where the NHS lies in the Tory hierarchy of needs.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    I would say after my couple of months in hospital, which ended just before Christmas, that the majority of non-British nursing and care staff were Filipino (or Filipina)!

    Yep my experience as well.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    You raise a great point. And I remember going round schools on my Journalism course towards the back end of the Major era - crumbling Sheffield schools in literal holes, one with a steel endoskeleton to hold the ceiling up to stop it crashing down on the kids.

    So we needed to throw money at building new schools - the Tories hadn't fixed the roof when the sun was shining. But then this is the British disease. We can't build stuff we need, because subsidy is communism. Hence PFI where we got brilliant facilities on bonkers contracts. Tories criticised this, then greatly sped up PFI. And now yet another Tory decade when investment has supposedly been made, a load of spivs have made a fortune but schools and hospitals are crumbling again.

    Can we not do like everyone else does? When our kids need a school just build it? When we need a new hospital just build it?
    One point - we did not get brilliant facilities in education on PFI. The quality of the schools built it under it is absolutely appalling. In some cases, they are in a worse state than their predecessor schools were in after 50 years after just 20 years. Plus most of them have far too much glass in them making them impossible to heat in winter and far too hot in summer.

    But we're still paying through the nose for them.
    “Paying through the nose” is an odd phrase. Conjures up an image of £10 notes appearing out of nostrils.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    edited January 2023
    Incidentally, where is Sunak? Parliament has a 6 week break. Is he in Santa Monica or UK?

    There is potential for a "Crisis, what crisis?" moment.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    kjh said:

    I would say after my couple of months in hospital, which ended just before Christmas, that the majority of non-British nursing and care staff were Filipino (or Filipina)!

    Yep my experience as well.
    Same when I was in hospital in for six months in 1979/80.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    Comes from the current government, surely.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    I think they do, it is the Brexiteers that introduced that red tape for ideological reasons.

    Brexit is contributing to the current crisis, but that is only one facet of it. Major real terms pay cuts are another.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    You raise a great point. And I remember going round schools on my Journalism course towards the back end of the Major era - crumbling Sheffield schools in literal holes, one with a steel endoskeleton to hold the ceiling up to stop it crashing down on the kids.

    So we needed to throw money at building new schools - the Tories hadn't fixed the roof when the sun was shining. But then this is the British disease. We can't build stuff we need, because subsidy is communism. Hence PFI where we got brilliant facilities on bonkers contracts. Tories criticised this, then greatly sped up PFI. And now yet another Tory decade when investment has supposedly been made, a load of spivs have made a fortune but schools and hospitals are crumbling again.

    Can we not do like everyone else does? When our kids need a school just build it? When we need a new hospital just build it?
    One point - we did not get brilliant facilities in education on PFI. The quality of the schools built it under it is absolutely appalling. In some cases, they are in a worse state than their predecessor schools were in after 50 years after just 20 years. Plus most of them have far too much glass in them making them impossible to heat in winter and far too hot in summer.

    But we're still paying through the nose for them.
    A couple of factors there. One is that they were built in at an unfortunate time in teaching and architecture, so there are quite a few buildings that look great on paper, but don't work especially well as teaching and learning spaces. All that glass and whatnot to make them look like a mini Canary Wharf.

    Also, expensive buildings can still be built on the cheap. That shoddy build quality is something we've done for ages.

    https://schoolsweek.co.uk/the-ticking-time-bomb-leaving-schools-liable-to-collapse/
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    Comes from the current government, surely.
    Don't call me Shirley.

    Yes, they are ultimately responsible, but I think they have zero control over the civil service (eg. The Home Office), and arms length quangos (like the GMC) that have independence but have absolutely no accountability. The tail is absolutely wagging the dog.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    You raise a great point. And I remember going round schools on my Journalism course towards the back end of the Major era - crumbling Sheffield schools in literal holes, one with a steel endoskeleton to hold the ceiling up to stop it crashing down on the kids.

    So we needed to throw money at building new schools - the Tories hadn't fixed the roof when the sun was shining. But then this is the British disease. We can't build stuff we need, because subsidy is communism. Hence PFI where we got brilliant facilities on bonkers contracts. Tories criticised this, then greatly sped up PFI. And now yet another Tory decade when investment has supposedly been made, a load of spivs have made a fortune but schools and hospitals are crumbling again.

    Can we not do like everyone else does? When our kids need a school just build it? When we need a new hospital just build it?
    One point - we did not get brilliant facilities in education on PFI. The quality of the schools built it under it is absolutely appalling. In some cases, they are in a worse state than their predecessor schools were in after 50 years after just 20 years. Plus most of them have far too much glass in them making them impossible to heat in winter and far too hot in summer.

    But we're still paying through the nose for them.
    I haven't worked in them of course...

    So that only makes my point stronger - why can't we build schools and hospitals in this country without making such a mess of it? This isn't even party political as they've both screwed this up. Which is where I start to understand the likes of Cummings or even the SNP saying we need to radically change things.

    Yes, we need the Tories out because they are incompetent and basically immoral in their approach to most things. But I have zero expectations that Labour will make any fundamental changes.
  • Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    Comes from the current government, surely.
    Don't call me Shirley.

    Yes, they are ultimately responsible, but I think they have zero control over the civil service (eg. The Home Office), and arms length quangos (like the GMC) that have independence but have absolutely no accountability. The tail is absolutely wagging the dog.

    But making it harder for European people to come to live and work in the UK is the stated policy of the
    government.

    And if the government has zero control over the civil service (even Jim Hacker got the occasional win), they really should give up, go home, and let someone else try.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068

    I would say after my couple of months in hospital, which ended just before Christmas, that the majority of non-British nursing and care staff were Filipino (or Filipina)!

    Yes, my hospital recruits nurses heavily in Phillipines, South Africa and Kerala, and they are lovely people to work with. The reason you don't see the Spanish and Portuguese nurses is that they have mostly gone home. This was 2014,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-29202205
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks

    We remember the Brexiteers claims about the NHS

    As critical incidents are now declared at NHS trusts nationwide…

    As waiting lists, ambulance and A&E waits reach record lengths

    As nurses strike or leave the profession in their thousands

    Remember this staggering video by Vote Leave

    See the lies then

    See the truth now.

    https://twitter.com/MarinaPurkiss/status/1609170533542760453/video/1
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    Cicero said:

    Four days ago my 83 year old mother had a fall outside my sister´s house. The Ambulance did not come. She lay for six hours before she could be moved and then was taken by taxi to A&E where she spent all night with my 85 year old father, who himself has been undergoing chemotherapy. She was not admitted, but diagnosed with a broken shoulder and sent home at 8am after a two hour wait for a wheelchair accessible taxi.

    This is not normal and is not acceptable. Neither is it unique, indeed there is a growing perception that the NHS has already collapsed in critical areas.

    This crisis has been foretold in countless warnings and the Conservative government has brushed aside these warnings.

    PB Tories, please explain why anyone at all should vote for the shiftless shower of shi%te that you laughingly call a government.

    That's an awful story, sorry to hear that Cicero. Hope your mother is on the mend now.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
    Genuine question: are other comparable countries suffering the same issues as the UK?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    I think they do, it is the Brexiteers that introduced that red tape for ideological reasons.

    Brexit is contributing to the current crisis, but that is only one facet of it. Major real terms pay cuts are another.
    To imagine that either the GMC, or the Home Office, is chock full of Brexiteers with a burning zeal to banish Greek doctors, is crazy. These people are arch remoaners, and their only agenda concerning Brexit is to make any part of it that they are responsible for implementing as painful as possible. If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over - it wouldn't on the EU side, but that would have been even more favourable for NHS recruitment. Not should their be a 6 month process for checking anything - this is sheer poor organisation.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    Foxy said:

    I would say after my couple of months in hospital, which ended just before Christmas, that the majority of non-British nursing and care staff were Filipino (or Filipina)!

    Yes, my hospital recruits nurses heavily in Phillipines, South Africa and Kerala, and they are lovely people to work with. The reason you don't see the Spanish and Portuguese nurses is that they have mostly gone home. This was 2014,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-29202205
    Anyone would think we made Europeans feel unwelcome in some way.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    It's a pointless argument. The NHS takes huge numbers of nurses from the India, Nigeria and the Philippines with no issues at all. Readmission to the EU would make an utterly trivial difference.

    It's one of our obsessions in the UK that the EU is both the source of and the solution to all our problems, depending on your point of view.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over

    But we "Took Back Control"

    This is what control looks like.

    You seem to be implying Brexit was a total fucking waste
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Two-thirds of Britons support referendum on rejoining the EU.

    People were lied to, have seen the grim reality and are entitled to change their minds.

    Future belongs to the young. No one under the age of 24 voted in the 2016 referendum and deserve a say.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-poll-referendum-rejoin-eu-b2250813.html
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
    On the ageing society thing, you would expect, and hope, that at some point the demographic transition would complete, and that ratio of working-age to elderly population would stabilise. So I think it's worth seeing that as a transition from one stable state to another stable state where, unavoidably, the costs for caring for the oldest in society take up a larger share of national income, because the unsustainable dividend from a young, growing, population has ceased.

    Then you might hope that advances in medical technology, and drugs coming out of patent, would also lead to existing treatments becoming cheaper, and so we don't necessarily face a choice between an infinitely expanding NHS, or reductions in the quality of care.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    Oh cripes, Lord Sauron has been awoken by the Brexit incantations.

    Time to go and do something else, I think.

    Good day, everyone.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    Comes from the current government, surely.
    Don't call me Shirley.

    Yes, they are ultimately responsible, but I think they have zero control over the civil service (eg. The Home Office), and arms length quangos (like the GMC) that have independence but have absolutely no accountability. The tail is absolutely wagging the dog.

    But making it harder for European people to come to live and work in the UK is the stated policy of the
    government.

    And if the government has zero control over the civil service (even Jim Hacker got the occasional win), they really should give up, go home, and let someone else try.
    No it isn't. Control over immigration (which yes, we don't have) is. Choosing to recognise qualifications that we recognised before is well within the bounds of controlling immigration.

    Sure, the Government is clapped out. But taking on the civil service/quangos isn't even in the Labour Party's vocabulary, let alone on their radar.

  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    “ EXC: Rishi Sunak has shelved plans for a ‘big bang’ overhaul of the childcare system drafted by Liz Truss

    Truss was looking at an extra 20hrs of free childcare + scrapping staff-child ratios. Due to be revealed pre Xmas

    But reforms delayed + scaled back”

    I genuinely don’t see why the conservatives are bothering being in power any longer. Would have been one of those sensible policies for parents locked out of work via childcare costs. A mystery why people aren’t having children..
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Desperate hospitals are forced to pay rip-off fees, because of Tory failures to train enough doctors and nurses.

    Labour will tackle this.

    We’ll train 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses a year, paid for by scrapping the non-dom tax status.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nhs-hospital-spent-5200-one-28706839
  • Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    I think they do, it is the Brexiteers that introduced that red tape for ideological reasons.

    Brexit is contributing to the current crisis, but that is only one facet of it. Major real terms pay cuts are another.
    This is the stupidity of Brexit. For literal decades this lot campaigned against red tape. About the damage it does to business and the cost to the economy. And now have tied everything up in mountains of it and now tell us about how liberating it is to have this damage to business and cost to the economy.

    I don't know who is most stupid - the Tory brexiteers who have betrayed everything they stand for, or the people still clinging onto their bullshit despite all of the very evident proof that its been a disaster.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    edited January 2023
    Cicero said:

    Four days ago my 83 year old mother had a fall outside my sister´s house. The Ambulance did not come. She lay for six hours before she could be moved and then was taken by taxi to A&E where she spent all night with my 85 year old father, who himself has been undergoing chemotherapy. She was not admitted, but diagnosed with a broken shoulder and sent home at 8am after a two hour wait for a wheelchair accessible taxi.

    This is not normal and is not acceptable. Neither is it unique, indeed there is a growing perception that the NHS has already collapsed in critical areas.

    This crisis has been foretold in countless warnings and the Conservative government has brushed aside these warnings.

    PB Tories, please explain why anyone at all should vote for the shiftless shower of shi%te that you laughingly call a government.

    Sorry to hear your tale. The ambulance waits issue is a more recent problem (as per the charts I posted earlier) the problem being that they cannot offload and go to another call, but are rather stuck on the hospital forecourt.

    In Jan 2020, so just before Covid kicked off, Mrs Foxy was involved in a major motorway smash up while returning from the Isle of Wight, with leg and chest injuries and difficulty breathing, but was picked up and in hospital within half an hour. These things used to work.

    She was on a trolley in A&E for the next 8 hours mind you, and the trolleys were end to end in the corridors, apparently always that way. The system was clearly at stretched capacity though, so didn't need much additional demand to overflow into the ambulance bay.

    The Walsgrave did a great job on her that night, and apart from one knee she is fine now. Incidentally modern cars are so much better in a major pile up than the bangers I used to drive. You only need an airbag once. Esure were great too, paying up promptly, and more than I expected, and very helpful on the claims desk.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Oh cripes, Lord Sauron has been awoken by the Brexit incantations.

    Time to go and do something else, I think.

    Good day, everyone.

    Bit harsh on Toryboy1983.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    I don't know who is most stupid - the Tory brexiteers who have betrayed everything they stand for, or the people still clinging onto their bullshit despite all of the very evident proof that its been a disaster.

    Oh, I know the answer to that one...
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
    Genuine question: are other comparable countries suffering the same issues as the UK?
    I believe the other day someone referred to problems in France related to ambulance delays - here in spain there have been long-running strikes among doctors and nurses in Madrid and some other Autonomous communities. Looking from outside there is an understandable but incredibly Brit-centric view that all our economic and social woes exist solely within the borders while the grass everywhere else and especially within the EU gets ever greeener. As I say understandable but really not true - here in Spain, which is among the best overall in the EU currently prices in supermarkets are continuing to rise well above the nominal rate of about 7% -in many cases double or triple that. New measures have been introduced to limit rises for the basics but we have just lost the 20cent petrol subsidy which will have a big impact in my part of the world where the average local earns around 12k€ p.a.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Scott_xP said:

    If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over

    But we "Took Back Control"

    This is what control looks like.

    You seem to be implying Brexit was a total fucking waste
    This witless post totally (unintentionally) captures the quangocrats' attitude we're talking about. A grim determination to make sure it doesn't work, and rub words like 'control' in people's faces.

    But control means choice. The responsible organisation has the choice to recognise qualifications that yesterday it was airily waving through, or not to. If a 6 month checking process is necessary now, it is dereliction of duty that it did not happen then. If it isn't necessary, why is it happening now? You can't answer other than in meaningless slogans.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    It's like teaching. Most of the issues were due to our appalling school building stock, which is either antiquated or so badly designed as to be worse than useless, and to our overstuffed classrooms.

    Apart from assessments, which were largely due to the shockingly inept and rushed reform carried out by Spielman, Cummings, Gibb and Gove.
    Not sure how you work that one out. They seem to be able to teach and learn adequately in Africa with mud floors and tin rooves.
    You are Peter Hain and I claim my £5.

    (And you're wrong. They really can't learn adequately under those conditions. Or have you never wondered why so few poorer Africans become leading politicians, scientists etc?)
    Assuming that that is the verifiable situation, I imagine there are many very deep reasons, inability to learn properly because of a lack of electronic whiteboards and wall to wall carpet being very low down the list. Our own fairly recent ancestors (even those who attended Eton and Harrow) were taught in similarly Spartan conditions, and it didn't hinder them from becoming politicians or scientists.
    A free bit of advice: don’t even think of ever going into politics.
    Thanks, very prescient of you to know that 'free' is exactly the value that I would ascribe to your advice.
    Because it was so obvious that anyone could have said it? Fair enough; at least you understand supply and demand, if not how education and health services are provided.
  • Cicero said:

    Four days ago my 83 year old mother had a fall outside my sister´s house. The Ambulance did not come. She lay for six hours before she could be moved and then was taken by taxi to A&E where she spent all night with my 85 year old father, who himself has been undergoing chemotherapy. She was not admitted, but diagnosed with a broken shoulder and sent home at 8am after a two hour wait for a wheelchair accessible taxi.

    This is not normal and is not acceptable. Neither is it unique, indeed there is a growing perception that the NHS has already collapsed in critical areas.

    This crisis has been foretold in countless warnings and the Conservative government has brushed aside these warnings.

    PB Tories, please explain why anyone at all should vote for the shiftless shower of shi%te that you laughingly call a government.

    Awful thing to hear - hope she recovers.

    Only yesterday we were calmly assured on here that this incident was absolutely the fault of the last Labour Government. So you can blame them. Its that poor Steven Barclay I feel sorry for, he is the victim here.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    edited January 2023

    Scott_xP said:

    If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over

    But we "Took Back Control"

    This is what control looks like.

    You seem to be implying Brexit was a total fucking waste
    This witless post totally (unintentionally) captures the quangocrats' attitude we're talking about. A grim determination to make sure it doesn't work, and rub words like 'control' in people's faces.

    But control means choice. The responsible organisation has the choice to recognise qualifications that yesterday it was airily waving through, or not to. If a 6 month checking process is necessary now, it is dereliction of duty that it did not happen then. If it isn't necessary, why is it happening now? You can't answer other than in meaningless slogans.
    Here's the government-dictated red tape required to sponsor in an EU skilled worker.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-points-based-immigration-system-employer-information/becoming-a-sponsor-of-skilled-migrant-workers-accessible-version

    "Apply - allow 8 weeks

    Apply online and pay the fee
    The fee is dependent on the type of licence(s) you are applying for and the type and size of your organisation. It will either be £536 or £1,476
    Send your supporting documents to UKVI
    Confirm how many staff you plan to recruit through the sponsorship system for the current financial year
    Each staff member sponsored costs £21 or £199, in addition to the usual visa application fees
    If successful, your licence will be valid for 4 years."


    Note, this is what HMG insists you need to do. Since Brexit.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    felix said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
    Genuine question: are other comparable countries suffering the same issues as the UK?
    I believe the other day someone referred to problems in France related to ambulance delays - here in spain there have been long-running strikes among doctors and nurses in Madrid and some other Autonomous communities. Looking from outside there is an understandable but incredibly Brit-centric view that all our economic and social woes exist solely within the borders while the grass everywhere else and especially within the EU gets ever greeener. As I say understandable but really not true - here in Spain, which is among the best overall in the EU currently prices in supermarkets are continuing to rise well above the nominal rate of about 7% -in many cases double or triple that. New measures have been introduced to limit rises for the basics but we have just lost the 20cent petrol subsidy which will have a big impact in my part of the world where the average local earns around 12k€ p.a.
    Thanks. It comes as no surprise to hear other countries are suffering similar issues tbf.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    I think they do, it is the Brexiteers that introduced that red tape for ideological reasons.

    Brexit is contributing to the current crisis, but that is only one facet of it. Major real terms pay cuts are another.
    To imagine that either the GMC, or the Home Office, is chock full of Brexiteers with a burning zeal to banish Greek doctors, is crazy. These people are arch remoaners, and their only agenda concerning Brexit is to make any part of it that they are responsible for implementing as painful as possible. If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over - it wouldn't on the EU side, but that would have been even more favourable for NHS recruitment. Not should their be a 6 month process for checking anything - this is sheer poor organisation.
    The problems of Brexit come from the Kulaks and Wreckers! Off to the Gulag for them!

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    It's a pointless argument. The NHS takes huge numbers of nurses from the India, Nigeria and the Philippines with no issues at all. Readmission to the EU would make an utterly trivial difference.

    It's one of our obsessions in the UK that the EU is both the source of and the solution to all our problems, depending on your point of view.
    There are major issues with recruiting from the Philipines etc. The process takes six months to a year and is very expensive for both Trust and recruit.

    https://migration.bristol.ac.uk/2021/08/03/the-uk-philippine-trade-in-nurses-is-it-ever-ethical/
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    Cicero said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Desperate hospitals are forced to pay rip-off fees, because of Tory failures to train enough doctors and nurses.

    Labour will tackle this.

    We’ll train 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses a year, paid for by scrapping the non-dom tax status.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nhs-hospital-spent-5200-one-28706839

    Pardon my scepticism.

    Firstly: why these numbers? Who settled on these suspiciously round numbers as the right level for a target? Are these numbers based on clinical need or cost? What treatment fields are the priority? Are there enough positions in training facilities and universities to train this number? If not, how do you propose to address this?

    How much is the non-dom tax leak? What are the sources for this number? What is the NAO and HMRC view? What are the tax losses for scrapping the non-dom status for overseas citizens? Is there even a net gain to the exchequer from doing this?

    Glib slogans backed by thin cheer pieces from a biased media is the kind of garbage that got us into the Tory mess.

    Why would it be different from Labour?

    Our problems are not just with the particular party of government, bad, thought the current bunch truly, truly are, we have a problem with our whole system.
    The last Labour government did, of course, deliver a tangible improvement in NHS services. In stark contrast to the current mob.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Scott_xP said:

    If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over

    But we "Took Back Control"

    This is what control looks like.

    You seem to be implying Brexit was a total fucking waste
    This witless post totally (unintentionally) captures the quangocrats' attitude we're talking about. A grim determination to make sure it doesn't work, and rub words like 'control' in people's faces.

    But control means choice. The responsible organisation has the choice to recognise qualifications that yesterday it was airily waving through, or not to. If a 6 month checking process is necessary now, it is dereliction of duty that it did not happen then. If it isn't necessary, why is it happening now? You can't answer other than in meaningless slogans.
    Here's the government-dictated red tape required to sponsor in an EU skilled worker.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-points-based-immigration-system-employer-information/becoming-a-sponsor-of-skilled-migrant-workers-accessible-version

    "Apply - allow 8 weeks

    Apply online and pay the fee
    The fee is dependent on the type of licence(s) you are applying for and the type and size of your organisation. It will either be £536 or £1,476
    Send your supporting documents to UKVI
    Confirm how many staff you plan to recruit through the sponsorship system for the current financial year
    Each staff member sponsored costs £21 or £199, in addition to the usual visa application fees
    If successful, your licence will be valid for 4 years."


    Note, this is what HMG insists you need to do. Since Brexit.
    That sounds like a few hours work for a four-year permit for the entire organization, and would be needed regardless of Brexit because they hire non-EU nationals as well.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    felix said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
    Genuine question: are other comparable countries suffering the same issues as the UK?
    I believe the other day someone referred to problems in France related to ambulance delays - here in spain there have been long-running strikes among doctors and nurses in Madrid and some other Autonomous communities. Looking from outside there is an understandable but incredibly Brit-centric view that all our economic and social woes exist solely within the borders while the grass everywhere else and especially within the EU gets ever greeener. As I say understandable but really not true - here in Spain, which is among the best overall in the EU currently prices in supermarkets are continuing to rise well above the nominal rate of about 7% -in many cases double or triple that. New measures have been introduced to limit rises for the basics but we have just lost the 20cent petrol subsidy which will have a big impact in my part of the world where the average local earns around 12k€ p.a.
    I think that is just human nature. The grass is always greener, or conversely we are always better, rather than a balanced view and I suspect generally remainders and brexiteers are both biased in each of the opposite directions.
  • Scott_xP said:

    If there was a need for a 6 month process, it should have been in place before Brexit. If there isn't a need, there's absolutely no reason why existing recognition couldn't have been rolled over

    But we "Took Back Control"

    This is what control looks like.

    You seem to be implying Brexit was a total fucking waste
    This witless post totally (unintentionally) captures the quangocrats' attitude we're talking about. A grim determination to make sure it doesn't work, and rub words like 'control' in people's faces.

    But control means choice. The responsible organisation has the choice to recognise qualifications that yesterday it was airily waving through, or not to. If a 6 month checking process is necessary now, it is dereliction of duty that it did not happen then. If it isn't necessary, why is it happening now? You can't answer other than in meaningless slogans.
    So a government that's prepared to think the unthinkable, kick ass and get rid of civil servants that get in its way...

    That knows these problems are happening, knows why they are happening...

    That could get the Home and Health secretaries go on the news tonight and say "We are directing the Home Office to recognise European medical qualifications as of next week"...

    Just cowers in the face of the Home Office and GMC?

    As they say in Essex, you are having a bubble. The simplest explanation is that this is happening because the government wants this bit of it (fewer Europeans coming here doing our jobs) to happen and is prepared to overlook the consequences.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    felix said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Can't see why it's Sunak's fault. Excess deaths are probably indirectly caused by Covid 19 and the lockdown.

    The NHS was never locked down. The deterioration in performance preceeded Covid, though was accelerated by it, as was the staffing crisis.


    We are seeing what happens when services lack capacity. It doesn't matter if you have BUPA cover or not when you have a heart attack as private hospitals do not have emergency departments.
    Those charts are stark. Worryingly no sign of a turnaround. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
    At present there is no reason for it to turn around. Things might abate a bit in the Spring as the flu epidemic fades, but this is no longer a winter crisis, but a full year one. The staffing crisis is likely to worsen significantly if the mooted 2% pay rises for the coming year are implemented.

    Why does this government accept a permanent crisis? It’s clearly sortable. It’s a question of political will more than anything (and an absence of political won’t).
    It's a question of money.

    The NHS has had a nominal increase every single year since 2010; it was the only HMG department protected from austerity.

    Some of these years the increases were 2-3% each year but that equated to "0%" in real terms, and the NHS needs an increase in real-terms, each and every year, because with an ageing population, drug price inflation, the increasing treatability of conditions, wage demands and competition for labour in the market you have to run just to stand still. What's the price? Probably of the order of 4-6% pa, depending on the year.

    It doesn't take long to see how that compounds and becomes unsustainable in the long-run, particularly since it 'crowds out' spending in other HMG departments and creates an almost irresistible demand for expansion of the overall tax burden to fuel it, progressively suffocating consumption & investment in the wider economy.
    Genuine question: are other comparable countries suffering the same issues as the UK?
    I believe the other day someone referred to problems in France related to ambulance delays - here in spain there have been long-running strikes among doctors and nurses in Madrid and some other Autonomous communities. Looking from outside there is an understandable but incredibly Brit-centric view that all our economic and social woes exist solely within the borders while the grass everywhere else and especially within the EU gets ever greeener. As I say understandable but really not true - here in Spain, which is among the best overall in the EU currently prices in supermarkets are continuing to rise well above the nominal rate of about 7% -in many cases double or triple that. New measures have been introduced to limit rises for the basics but we have just lost the 20cent petrol subsidy which will have a big impact in my part of the world where the average local earns around 12k€ p.a.
    Thanks. It comes as no surprise to hear other countries are suffering similar issues tbf.
    It shouldn't but of course much of this does not get reported in the UK and vice versa. Ironically here it is the left-wing coalition government taking flak, over this, Catalonian independence and the new gender recognition act - sound familiar?
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 2,180

    Cicero said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Desperate hospitals are forced to pay rip-off fees, because of Tory failures to train enough doctors and nurses.

    Labour will tackle this.

    We’ll train 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses a year, paid for by scrapping the non-dom tax status.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nhs-hospital-spent-5200-one-28706839

    Pardon my scepticism.

    Firstly: why these numbers? Who settled on these suspiciously round numbers as the right level for a target? Are these numbers based on clinical need or cost? What treatment fields are the priority? Are there enough positions in training facilities and universities to train this number? If not, how do you propose to address this?

    How much is the non-dom tax leak? What are the sources for this number? What is the NAO and HMRC view? What are the tax losses for scrapping the non-dom status for overseas citizens? Is there even a net gain to the exchequer from doing this?

    Glib slogans backed by thin cheer pieces from a biased media is the kind of garbage that got us into the Tory mess.

    Why would it be different from Labour?

    Our problems are not just with the particular party of government, bad, thought the current bunch truly, truly are, we have a problem with our whole system.
    The last Labour government did, of course, deliver a tangible improvement in NHS services. In stark contrast to the current mob.
    Fair point
  • TresTres Posts: 2,163

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:

    Unfortunate for Sunak but there are a lot of opportunities for the opposition with this problem. Perhaps 'Brexit isn't working'.

    Whatever Sunak is (ie the size of an Amiibo) he isn't so stupid so he must know what's up. That time he had to go on TV and say, "I believe in Brexit" he looked like he was on the verge of starting to cry.
    Struggling to see how nurses going on strike for an above inflation payrise inmediately screams 'Brexit' to you folks, but I suppose all is possible in terminal stage remoanerism.
    Brexit has impacted on staffing vacancies, not only by FoM but also by losing recognition of qualifications. A Greek Doctor or Portuguese Nurse can no longer start next week, but rather takes 6 months to get their qualifications recognised. They now go to Germany or France instead.

    After all, a large part of the purpose of Brexit was to force payrises for working Britons by reducing foreign competition. It is a feature not a bug of Brexit.

    In short the conversation goes like this:

    Brexiteer: "We have to ban foreign workers so we can take care of our own."

    Our own: "I need a pay rise in order to pay my bills."

    Brexiteer: "F*** Off!"
    Either a Greek or Portuguese qualification needs 6 months of poring over, in which case it was bad and dangerous that this didn't happen before Brexit, or, more likely, they don't, which makes it solely a British NHS issue that it's taking 6 months. Perhaps you should consider apportioning some blame your desk jockey colleagues, who make up over half the NHS workforce, and whose whole job is meant to be sorting this stuff out.
    Part of FoM was mutual recognition of qualifications, and that has now ended. Nearly all foreign graduates now have to apply for recognition of their qualifications the same way, whether Nigerian or Portuguese, and that is both expensive and time consuming.

    I agree that it is unnessecary red tape, but that is Brexit and exiting the Single Market for you.

    Incidentally the NHS doesn't have the power to recognise qualifications, that is a statutory responsibility of the GMC. Neither does the NHS issue work visas, as that is a statutory role of the Home Office.
    No, it isn't Brexit or leaving the single market for you - Brexit provides us (and the EU) with a choice as to whether to continue to recognise these qualifications automatically or not. It is the EU's choice whether to recognise UK medical qualifications, and ours whether to recognise theirs. We choose whether to introduce red tape, or not to. If it has been introduced with grim enthusiasm, maybe we should consider whether those introducing it have an ideological axe to grind.
    We chose to introduce the red tape by voting to leave the EU. This is not a surprise. Or do you propose we let anyone with a piece of paper that says 'nurse' enter the country?
This discussion has been closed.