NHS Weekend Working and Sunday Trading?

milliemonster

Spirit wrote: »

It is not only about budget phasing.You would need an increased number of staff tocover the additional shifts -more consultants at weekends means more diagnostic staff etc. There are current shortages of Consultants in many specialties and they take years to train, there are also shortages of trained nurses, specialist technical staff such as cardiac technicians, perfusionists, ultra sonographers.
Who is funding and planning for this extra workforce? The lead time is long and overseas recruitment alone will not fill the gap.

Absolutely, we have recently had our hospital physiotherapist service now running at weekends, however, they will only see the patients that previously they would have needed to have been 'called out' to see when they used to do on call and will not do all the routine physio stuff they do during the week, its madness really.


I wholeheartedly agree that its nuts having hospital departments and services sat idle on weekends when waiting lists are as they are, but I think the government have lost sight and are aiming this at senior doctors when in fact having consultants working weekends in itself is not going to solve the problem.


Our consultants come in and do ward rounds on a weekend anyway so see all the patients daily, and then are on call for any serious problems, however, its no good in itself if therapy and other diagnostic services aren't available on a weekend, which they aren't routinely. If a consultant says a patient needs an MRI scan for example (not as an emergency as such but within the next couple of days) then this wouldn't be done until during the following week when the radiographers are in to perform the scan, radiologists are in to interpret the scans, and even the admin staff to sort out booking the patient in to the appropriate time slot etc. So you would need the entire hospital workforce to be working 24/7 for things to be done, the government isn't going to pay for the massive increase in workforce that would need, plus the workforce just isn't there anyway.

Masomnia

I used to work in HR in the NHS, and some of the things that went on....

'Managers' in the NHS get a bad name, and I'm not saying that there isn't waste, but it's a hell of lot better than the place being run by doctors; who thought they ran the place anyway.

I can understand people being upset about the government ending the money being shoveled into the NHS, but it forced the trust where I was to sort out some serious abuses. We had doctors doing private work and charging the NHS for the same procedures, so they were getting paid by both sectors for working at the same time. How it wasn't fraud I don't know, but they were getting away with it by some loophole or other. It really was eye opening.

CLAPTON

the basis of the proposed changes wasn't really to produce a 24/7 hospital service for elective work
but to correct the disgrace that, being ill or having an accident at the weekend, means that there is a higher likelihood of dying compared to weekdays.
surely no-one sees this as an unreasonable objective?

remorseless

CLAPTON wrote: »

the basis of the proposed changes wasn't really to produce a 24/7 hospital service for elective work
but to correct the disgrace that, being ill or having an accident at the weekend, means that there is a higher likelihood of dying compared to weekdays.
surely no-one sees this as an unreasonable objective?

It is indeed a total disgrace! Hence one of my previous post was about hoping that by now the NHS would have statistical data to foresee the gap. They must have some if they can obviously tell us that you're 15%* more likely to die if you get ill on a weekend.

Makes you wonder why they don't use the same statistics to roster personnel?

We managed to get airplanes to take off and land on weekends, you'd think the taboo of OMG it's weekend work would be well over!

*it is still statistically low - I recall reading that last year there were 6k deaths in the 15%. So out of the UK population of 64 mil is just 0.009%! Still talking about lives better not to happen at all!!!!

lostinrates

Masomnia wrote: »

I used to work in HR in the NHS, and some of the things that went on....

'Managers' in the NHS get a bad name, and I'm not saying that there isn't waste, but it's a hell of lot better than the place being run by doctors; who thought they ran the place anyway.

I can understand people being upset about the government ending the money being shoveled into the NHS, but it forced the trust where I was to sort out some serious abuses. We had doctors doing private work and charging the NHS for the same procedures, so they were getting paid by both sectors for working at the same time. How it wasn't fraud I don't know, but they were getting away with it by some loophole or other. It really was eye opening.

Well, that is profoundly depressing.

lostinrates

Spirit wrote: »

It is not only about budget phasing.You would need an increased number of staff tocover the additional shifts -more consultants at weekends means more diagnostic staff etc. There are current shortages of Consultants in many specialties and they take years to train, there are also shortages of trained nurses, specialist technical staff such as cardiac technicians, perfusionists, ultra sonographers.
Who is funding and planning for this extra workforce? The lead time is long and overseas recruitment alone will not fill the gap.

There are staff that work in the private sector. This is argument for improved working conditions. Incidentally the private sector sometimes, but accepted not often, does provide after work appointments. Certainly more than NHs.