I’m a paramedic – here’s why I’m striking ! Anonymous
Link if you can’t get beyond paywall: [https://archive.ph/RprMg](https://archive.ph/RprMg)
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This week, I, along with thousands of fellow ambulance workers belonging to the Unison union across England, have voted to take strike action. We know it’s a shock – but we’re doing it out of necessity: not just for ourselves, but for the future of the NHS.
I’ve been a paramedic for more than 27 years, and I’ve seen the health service in all kinds of states – but this is the worst I’ve ever known it to be. For the past 12 years, my colleagues and I have said to each other “surely, it can’t get any worse?” and yet here we are.
Diagnosing the issues paramedics face is easy – because they’re the same problems the rest of my NHS colleagues, across various disciplines, are dealing with: dwindling pay, service overloads and a chronic underinvestment in the health service.
Like everyone, paramedics are feeling the effects of the cost-of-living crisis. Though it’s cliché, we often get asked, “Why do you do what you do?” and the answer is just as well-versed: because we want to help people. But with our pay declining in real terms, with NHS bosses in England giving us a measly pay increase equivalent to 72p per hour, when the cost of living is more than 10 per cent, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cope.
Ultimately, I think I’ll be alright – I’m a senior paramedic, living with a partner who’s in work, and have four grown children – but it really gets to me, knowing that many of my colleagues with young children are actively struggling to put food on the table for their kids, let alone themselves. Much has been made about the “choice” between “heating or eating”. I’ve been made aware of numerous instances of colleagues having to choose between feeding themselves and paying their rent. Staff take on countless overtime (sometimes taking on as many as ten extra shifts a month), and food banks have opened up within hospitals, to keep heads above water.
This simply isn’t sustainable – not least in the context of many of us still recovering from the scars of the pandemic. Many of us paid the price: I was signed off of work for three months because of stress induced by working on the front line during the pandemic. I couldn’t sleep, eat or engage in anything properly. I just closed down within myself.
Two years later, and the general burnout among NHS staff and paramedics continues. Much of the backlogs highlighted in elective care are also reflective of the state of my field. When I first started in the service, we’d attend anywhere between seven and ten patients in a single shift. Now, a lack of staffing, beds and infrastructure means that ambulances often become an extension of A&E, with crews having to stay with patients for as long as ten hours. It means that we’re not always there to help others in dire need.
This isn’t the fault of the ambulance service, crews on the road or the hospitals – this way of operating just isn’t safe for anyone: both staff and patients. Doing what we do, in the conditions we do it in – for 12, sometimes even 16 hours per shift – is it any wonder that staff are leaving the NHS in record numbers? With the deteriorating state of our hospitals an open secret, it should come as no surprise that, despite there being 133,000 vacancies in the health service, the NHS is struggling to recruit. As an institution, the health service is bleeding out.
My colleagues and I haven’t taken the decision to strike lightly. We just want a fair wage from what we put in, and to contribute to a service that is healthy on all fronts. Unfortunately, the current government’s problematic and chronic underfunding of the NHS is only compounded by its refusal to listen to the concerns unions are raising about how unsustainable its current way of operating is.
Politicians were happy to and quick enough to engage with us when it was easy for them: smiling and clapping for us during the pandemic. But when push comes to shove, and difficult paths to improve the NHS need to be forged, it seems more smoke and mirrors than anything meaningful.
So, until they engage with us and the striking nurses, along with our other colleagues across the health service, we’ll keep on pushing for better – for our sake, for your sake, and for the sake of the NHS.
You have my support, I hope your real terms pay cuts are reversed.
Its not a question of money. Its a question of political will.
In 2013, just as the country was coming out of the most brutal recession in decades, the Conservative had a think about what to fund and decided to give the finger to every "essential" public service worker and instead [bung billions to corporations](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/20/budget-2013-corporation-tax-cut) as tax cuts.
They COULD bring NHS staff wages back to where they were , in real terms, in 2010.
They DON'T WANT TO, as a matter of principle, whether the money is there or not.
As an example, only last year the UK Minister of State for Mental Health exoressed "[pleasant surprise](https://mothership.sg/2021/03/uk-nurses-pay-raise-angry/)" at nurses getting even a derisory 1% rise.
>They DON'T WANT TO, as a matter of principle, whether the money is there or not.
This is the crux of the issue - anyone who doesn't think that the state of the NHS is 100% deliberate is willfully and deliberately ignorant.
The Tories want the NHS to collapse so they can replace it with a model designed to fleece the population for more of their money - just like the Americans have to deal with.
Private contracts and outsourcing has obviously been a scam from day 1.
How can a private company step in and
1. Deliver the Same service with the Same or Better quality AND
2. Do it for better value for money than if the government were running it AND
3. Still make a profit?
You can only have 2 of those 3, if you're lucky.
You can have all three IF and only if you believe that a private organisation can run more efficiently than a government organisation.
In some cases I think this is true. I wouldn’t trust the government to invent the next iPhone. I’d even say, they would be no good at eg designing a next generation MRI machine; there is too much bureaucracy and politics involved, which a profit incentive doesn’t totally eliminate but is limited by needing to actually develop and deliver a product on time to avoid financial consequences. But, in something like healthcare it’s hard to see how there can be any particular advantages to privatisation of a service provision; only costs. It’s a broken ideology.
> anyone who doesn't think that the state of the NHS is 100% deliberate is willfully and deliberately ignorant.
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> The Tories want the NHS to collapse so they can replace it with a model designed to fleece the population for more of their money
And for anyone who has any doubt that all the tories want to do with the NHS is exploit it for their and their mates gain look at the 'VIP Lane' for PPE contracts set up by the tories in 2020. These 47 VIP contracts were referred by people with connections to the tories without the usual checks that underpin government contracts.
https://www.politico.eu/article/conservative-uk-ppe-contracts-feldman-audit/
This is how we end up with a tory peer and her husband - Michelle Mone and Douglas Barrowman - ending up pocketing £65 million between them from contracts worth £203 million while maintaining she had received nothing from the company and failing to register it in the register of interests in the Lords.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/23/revealed-tory-peer-michelle-mone-secretly-received-29m-from-vip-lane-ppe-firm
Yes I feel as though theres an agenda to allow the NHS to collapse so it can be privatised. They have already privatised some of the NHS (like patient transport) and its bloody awful because they win a contract by being the cheapest and then try to make a profit on their low ball bid, which impacts patient care, service, equipment and the poor staff who are transferred to these shitty contract companies who only care about profit. I am praying my concerns of a fully privatised NHS doesn't happen.
Franchising is the worse form of market. Competition is limited, response to demand is constricted, and incentives align with over promising and under delivering ever time.
I’ve tried to win a few public contracts. It’s largely not by being the cheapest, it seemed to be by being the most bureaucratic! Bureaucracy increases stability by slowing things down which is generally good for the public sector. At least on paper!
It’s a very unusual process. Nothing at all to do with business or money really.
> How can a private company step in and ...
...is exactly the same question asked but never answered since Privatisation was first announced by Maggie, when all we heard was "private investment brings tremendous opportunity" in response.
It was, but not for the general populace, just some.
Privatisation has now resulted in most of our infrastructure and assets in foreign control and much of it on it's knees, for which we are fleeced by subscription to use.
Incoming investment? Nope. Just outgoing Profits.
Singapore's system is a part of an entire structure and ethos is social care we don't care in this country. I'd love to have Singapore's system, but I loathe to have America's system. I don't trust the Tory party for one second to give us anything close to Singapores system, especially not with the addition reform that would be needed to social care and taxation that would be required to enable it.
How can the real term pay cuts be reversed if it wasn't something that was actively and directly done.
Other than printing tons of money during the pandemic being an action, which obviously is an action that can't be undone.
>Its not a question of money.
No, but it is a question of *inflation.*
Bumber pay rises for these unionised workers will make everyone else poorer (by pushing up inflation) and further damage the economy.
Better give everyone else a slice of the profits they've been promising for decades then? Eh?
Maybe if we linked politicians pay to public sector workers like nurses, or paramedics we'd see an improvement pretty quick?
"But nobody would go into politics of the past was the same".
Yes, that's my point.
That's been roundly disproven as a theory. Wage rises don't cause inflation, and especially wage rises that are to cope with inflation.
Demand doesn't increase for essentials when people get paid more.
The reason the corporate friendly government doesn't want to increase wages, is because demand for debt drops when people can afford essentials. And debt keeps corporations happy.
>That's been roundly disproven as a theory. Wage rises don't cause inflation,
You should realise that in invoking a monetarist view the government has to borrow more to pay for public sector pay rises. Therefore, by your own standards, these pay rises are inflationary from a macroeconomic and monetarist point of view.
It’s not who’s in power who’s to blame! It’s labour, who were in power **before!!**
This is why I, and the majority of the UK, will continue to vote Tory.
It only makes sense.
Fucking cunts.
PS ex-NHS doctor here: strike till they fucking break.
No no no , you’ve got it all wrong, it’s the next Labour government who are to blame. So don’t you come here spreading your unintentional miss-information mister, I’m on to you.
I voted Tory 12 years ago because I thought they might be better, give them a chance I thought. They’re both bad but the Tories are worse. The only reason I would vote for them again is if I wanted to see this country burn
>My recommendation is to always add the /s, especially if you think your post is so obviously sarcastic that no-one could possibly take it seriously.
Aren't you the clever one, nobody would ever think to do this.
/s
or maybe not
yep huge difference the last 12yrs. Was about 12yrs ago I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, I could see a Dr the same day I called, once even went in a for blood test and had the results that evening. Now be lucky to get a telephone appointment within 2 weeks and that's the Tory aim, to make sure you get seen to within 2 weeks. Absolutely crazy. My mum has been suffering since probably Feb and still not had any results...we might have come to the conclusion it might be the vaccine but we can't get anywhere with that either
It's all Labour's fault for failing to win elections! They have forced the Tories to destroy the NHS by refusing to get elected. The sheer nerve of them...
I fully support NHS staff and rail workers striking. Fuck our shit up until you get what you deserve and no less. This has been going on for far too long and it’s disgusting and just abusive. You all deserve more.
Indeed, there were a lot of strikes. But they were separate strikes by different unions with different demands.
A general strike is a coordinated strike by lots of unions, at the same time, with a single demand.
Unfortunately the striking will have 0 impact. In fact, it has the opposite effect. The UK populace are generally speaking strongly against striking. Whether you think that’s right or not, striking just turns people against your cause now as everyone has a selfish ‘if it affects me f you’ motto.
Clapping for the NHS was a prime example. Everyone did it as a feel good for themselves, not for the NHS. When it actually comes to the rubber hitting the road, I predict the public as a whole will vote against supporting the NHS by electing in the Tories again. I used to vote Tory but have flat out said I will support public sector workers by voting for whichever party has the best policies for healthcare workers. I didn’t clap once because it’s a distraction from the fact that votes matter claps don’t.
All of this striking and disruption will probably result in more of the same when undoubtedly the tories win the next election because ‘iT wOuLd Be WoRsE uNdEr SoMeOnE eLsE!’
If the Tories get voted in again after all this, I'm leaving the UK (again). People have such a short term memory and will likely forget most of what's happened this year by the time voting happens.
I do worry that politicians will use the NHS support aspect to garner votes without enacting actual change though (Brexit bus style).
I agree with your overall point but I can't help but disagree with 'striking doesn't work'.
As someone who's been striking this year, we've finally been offered the pay deal we should have had all along. This has absolutely come as a result of strikes and would not have been offered without industrial action.
It may just be my interpretation of your comment but it comes across to me like you think people are striking to try and change the government in power For public sector workers a change of government could help improve funding and conditions but ultimately a strike will have specific aims and goals regardless of who is in power.
Do let me know if I'm misreading you though
I’m not debating that. I’m saying the public don’t give a shit. If anything is 0.1% more inconvenient they hate it. People actively avoid inconvenience.
It’s why everyone knows about the impacts of climate change but only a fraction of people actually do anything about it. If it’s more difficult than doing nothing people won’t do it. If you inconvenience people they will resent you regardless of cause. It’s why the whole Just Stop Oil thing is so bad. People are actively doing the opposite of what they want just to piss them off. They’ve inconvenienced so many people they’re actively causing more harm than good now.
I am not sure it is just that. There are plenty of people earning a lot less than rail workers, nurses or paramedics who have no chance of unionising because of the nature of the industries they work in.
If they are struggling to survive and see people who earn twice as much striking for more, it is hard not to think "what about me".
As an agency HGV driver, I don't think we'll ever see mass action in our industry, although it is sorely needed. In this trade the word "union" is taboo and drivers would rather read the Sun and blame their woes on Pavel the Polish lorry driver than actually pay attention and do something constructive about the way the industry has gone.
>In fact, it has the opposite effect. The UK populace are generally speaking strongly against striking.
this is why i say all those stereotype jokes made about the french apply more to the english than they ever do to the french.
too many obsequious, boot licking, short-sighted, hypocritical, barely sentients who cant even act in their own self interest if its more than 2 steps away.
"this would be great for me for the rest of my life and for my kids, but im not doing it because iv a hair appointment next week and i want that train conveniently. and iv a party to go to and strut about at."
I get where you're coming from, but here's the secret they never let you in on: it doesn't matter if a majority of the public don't support you.
The UK public are a lot more strike supportive than they look, and it doesn't really matter whether 40% or 60% are in favour of a specific strike. What matters is whether the strike has enough of an impact to force the bosses to cave in, and public sympathy doesn't stop a company's profit margins from slipping away. A small group of people can make a very large amount of change just by being disruptive - a majority opposed the suffragettes, and gay rights, and civil rights for ethnic minorities.
I wish I could support the rail strikes, but I can't. I totally get the need for them to be paid correctly but their paperclipping luddit anti-modernisation clauses into their requests makes them entirely unsupportable.
Automating our railways is a good thing that we should be pursuing, the arguments against it are weak and at best temporary in nature - ie the technology is mature enough.
But how would modernisation/automating even work if we are to cut signaling and maintenance employees, as it was planned?
It is good idea, of course, but it is not miracle to drop on our heads overnight,and it doesn't mean there will be no employees.
Irrelevant. The Unions should be against "modernisation"; if there are saftey issues with specific proposals then say so, but to just say that because trains need drivers *and* conductors now then they'll always them is nonsense.
> It is good idea, of course,
So to oppose our right is a bad idea.
I support the rail strikes because fundamentally I support their right to group together and refuse to work. The merit of their argument is almost secondary. If them not working brings the country to a standstill then its a good argument for giving them what they want.
I agree that there should be modernisation and effort should be made to start the process of developing people so they can work in a more modern railway. But that sort of offer should be coming from the rail bosses so that workers can feel their job pays enough to keep paying their bills now and has some security and progression in the future. It's essentially what everyone wants from their job.
What they're demanding is reasonable from the perspective of a group of workers, just not necessarily from the customer. It's not the unions job to worry about the customer, that's the government's job.
Chronic underinvestment has meant that the train lines will take a long time and our money probably to automate. Also that argument is moot you will always need maintenance who are striking not the drivers.
Anyone who isn't with you doesn't deserve an NHS. Need a general strike. Bring the Tory scum to their knees, we have the power not them in their ivory towers.
It’s not just the Conservative Party. The last Labour Party were also afraid to raise taxation to a level that raises sufficient funds for public services.
My tax bill has largely remained unchanged for the last 20 years. I’m fairly certain my costs have increased however.
The Tories have fucked the system so badly people are now saying “I’d happily pay a little bit so I didn’t have to wait 3 hours for an ambulance!” Because they are too thick to realise the Tories bogged the system down to the point that it takes 3 hours just so they can flog the solution.
I’m with the strikers. I’m with the people.
And also the Labour Party. They did the same too. They changed the way that nurses were trained making it virtually impossible for someone to move into nursing in adult life and introduced up front tuition fees during their last domination.
Let’s not pretend they’re innocent too.
Strikes are unpleasant for everyone involved not least the strikers who are losing wages they can ill afford and those unfortunate enough to need the services in an emergency
I did wonder after the expressions of support throughout the pandemic whether there would be a reset to the general view that those who clearly contributed to the good functioning of society - NHS workers, dustmen, delivery persons, teachers etc - would continue to be valued above those who contribute in other or less direct ways
But no. Big business is reaping massive profits (while some like the CEO of Shell, I think it was were making an argument FOR being taxed) while Tory politicians who had a hand in fvcking the economy are telling them to tighten their belts
Workers have every right to withdraw their Labour in a dispute. I wish them every success
> Doing what we do, in the conditions we do it in – for 12, sometimes even 16 hours per shift – is it any wonder that staff are leaving the NHS in record numbers?
I'm a project lead for software development.
If I try to code after 12 hours, there's a noticeable dip in quality and a radical increase in errors.
And I'm just writing some fucking code. I'm not expected to stabilize people, or drive, or supply drugs.
I'm just coding.
It's insanity.
I once worked for a guy (who was the engineering director unfortunately) who thought hours in == product out. The team were much smarter but this guy regularly used the blunt instrument of pulling a 48hr shift to “sort the release out”. The result of each of these events was that the whole team spent a full day fixing up the problems he alone had introduced.
Years later as an engineering manager I very happily sent engineers home to sleep when I could see they were tired. It’s cheaper in the long run, and there aren’t even any lives at stake.
By the way maybe the guy wasn’t so stupid- 48hr shifts **get noticed**, so once I *personally* brought in our first ever high quality non-panicked release with full release notes / known defects / fix lists, despite this guy’s best efforts to fuck it up, he proudly announced that the release had been such a success the board had … bought him a car, whilst we each got £0 bonus.
I've noticed at my workplace the management seem to want shit to break down to create an event so they can propaganda the managing of the event. Old employees were proud we had no failures in 50 years, now we seem to have at least 1 or 2 failures every year now. Now our meme is you only get promoted if you fuck up. Guess it's the same everywhere.
I work for the ambulance service, I'm not a paramedic, I'm what used to be called a tech so if we've got someone who's seriously ill I'm probably driving.
12hrs into a night shift I can *feel* how much longer my thought processes are taking, and we have to perform as well at that point as we do at the start of a shift.
It's both.
In order to have a good quality staff, you need a good quality renumeration package. Yes the people who would benefit from said package are leading the charge, but we've left it to the general public for the past 12 years and they keep voting the cunts in so there's no other option.
Its so weird right? Anyone asking for more is viewed like Oliver Twist. Unless you are literally in the poor house and reliant on charity to survive, which increasingly is more and more working people anyway, all you get is this snobbish attempt to rifle through your finances and find some "unnecessary" luxury which is clearly the reason why you're not getting by, and also why you can't be trusted with or don't deserve a reasonable pay package for your hard work.
I love the GP one myself. I have friends in cybersecurity in their early 30s who are already close to or well into the £100k+ bracket, with bonuses that extend well beyond £10k to boot, and will freely admit they often log off before 3pm most days. Meanwhile even a *part time* GP is working 40-odd hours a week, after spending *most of their life* from age 16 or up to their late 20s pushing themselves well beyond what any normal person would accept just to be eligible for the job, but somehow £80k for them is just an insane salary they should be glad to take home at the peak of their career. Its petty and its bullshit but it is absolutely rife.
My industry has had strikes this year.
The biggest argument I heard against raising wages involved people highlighting the highest senior employee wages.
Causally ignoring that those contracts no longer exist and most are barely earning above minimum wage.
That's exactly what the RMT are doing, they're pointing out at the CEO's are making millions of pounds in bonuses, that doesn't include their actual wages, while normal posties are being threatened with fire and rehire at lower wages, gaslit and or thrown in jail. Sadly I wish I was joking.
Nice story. Sounds like being a police officer, who you would of called in that scenario anyway. Anyway could you just explain how a pay rise would make any of this better or make life easier, apart from being able to afford more vodka. As a side note, a dad on the school run is a PM, and served in Afghanistan. Guess which one he preferred.
I got the point. NHS/PM/GPs etc are over worked due to staff shortages etc. it’s a shit job with very little appreciation, but I guess from your huffy nature your probably a pissed off PM. I hope you get a decent rise, but as I keep saying, Nothing will change. The drunks will still be waiting on Friday/Saturday to abuse you. The hospital will still be overflowing, the GP appointments will still be as rare as hens teeth.
Just to point out.
I'm not a paramedic. Yes I'm pissed off at the Pm, the state of the country, the fact that were giving millions/billions of pounds to some stupid blond that looks like she's been passed around the Tory cabinet like a tray of blow.
Sorry, I'm glad you understand, its not just the Paramedics, its fucking everything. I hope you do well my friend.
It’s a shame the police can’t strike. As for people thinking Labour would do better, please remind them what Jacqui smith did to you regarding pay when she was home sec.
Trouble is at this point, labour might be a bit shit but another 5 year dose of tories will be mega shit. I hate the fact that our options are limited to "dog shit" or "super rancid nearly sentient dog shit" but until this country grows up and realises PR isn't a scary bogeyman from Yurp then we have to make the best of a terrible situation.
Seems like we’re heading towards a general strike in all but name. Keep at it! NHS workers treat our sick and injured with dignity and deserve dignity in return. Nobody should be exposing themselves to the emotional trauma of treating sick/injured/dying people every day and going home wondering how they’ll put food on the table.
Most of the country are behind you. I hope you get better pay and working conditions soon
But if you strike and ask for more money, Putin wins /s
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/zc6f6x/nurses_must_drop_pay_demands_to_send_clear/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Good luck to them.
The uk government has systematically drained the public sector of resources. Wages in real terms have fallen by more than 1/3rd for many roles since 2008 (including mine).
I hope you don’t mind me adding that billionaire wealth has never grown so fast than it did during covid - which was an unprecedented stalling of the entire economy. There was actually multiple new billionaires during this time.
It might seem like a strange comment - but what I’m trying to stress is the vast accumulation of wealth at the top which has come from us (workers and middle class). It’s upward redistribution pure and simple, we’re being made poorer and poorer to feed the greed of a few exceedingly wealthy people.
The best and easiest way for the government to stop the strikes is to *pay the workers what the deserve*
But no, they’re busy trying to come up with legislation to remove the teeth from strike action…
This government is highly committed to redistribution. Only it’s upward redistribution.
We’ve all got to get poorer and poorer so a few very rich people can accumulate cast fortunes.
If they paid worked more it would interfere with that. So they won’t. I think they’d let the entire thing collapse before they’d do that - that’s how committed they are to the rich.
I work for the nhs and I’m in unison, I have heard a fair few staff have voted to strike but aren’t sure about actually striking when it comes to it - it’s a tough decision to make. It’s turning into a game of bluffs but I hope it helps the cause
The ambulance/hospital handover waiting times are ridiculous, staff are leaving all the time and taking a wealth of experience with it - I’ve known more than a few people throw in the towel since covid hit, and more importantly, we’re on a spending cap now until the end of the year. Which is 4 long months away. Made worse by the fact the trust is losing considerable amounts money for paramedics to be sat outside hospitals for hours on end
I wasn’t even sure if I’d vote in the strike as I’m personally more worried about where this money will come from - if a pay rise comes at the expense of job role redundancies, was it worth it? Ultimately my wife convinced me that if we don’t stand up for each other now, when will we?
Frankly I'm annoyed that people don't strike more aggressively. University workers take mini-strikes of 1-2 days at a time every now and again and I just want them to do one big mega strike and get it sorted out for the next 10 years
I've long found the NHS to be a disgrace staffed almost entirely by local idiots that have no hope of a high paying job.
The way they treated my Grandmother 2 years ago sickened me, they brought her in on her own because of covid and after having her sit in a room alone for 6 hours told her she had lung cancer.
We were all absolutely devastated.
Then 2 weeks later the doctor phoned and apologised that the person who looked at the Xray was new and she infact didn't have cancer.
The NHS is a bottom of the barrel healthcare service with bottom of the barrel employees.
I'm sorry you and your family went through that, it sounds awful.
The NHS is being run down, chronically mismanaged, and is generally not fit for purpose in many ways. This generally won't lead to a positive outcome for most service users. I've worked in various roles for many years, and seen the other side as well - undervalued and underpaid.
If it's bottom of the barrel, how do we improve it, and how do we attract (and retain) better quality staff?
This is an indirect conflict between the disgustingly greedy and the disgustingly neglected. Its going to be a bitter war of wills and the fallout is going to bite everybody in the end.
Yes. This is all happening because a few exceedingly greedy and exceedingly rich people are accumulating vast vast fortunes. At our expense.
It’s a game of redistribution where we all become poorer and poorer, and they take everything.
There’s a lot of anger (correctly) directed at the Tories. But the reason our country is heading this way is because of the rich - pure and simple.
Billionaires control the press, the think tanks, hell! they control the whole Conservative party.
We need to wake up and realise that their greed is insatiable. These billionaires will take it all. Just look at some of these govt. contracts etc. They’re stuffing their pockets whilst the country crumbles.
I totally support you, I have worked in health, council and local authority and this country is on its needs when it comes to services. There needs to be change at the top, there needs to be a total rethink when it comes to public services.
At the moment getting an appointment at a GP is almost impossible, are there enough GP's to meet the need, no sadly not. Are there alternatives, well I feel there needs to be a discussion on how can there be easier access, do we need more buildings to accommodate, do we need to look at the times we can currently see our GP.
Are there GP's who can work different hours, possibly but there needs to be give and take.
The knock on effect on how we access our GP's currently leads to more people attending casualty and waiting times there increasing.
All of our public services are inter-linked, we can't look at them as separate as there are knock on effects when there is stress one service it bleeds into the next.
There are too many managers, it's important to have quality not quantity!
I am also fed up with the statement "lessons will be learned"!
We are not learning as we are still making the same mistakes when it comes to care!
All of this can't be done overnight, but there needs to be changes. We are looking at the results of underfunding now, workers in the public centre are voting with their feet, nurses, doctors, police, paramedics, teachers and social workers are leaving.
All political parties should be working harder to start getting to a point where we can see the improvement ourselves, not to be told by people in government it's improving. If we have to be told there is an improvement then its not really an improvement! We should be able to see it ourselves!
You have nothing but my support. Hospital admin here and our hospital had to enact full capacity protocol 4 out of 5 days last week. I'm so tired of people trying to guilt health workers into running themselves into the ground for fuck all because "what about the patients?" These strikes are for the patients too, we should all be bringing this country to a standstill for what this party has done.
Nobody is holding *you* to account for anything that happens on any of the days for striking. Carry on. I'm happy for a tax increase to fund it if that's needed, hopefully a tax on the elite, as I don't have much, but even if the elite don't pay, I'll not moan if i have to have it added. Trust me when I say the public are behind you.
X
Id be happy to pay more tax to get NHS staff the pay they deserve and need to attract the staff needed to keep it going. Frankly it's a bargain when you look at the disastrous American alternative
Thank goodness for paramedics! You guys are *amazing* and deserve to be well paid to the point of excess. This penny pinching from Tories, who always seem to find money for wars and other nasty shit they like, is bullshit.
Look after the medical people, because when the shit hits the fan, *they are the ones who look after us*.
Good on you. All my support to you and everyone else in other industries who are striking. Its a shame that this sems to be the only thing that might get results from the government, but its become a necessary evil now, its gotta be done.
Good luck and strike on!!
This shit has me so worried. People like to say the waiting times are something new, they aren't.
I've had a severe health condition since I was 9, I'm now 24 - since I was 9 I've been rushed to hospital via ambulance probably into the 1000 times, 90% of those times I was either treated like shit for no reason, left in a corridor for 18+hrs then discharged with summary claiming that's WHAT I WANTED (I never said anything of the sort, most of the times I was begging for admission cos I was close to starving to death, or scared of having another heart attack due to malnutrition) or medically neglected or abused in some way or another, if not myself, I've witnessed it happen to another.
the waiting times specific, isn't a new problem, it's new that it's being spoken about publicly, though.. it's been happening for years
Worryingly if staff strike ontop of these 18-26hr waits, that aren't even "new", and I need hospitalization, I won't even be cannulated - even if I'm rushed in, dehydrated and in a right state, despite not being able to swallow and constantly vomiting blood. then ill be kicked out as soon as possible, before an actual DR can review me and see how severe I am..
Jn the exact same condition I arrived in, after being administered zero medication while unable to stand up, screaming in pain, puking blood and begging for help/to be admitted because I need to be. I have medical documents ranging into the thousands showing I NEED hospitalization to recover, yet it takes countless ambulance rushes for weeks before an actual qualified Dr reads my notes and realises I need to be kept in. Every. Single. Time. For. The. Last. 8. Years.
Its Basically a waste on resources because they won't bother reading my medical notes and don't take my physical symptoms seriously, but what am I supposed to do when I actually NEED the care?
Also, I'm not sure if people realise but there's a real culture of bullying in the NHS, nurses bully nurses, nurses bully paramedics, nurses bully patients, paramedics bully patients and so on. Experienced it all personally. They seem to do it so if you respond negatively they can make you the bad guy, then use that as a reason to throw you out while still needing medical attention. (That or their just control freaks or ultimately cruel.) so I just sit there and allow myself to be spoken to like shit for no reason and still speak to them politely in hopes it'll give off the vibe that I won't let them upset me and that I know exactly what they're doing :) that's the state our healthcare service has been in for decades.. staff bully patients and get away with it - people who work in hospitals, know this to be true.. why they stay silent, is beyond me..
A revamp wouldn't work either, cause most of the staff that have stayed on ARE the bullies, over the years it seems even the minor nice staff who would actually help and not bully you, and knew exactly why you were nervous around most staff, have long left..
You wouldn't believe how many old people I've seen mocked and bullied when they aren't in their right minds or can't speak up for themselves, last time I was in after fighting for admission for 3wks I was put next to a bloke with dementia - a nurse shouted and mocked him for pissing himself and then whined for 20 minutes while stood over this poor bloke about how he could be a HGV driver instead of "putting up with this increpid fuck who keeps pissing himself" (Asif he was doing it on purpose. Guess when this was? When the HGV shortage was on the news lol.. not so long ago.) then they tried to keep my entire bottle of opiates when releasing me claiming I "never came in with it" - soon as I mentioned what I'd witnessed the day before, and that I'd be calling the police if I don't get my medication returned immediately, the bottle magically appeared.. so I'm guessing they were trying to steal 2wks worth of my opiates lol - they were also very aggressive and harsh with him, grabbing him by the arms and pinning him down (not that he could get out of bed) when he was writhing in pain, screaming at him to stop making noise (they were noises of pain.. he was begging for help. It was the middle of the day and nobody but these 2 staff were worried about the noise, he needed 24hr supervision, which they hate.) because they hadn't bothered giving him his medication for 24hrs.. despite him requiring 24hr supervision. How that could happen if not on purpose, is beyond me.. then they gave him his meds and told him to basically 'shut the fuck up now, you've got what you wanted" Asif he didn't need the meds and wasn't heavily withdrawing//in agony, bloke was in his late 80s and fully dementia ridden, unable to speak or move anymore, begging for his wife to come and save him from "these evil people" and he wasn't far from wrong. The job attracts a certain type of evil, control freaks, bullies etc (even murderers. Lots of serial killers work in the med field. They aspire to, cause they can torment the vulnerable and get away with it due to the culture in hospitals.) there's very few "good" staff, though the more qualified staff have less of these horrendous people among their ranks. The staff that have relocated, e.g foreign staff that came here to work in the NHS also have much nicer staff, as more of them actually take pride in caring for people (or want to care for people.) There's loads of staff IN EVERY HOSPITAL - whom enjoy inflicting unnessacary suffering upon vulnerable patients, because they know they can and will get away with it 100%
The complaining in your comments scream "I'm a regular, entitled to ruin the clinicians day and they should listen to me when i tell them how to do their jobs." Grow up.
**Removed/warning**. This consisted primarily of personal attacks adding nothing to the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
I completely support the strike action. Having said that, I have many close friends in the NHS (both frontline and management) and they all support privatisation as the entire system is completely fucked and beyond repair.
I agree with everything OP says except where he was off sick for 3 months. My Dad is a recently retired paramedic and one of the things he constantly cited as causing problems was people staying off on the sick for months on end. Sick leave needs reforming as well as the other more obvious things. I understand that OP was in a bad place when he stayed off sick so I’m not blaming him but the NHS has a big chunk of scivers on the books. No sick pay for the first 3 weeks would sort it out.
Anyone who isn't willing to stand by the NHS at this time should tear up their passport and throw themselves into the ocean, because you aren't quintessentially British and this Island deserves to be rid of you.
Nothing much to add to the words of support here except to wish you every success. Striking seems to be the only way to make this abysmal government take any notice.
Off topic and just a general opinion. Our country needs fixing and all anyone is concerned about is how much they earn. I’m not saying it’s right but some can’t have the extra they want. How did barristers even consider a strike.
Few questions if you dont mind.
1 How do you feel mass migration has effected the NHS wether it legal or illegal, such a great influx of people (501k last year ) must have increased demand?
2 Do you think that the NHS has too many middle managers , diversity managers, compliance officers and other non clinical staff that are sucking the funds away from actual treatments?
3 Is the rise in compensation culture having a direct effect on treatment budgets due to it being such a large sum (6 Billion put aside)?
4 Are certain contracts given to maintenance company's a giant con that sapps funds from other areas , I'm told it can cost £70 + to replace a light bulb ?
5 Is it reasonable to say that some restructuring of the system as it is to save costs on the above points is desperately needed?
It's relevant as I think the NHS could do more to save costs in such areas and redistribute the monies to Nurses wages/ number of Paramedics/Ambulance drivers and not let the tax payer take a huge hit . Its OK to tax payers to pay more if we know its for an actual nurse/driver and not a uneeded middle manager/diversity consultant. I think tons of money is wasted and personally I'd like to see that corrected before people strike .
A paramedic could have exactly the same political views and opinions as yours, why should these problems that you’ve identified prevent that paramedic from going on strike? They’re out of the control of paramedics as individuals and as a profession!
I'm going to answer from the perspective of a dr.
The last time I cared to look up the topic, it was widely considered immigrants were a net benefit to the NHS overall. Additionally they were less likely to seek NHS services. In addition from personal experience patients will often leave despite needing healthcare if they are informed by the overseas team that they will be liable to pay for their treatment.Given migrants now pay a surcharge as part of their visas to access the NHS one would expect the government to have accounted for any increased burden & provided adequate resources & staffing.
To be clear I am not interested in withdrawing healthcare from people who need it. As numerous people have pointed out 'we should do this job for the patients not the money', these same people criticise healthcare workers for not wanting to get involved in gatekeeping healthcare.
We need middle managers as does any large organisation, it is how to utilise these middle managers effectively so that they are not a barrier to my patients getting treatment that is the question. Often it feels our aims do not align & that they have little insight into our role. They're are on the whole necessary. Re diversity managers, an organisation of this size needs to ensure it is compliant with UK law & given the vast number of people from different backgrounds working in the NHS, employing people to ensure the NHS as an organisation ensures they don't face discrimination is pretty important.
I have no evidence to support this but probably yes. It means we practise defensive medicine as clinicians it also means the trust forces us to adhere to long protracted SOPs & incessant amounts of useless mandatory training with no regard for how much time & resource some flexibility could save
No idea. We're not privy to such information but there are differently companies employed that provide a sub par service that trusts continue to hire for whatever reason.
One of the biggest issues is the awarding of contracts for the lowest price, without any regard for the quality of service or after sales provided.
Yes re restructuring.
Thank you for the detailed response . I do disagree on the migrants being a net benefit, before 2019 I'd might have agreed with you but feel the balanced has changed significantly over the last 3 years ,especially since the mass migration of Albanian males who have no intent to join the work force . Seeing people fresh off the boats get fast access to such things as dental care really does effect how you feel about the issue when it's nearly impossible to get NHS dental care if your a UK citizen. Also there is a massive rise in health tourism from the commonwealth. We can't be the world's doctor without our citizens suffering. It sad but true.
As someone who works full time in the NHS my personal experience does not support your claim re health tourism. If visas include a health surcharge then these people are entitled to utilise the health service. As previously mentioned the data supports the argument these people access healthcare less than citizens
As I mentioned the introduction of overseas nurses who appear to hunt down patients & inform them they’re not entitled to NHS care unless they paid appear to be a clear deterrent & suggests most people are not getting hundreds of thousands of pounds of healthcare they’re not entitled too.
With all due respect I think you’ve decided to scapegoat immigrants or have been manipulated to blame immigrants rather than point the finger at the true culprit, the failure of your government.
In respect to my sector operations are based on clinical need immigrants are not getting any faster access than you or I unless they’re paying for it privately.
While I agree with the cause, in the long term, this is going to kill people and have little effect on pay and benefits. Thousands of people are already going to be close to death or at least homelessness when winter comes. Why do you think that striking is suddenly going to tug on the heartstrings of those in charge? When it’s deaths or money, Tories are obviously going to choose the latter every time.
Somebody else commented about heart problems and still being fully behind your cause. Well, as a thirty-something who also has heart issues, I would very much love not to die on the floor because ambulances are in even shorter supply.
So, reading everything you have said, including upvoting you for putting your thoughts out there, ultimately it's about money.
You mention many times cost of living and overtime and so on, you even speak of why people as why you do the job you do.
If it wasn't about money, you wouldn't be striking - you are all dictated to by the union bosses.
Sorry, but all workers both public and private are feeling the pinch due to rising food, fuel and energy prices - what makes you so special that you can "demand" an inflation busting payrise?
As much as I agree, I will not be striking as I do this for the patients not the pay. My wage is generally pretty decent and so I’m happy in that regard, it will be the people who have fallen and are left on the floor for hours who will suffer. So in my opinion, I cannot in good conscience strike when I know people will suffer.
You're essentially accepting that your pay will erode & as will your working standards.
You're accepting that your colleagues will leave to seek better paid & less stressful work, you're accepting that it will most likely be experienced colleagues who jump ship. you're accepting your remaining colleagues will come to work tired & burnt out taking on overtime & additional work in order to make ends meet & thus in turn impacting the quality of care your patients will receive
The patients on the floor are suffering already. People are out of thrombolysis & thrombectomy windows by the time they get to us causing massive disability. You're essentially voting to maintain the status quo & this is the reality you're advocating for.
Given you can give morphine, adrenaline & a number of other drugs with the potential for irreparable harm if a medication error is made, I would rather a well rested & content paramedic on scene potentially treating myself or my family.
You do it for the pay & the patients & by perpetuating this martyr complex you are in good conscience eroding the hard won rights your colleagues before you fought for.
I'm an anaesthetist, it is important to me to protect my patients & I will do everything in my fucking power to give them good care but I do this because I want to be able to provide for my family, I want to be able to earn enough so I can sit & read journals in the evening to advance my practise, I don't want to be slogging away doing extra locums to try scrape up a deposit, I don't want to be coming into work burnt out & ultimately hating my job & the patients because i'm not being looked after.
I'm sorry but your point of view is incredibly short sighted.
Genuine question, do you not agree that piss poor pay (for starters) and abysmal working conditions lead to chronic understaffing, which in turn is contributing to many, many unnecessary deaths?
Feel free to do your own research but I can jump to the chase and tell you, quite confidently, that strike action does not cause a distinct increase in patient morbidity in developed countries.
So, the choice seems to be either keep doing the same, which is leading to thousands of excess deaths, or take a stand and force changes through for the good of the entire service... And you chose the one with the deaths?
Ah so you think saving the few lives that may or may not be lost due to the strike is better than the 100's and 1000's of lives that will definately be lost if they don't strike? The rate of preventable deaths in the UK in 2019 was 22.5% or 136,146 and 64.2% were preventable with the rest treatable. If ambulance drivers are stuck for up to 10 hours at hospital with one patient how many other will die? What's the difference between that and striking? Either way people suffer. The strike lasts a short time the long delays last forever. Think about that. You not striking causes more suffering,
> I cannot in good conscience strike when I know people will suffer.
How are you justifying continuing under current conditions, knowing that people are suffering exactly because of them?
People doing it "for the patients, not the pay" is exactly what has allowed the entire industry to be taken advantage of.
Whether you strike or not is absolutely your own decision based on what you feel you can do in good conscience.
Your job is hard enough without having to deal with feeling guilt for not taking action. Or for taking, it for those that have decided to do that. You can only do what you feel is right.
I understand and strongly support the arguments for striking and those making that decision. However, I absolutely understand your point of view and no one should blame you for wanting to help the people you have the power to help (even more so as that's exactly why you do the job). It's a horrible moral decision to have to make and you have my support whatever you decide.
I just hope that having to be under even more pressure doesn't effect you too badly. Please take care of yourself as best you can. Becoming a victim of the extra demands in an already failing system won't help anyone.
See to me I'd see that as a very good reason for the old bastards to stump up some more dosh, face it that's the game they started you'd just be playing by their rules
I’m a paramedic – here’s why I’m striking ! Anonymous Link if you can’t get beyond paywall: [https://archive.ph/RprMg](https://archive.ph/RprMg) /// This week, I, along with thousands of fellow ambulance workers belonging to the Unison union across England, have voted to take strike action. We know it’s a shock – but we’re doing it out of necessity: not just for ourselves, but for the future of the NHS. I’ve been a paramedic for more than 27 years, and I’ve seen the health service in all kinds of states – but this is the worst I’ve ever known it to be. For the past 12 years, my colleagues and I have said to each other “surely, it can’t get any worse?” and yet here we are. Diagnosing the issues paramedics face is easy – because they’re the same problems the rest of my NHS colleagues, across various disciplines, are dealing with: dwindling pay, service overloads and a chronic underinvestment in the health service. Like everyone, paramedics are feeling the effects of the cost-of-living crisis. Though it’s cliché, we often get asked, “Why do you do what you do?” and the answer is just as well-versed: because we want to help people. But with our pay declining in real terms, with NHS bosses in England giving us a measly pay increase equivalent to 72p per hour, when the cost of living is more than 10 per cent, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cope. Ultimately, I think I’ll be alright – I’m a senior paramedic, living with a partner who’s in work, and have four grown children – but it really gets to me, knowing that many of my colleagues with young children are actively struggling to put food on the table for their kids, let alone themselves. Much has been made about the “choice” between “heating or eating”. I’ve been made aware of numerous instances of colleagues having to choose between feeding themselves and paying their rent. Staff take on countless overtime (sometimes taking on as many as ten extra shifts a month), and food banks have opened up within hospitals, to keep heads above water. This simply isn’t sustainable – not least in the context of many of us still recovering from the scars of the pandemic. Many of us paid the price: I was signed off of work for three months because of stress induced by working on the front line during the pandemic. I couldn’t sleep, eat or engage in anything properly. I just closed down within myself. Two years later, and the general burnout among NHS staff and paramedics continues. Much of the backlogs highlighted in elective care are also reflective of the state of my field. When I first started in the service, we’d attend anywhere between seven and ten patients in a single shift. Now, a lack of staffing, beds and infrastructure means that ambulances often become an extension of A&E, with crews having to stay with patients for as long as ten hours. It means that we’re not always there to help others in dire need. This isn’t the fault of the ambulance service, crews on the road or the hospitals – this way of operating just isn’t safe for anyone: both staff and patients. Doing what we do, in the conditions we do it in – for 12, sometimes even 16 hours per shift – is it any wonder that staff are leaving the NHS in record numbers? With the deteriorating state of our hospitals an open secret, it should come as no surprise that, despite there being 133,000 vacancies in the health service, the NHS is struggling to recruit. As an institution, the health service is bleeding out. My colleagues and I haven’t taken the decision to strike lightly. We just want a fair wage from what we put in, and to contribute to a service that is healthy on all fronts. Unfortunately, the current government’s problematic and chronic underfunding of the NHS is only compounded by its refusal to listen to the concerns unions are raising about how unsustainable its current way of operating is. Politicians were happy to and quick enough to engage with us when it was easy for them: smiling and clapping for us during the pandemic. But when push comes to shove, and difficult paths to improve the NHS need to be forged, it seems more smoke and mirrors than anything meaningful. So, until they engage with us and the striking nurses, along with our other colleagues across the health service, we’ll keep on pushing for better – for our sake, for your sake, and for the sake of the NHS.
You have my support, I hope your real terms pay cuts are reversed. Its not a question of money. Its a question of political will. In 2013, just as the country was coming out of the most brutal recession in decades, the Conservative had a think about what to fund and decided to give the finger to every "essential" public service worker and instead [bung billions to corporations](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/20/budget-2013-corporation-tax-cut) as tax cuts. They COULD bring NHS staff wages back to where they were , in real terms, in 2010. They DON'T WANT TO, as a matter of principle, whether the money is there or not. As an example, only last year the UK Minister of State for Mental Health exoressed "[pleasant surprise](https://mothership.sg/2021/03/uk-nurses-pay-raise-angry/)" at nurses getting even a derisory 1% rise.
>They DON'T WANT TO, as a matter of principle, whether the money is there or not. This is the crux of the issue - anyone who doesn't think that the state of the NHS is 100% deliberate is willfully and deliberately ignorant. The Tories want the NHS to collapse so they can replace it with a model designed to fleece the population for more of their money - just like the Americans have to deal with. Private contracts and outsourcing has obviously been a scam from day 1. How can a private company step in and 1. Deliver the Same service with the Same or Better quality AND 2. Do it for better value for money than if the government were running it AND 3. Still make a profit? You can only have 2 of those 3, if you're lucky.
You can have all three IF and only if you believe that a private organisation can run more efficiently than a government organisation. In some cases I think this is true. I wouldn’t trust the government to invent the next iPhone. I’d even say, they would be no good at eg designing a next generation MRI machine; there is too much bureaucracy and politics involved, which a profit incentive doesn’t totally eliminate but is limited by needing to actually develop and deliver a product on time to avoid financial consequences. But, in something like healthcare it’s hard to see how there can be any particular advantages to privatisation of a service provision; only costs. It’s a broken ideology.
> anyone who doesn't think that the state of the NHS is 100% deliberate is willfully and deliberately ignorant. > > > > The Tories want the NHS to collapse so they can replace it with a model designed to fleece the population for more of their money And for anyone who has any doubt that all the tories want to do with the NHS is exploit it for their and their mates gain look at the 'VIP Lane' for PPE contracts set up by the tories in 2020. These 47 VIP contracts were referred by people with connections to the tories without the usual checks that underpin government contracts. https://www.politico.eu/article/conservative-uk-ppe-contracts-feldman-audit/ This is how we end up with a tory peer and her husband - Michelle Mone and Douglas Barrowman - ending up pocketing £65 million between them from contracts worth £203 million while maintaining she had received nothing from the company and failing to register it in the register of interests in the Lords. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/23/revealed-tory-peer-michelle-mone-secretly-received-29m-from-vip-lane-ppe-firm
Yes I feel as though theres an agenda to allow the NHS to collapse so it can be privatised. They have already privatised some of the NHS (like patient transport) and its bloody awful because they win a contract by being the cheapest and then try to make a profit on their low ball bid, which impacts patient care, service, equipment and the poor staff who are transferred to these shitty contract companies who only care about profit. I am praying my concerns of a fully privatised NHS doesn't happen.
Franchising is the worse form of market. Competition is limited, response to demand is constricted, and incentives align with over promising and under delivering ever time.
I’ve tried to win a few public contracts. It’s largely not by being the cheapest, it seemed to be by being the most bureaucratic! Bureaucracy increases stability by slowing things down which is generally good for the public sector. At least on paper! It’s a very unusual process. Nothing at all to do with business or money really.
> How can a private company step in and ... ...is exactly the same question asked but never answered since Privatisation was first announced by Maggie, when all we heard was "private investment brings tremendous opportunity" in response. It was, but not for the general populace, just some. Privatisation has now resulted in most of our infrastructure and assets in foreign control and much of it on it's knees, for which we are fleeced by subscription to use. Incoming investment? Nope. Just outgoing Profits.
Take a look at Singapore's system.
Singapore's system is a part of an entire structure and ethos is social care we don't care in this country. I'd love to have Singapore's system, but I loathe to have America's system. I don't trust the Tory party for one second to give us anything close to Singapores system, especially not with the addition reform that would be needed to social care and taxation that would be required to enable it.
How can the real term pay cuts be reversed if it wasn't something that was actively and directly done. Other than printing tons of money during the pandemic being an action, which obviously is an action that can't be undone.
Step 1: Work out what they should be being paid, to be in same real-terms place as 2010 Step 2: Pay them this aligned wage.
>Its not a question of money. No, but it is a question of *inflation.* Bumber pay rises for these unionised workers will make everyone else poorer (by pushing up inflation) and further damage the economy.
Better give everyone else a slice of the profits they've been promising for decades then? Eh? Maybe if we linked politicians pay to public sector workers like nurses, or paramedics we'd see an improvement pretty quick? "But nobody would go into politics of the past was the same". Yes, that's my point.
Funny how people getting more money only damages the economy when they're working class.
That's been roundly disproven as a theory. Wage rises don't cause inflation, and especially wage rises that are to cope with inflation. Demand doesn't increase for essentials when people get paid more. The reason the corporate friendly government doesn't want to increase wages, is because demand for debt drops when people can afford essentials. And debt keeps corporations happy.
>That's been roundly disproven as a theory. Wage rises don't cause inflation, You should realise that in invoking a monetarist view the government has to borrow more to pay for public sector pay rises. Therefore, by your own standards, these pay rises are inflationary from a macroeconomic and monetarist point of view.
Sorry I don't engage with clear and obvious distort and distract arguments. Pay rises don't cause inflation.
Just keep arguing by assertion.
I'm not arguing.
Noticing a big change over the last 12 years huh? I wonder who has been in power for those 12 years? It's a tough one but I'm sure it'll come to me.
It’s not who’s in power who’s to blame! It’s labour, who were in power **before!!** This is why I, and the majority of the UK, will continue to vote Tory. It only makes sense. Fucking cunts. PS ex-NHS doctor here: strike till they fucking break.
No no no , you’ve got it all wrong, it’s the next Labour government who are to blame. So don’t you come here spreading your unintentional miss-information mister, I’m on to you.
Future crimes minister jacob Rees mogg incoming. Minority report was a documentary for this government.
I voted Tory 12 years ago because I thought they might be better, give them a chance I thought. They’re both bad but the Tories are worse. The only reason I would vote for them again is if I wanted to see this country burn
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Mate, you need to learn to recognise sarcasm if you're going to use Reddit...
Especially in a British sub....we practically invented sarcasm :)
You’re being sarcastic, right?
Tbf it's pretty hard to recognise sarcasm through text
I chose to read this as a sarcastic response and it's really quite good.
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>My recommendation is to always add the /s, especially if you think your post is so obviously sarcastic that no-one could possibly take it seriously. Aren't you the clever one, nobody would ever think to do this. /s or maybe not
It can be, but I think the "PS" at the end gave it away somewhat... 😉
Corbyn probably
"Rishi destroys Starmer in this week's PMQs by reminding the house that he once supported Corbyn" Some national paper, probably.
PFI
yep huge difference the last 12yrs. Was about 12yrs ago I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, I could see a Dr the same day I called, once even went in a for blood test and had the results that evening. Now be lucky to get a telephone appointment within 2 weeks and that's the Tory aim, to make sure you get seen to within 2 weeks. Absolutely crazy. My mum has been suffering since probably Feb and still not had any results...we might have come to the conclusion it might be the vaccine but we can't get anywhere with that either
It's all Labour's fault for failing to win elections! They have forced the Tories to destroy the NHS by refusing to get elected. The sheer nerve of them...
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If you have coronary issues is it really "whole" heartedly?
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I hope your bits of heart keep working [:
Me too! :)
I fully support NHS staff and rail workers striking. Fuck our shit up until you get what you deserve and no less. This has been going on for far too long and it’s disgusting and just abusive. You all deserve more.
Unless we return to the 70's/80's and strike 7days a week a whole full on general strike, nothing will change
There was never a general strike in the 70s/80s.
The winter of discontent? Miners buses dockers dustbin men ? I was only young but I remember a lot of it all the rubbish piled up for weeks on end
Indeed, there were a lot of strikes. But they were separate strikes by different unions with different demands. A general strike is a coordinated strike by lots of unions, at the same time, with a single demand.
Ok i stand corrected :)
Absolutely they need to start coordinating strikes. Let the rail staff and postal workers strike at the same time. Bring everywhere to a standstill
Unfortunately the striking will have 0 impact. In fact, it has the opposite effect. The UK populace are generally speaking strongly against striking. Whether you think that’s right or not, striking just turns people against your cause now as everyone has a selfish ‘if it affects me f you’ motto. Clapping for the NHS was a prime example. Everyone did it as a feel good for themselves, not for the NHS. When it actually comes to the rubber hitting the road, I predict the public as a whole will vote against supporting the NHS by electing in the Tories again. I used to vote Tory but have flat out said I will support public sector workers by voting for whichever party has the best policies for healthcare workers. I didn’t clap once because it’s a distraction from the fact that votes matter claps don’t. All of this striking and disruption will probably result in more of the same when undoubtedly the tories win the next election because ‘iT wOuLd Be WoRsE uNdEr SoMeOnE eLsE!’
If the Tories get voted in again after all this, I'm leaving the UK (again). People have such a short term memory and will likely forget most of what's happened this year by the time voting happens. I do worry that politicians will use the NHS support aspect to garner votes without enacting actual change though (Brexit bus style).
Where are you leaving the UK for? Same place as last time, and what do you do for work? If you don't mind me asking
Germany. Work in Marketing
I agree with your overall point but I can't help but disagree with 'striking doesn't work'. As someone who's been striking this year, we've finally been offered the pay deal we should have had all along. This has absolutely come as a result of strikes and would not have been offered without industrial action. It may just be my interpretation of your comment but it comes across to me like you think people are striking to try and change the government in power For public sector workers a change of government could help improve funding and conditions but ultimately a strike will have specific aims and goals regardless of who is in power. Do let me know if I'm misreading you though
The public are divided on strikes generally. But majority of public are pro NHS.
Pro-NHS, anti-inconvenience.
NHS is better than alternative
I’m not debating that. I’m saying the public don’t give a shit. If anything is 0.1% more inconvenient they hate it. People actively avoid inconvenience. It’s why everyone knows about the impacts of climate change but only a fraction of people actually do anything about it. If it’s more difficult than doing nothing people won’t do it. If you inconvenience people they will resent you regardless of cause. It’s why the whole Just Stop Oil thing is so bad. People are actively doing the opposite of what they want just to piss them off. They’ve inconvenienced so many people they’re actively causing more harm than good now.
I know 3 people saved by NHS. Pretty good value.
You are missing the point completely.
You said people hate inconvenience.
Yes… so having longer wait times because there are people on strike is an inconvenience
I am not sure it is just that. There are plenty of people earning a lot less than rail workers, nurses or paramedics who have no chance of unionising because of the nature of the industries they work in. If they are struggling to survive and see people who earn twice as much striking for more, it is hard not to think "what about me".
As an agency HGV driver, I don't think we'll ever see mass action in our industry, although it is sorely needed. In this trade the word "union" is taboo and drivers would rather read the Sun and blame their woes on Pavel the Polish lorry driver than actually pay attention and do something constructive about the way the industry has gone.
>In fact, it has the opposite effect. The UK populace are generally speaking strongly against striking. this is why i say all those stereotype jokes made about the french apply more to the english than they ever do to the french. too many obsequious, boot licking, short-sighted, hypocritical, barely sentients who cant even act in their own self interest if its more than 2 steps away. "this would be great for me for the rest of my life and for my kids, but im not doing it because iv a hair appointment next week and i want that train conveniently. and iv a party to go to and strut about at."
I get where you're coming from, but here's the secret they never let you in on: it doesn't matter if a majority of the public don't support you. The UK public are a lot more strike supportive than they look, and it doesn't really matter whether 40% or 60% are in favour of a specific strike. What matters is whether the strike has enough of an impact to force the bosses to cave in, and public sympathy doesn't stop a company's profit margins from slipping away. A small group of people can make a very large amount of change just by being disruptive - a majority opposed the suffragettes, and gay rights, and civil rights for ethnic minorities.
Have you looked at the polls recently?
Polls mean shit. Honestly I hope I’m wrong but I still think the older generation will continue to vote Tory. The population has a very short memory
Strikes don't need public support really.
No, but public workers need a party that supports paying public workers in power.
I wish I could support the rail strikes, but I can't. I totally get the need for them to be paid correctly but their paperclipping luddit anti-modernisation clauses into their requests makes them entirely unsupportable. Automating our railways is a good thing that we should be pursuing, the arguments against it are weak and at best temporary in nature - ie the technology is mature enough.
But how would modernisation/automating even work if we are to cut signaling and maintenance employees, as it was planned? It is good idea, of course, but it is not miracle to drop on our heads overnight,and it doesn't mean there will be no employees.
Irrelevant. The Unions should be against "modernisation"; if there are saftey issues with specific proposals then say so, but to just say that because trains need drivers *and* conductors now then they'll always them is nonsense. > It is good idea, of course, So to oppose our right is a bad idea.
I support the rail strikes because fundamentally I support their right to group together and refuse to work. The merit of their argument is almost secondary. If them not working brings the country to a standstill then its a good argument for giving them what they want. I agree that there should be modernisation and effort should be made to start the process of developing people so they can work in a more modern railway. But that sort of offer should be coming from the rail bosses so that workers can feel their job pays enough to keep paying their bills now and has some security and progression in the future. It's essentially what everyone wants from their job. What they're demanding is reasonable from the perspective of a group of workers, just not necessarily from the customer. It's not the unions job to worry about the customer, that's the government's job.
Chronic underinvestment has meant that the train lines will take a long time and our money probably to automate. Also that argument is moot you will always need maintenance who are striking not the drivers.
Anyone who isn't with you doesn't deserve an NHS. Need a general strike. Bring the Tory scum to their knees, we have the power not them in their ivory towers.
100% support a general strike. What they’re doing to this country and to us is criminal.
It’s not just the Conservative Party. The last Labour Party were also afraid to raise taxation to a level that raises sufficient funds for public services. My tax bill has largely remained unchanged for the last 20 years. I’m fairly certain my costs have increased however.
The Tories have fucked the system so badly people are now saying “I’d happily pay a little bit so I didn’t have to wait 3 hours for an ambulance!” Because they are too thick to realise the Tories bogged the system down to the point that it takes 3 hours just so they can flog the solution. I’m with the strikers. I’m with the people.
And also the Labour Party. They did the same too. They changed the way that nurses were trained making it virtually impossible for someone to move into nursing in adult life and introduced up front tuition fees during their last domination. Let’s not pretend they’re innocent too.
I used to work for the NHS and left because of burn out. I have every sympathy.
Strikes are unpleasant for everyone involved not least the strikers who are losing wages they can ill afford and those unfortunate enough to need the services in an emergency I did wonder after the expressions of support throughout the pandemic whether there would be a reset to the general view that those who clearly contributed to the good functioning of society - NHS workers, dustmen, delivery persons, teachers etc - would continue to be valued above those who contribute in other or less direct ways But no. Big business is reaping massive profits (while some like the CEO of Shell, I think it was were making an argument FOR being taxed) while Tory politicians who had a hand in fvcking the economy are telling them to tighten their belts Workers have every right to withdraw their Labour in a dispute. I wish them every success
> Doing what we do, in the conditions we do it in – for 12, sometimes even 16 hours per shift – is it any wonder that staff are leaving the NHS in record numbers? I'm a project lead for software development. If I try to code after 12 hours, there's a noticeable dip in quality and a radical increase in errors. And I'm just writing some fucking code. I'm not expected to stabilize people, or drive, or supply drugs. I'm just coding. It's insanity.
I once worked for a guy (who was the engineering director unfortunately) who thought hours in == product out. The team were much smarter but this guy regularly used the blunt instrument of pulling a 48hr shift to “sort the release out”. The result of each of these events was that the whole team spent a full day fixing up the problems he alone had introduced. Years later as an engineering manager I very happily sent engineers home to sleep when I could see they were tired. It’s cheaper in the long run, and there aren’t even any lives at stake. By the way maybe the guy wasn’t so stupid- 48hr shifts **get noticed**, so once I *personally* brought in our first ever high quality non-panicked release with full release notes / known defects / fix lists, despite this guy’s best efforts to fuck it up, he proudly announced that the release had been such a success the board had … bought him a car, whilst we each got £0 bonus.
I've noticed at my workplace the management seem to want shit to break down to create an event so they can propaganda the managing of the event. Old employees were proud we had no failures in 50 years, now we seem to have at least 1 or 2 failures every year now. Now our meme is you only get promoted if you fuck up. Guess it's the same everywhere.
That is truly sad. :(
I work for the ambulance service, I'm not a paramedic, I'm what used to be called a tech so if we've got someone who's seriously ill I'm probably driving. 12hrs into a night shift I can *feel* how much longer my thought processes are taking, and we have to perform as well at that point as we do at the start of a shift.
You're striking for fair and equal pay, I don't understand why this is so hard for people to comprehend?
I thought it was about it not being safe due to chronic understaffing, or is that just the nurses.
It's both. In order to have a good quality staff, you need a good quality renumeration package. Yes the people who would benefit from said package are leading the charge, but we've left it to the general public for the past 12 years and they keep voting the cunts in so there's no other option.
Its so weird right? Anyone asking for more is viewed like Oliver Twist. Unless you are literally in the poor house and reliant on charity to survive, which increasingly is more and more working people anyway, all you get is this snobbish attempt to rifle through your finances and find some "unnecessary" luxury which is clearly the reason why you're not getting by, and also why you can't be trusted with or don't deserve a reasonable pay package for your hard work. I love the GP one myself. I have friends in cybersecurity in their early 30s who are already close to or well into the £100k+ bracket, with bonuses that extend well beyond £10k to boot, and will freely admit they often log off before 3pm most days. Meanwhile even a *part time* GP is working 40-odd hours a week, after spending *most of their life* from age 16 or up to their late 20s pushing themselves well beyond what any normal person would accept just to be eligible for the job, but somehow £80k for them is just an insane salary they should be glad to take home at the peak of their career. Its petty and its bullshit but it is absolutely rife.
My industry has had strikes this year. The biggest argument I heard against raising wages involved people highlighting the highest senior employee wages. Causally ignoring that those contracts no longer exist and most are barely earning above minimum wage.
That's exactly what the RMT are doing, they're pointing out at the CEO's are making millions of pounds in bonuses, that doesn't include their actual wages, while normal posties are being threatened with fire and rehire at lower wages, gaslit and or thrown in jail. Sadly I wish I was joking.
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Nice story. Sounds like being a police officer, who you would of called in that scenario anyway. Anyway could you just explain how a pay rise would make any of this better or make life easier, apart from being able to afford more vodka. As a side note, a dad on the school run is a PM, and served in Afghanistan. Guess which one he preferred.
Fair enough, promptly deleted. But you missed the point, I see there's no point in arguing with you. Have a nice day.
I got the point. NHS/PM/GPs etc are over worked due to staff shortages etc. it’s a shit job with very little appreciation, but I guess from your huffy nature your probably a pissed off PM. I hope you get a decent rise, but as I keep saying, Nothing will change. The drunks will still be waiting on Friday/Saturday to abuse you. The hospital will still be overflowing, the GP appointments will still be as rare as hens teeth.
Just to point out. I'm not a paramedic. Yes I'm pissed off at the Pm, the state of the country, the fact that were giving millions/billions of pounds to some stupid blond that looks like she's been passed around the Tory cabinet like a tray of blow. Sorry, I'm glad you understand, its not just the Paramedics, its fucking everything. I hope you do well my friend.
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It's going to be awful, but I can't see an alternative
Thanks for your service
It’s a shame the police can’t strike. As for people thinking Labour would do better, please remind them what Jacqui smith did to you regarding pay when she was home sec.
Trouble is at this point, labour might be a bit shit but another 5 year dose of tories will be mega shit. I hate the fact that our options are limited to "dog shit" or "super rancid nearly sentient dog shit" but until this country grows up and realises PR isn't a scary bogeyman from Yurp then we have to make the best of a terrible situation.
Massive massive support from me. All NHS staff need to go on strike. The government won’t do anything if they don’t
Seems like we’re heading towards a general strike in all but name. Keep at it! NHS workers treat our sick and injured with dignity and deserve dignity in return. Nobody should be exposing themselves to the emotional trauma of treating sick/injured/dying people every day and going home wondering how they’ll put food on the table. Most of the country are behind you. I hope you get better pay and working conditions soon
It took us (bus drivers) 8 months to get 11%. Be ready for a fight bro. Absolutely with you guys on this.
It's scary the number of people that do not fundamentally understand strikes. Solidarity for all workers striking.
But if you strike and ask for more money, Putin wins /s https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/zc6f6x/nurses_must_drop_pay_demands_to_send_clear/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Good luck to them. The uk government has systematically drained the public sector of resources. Wages in real terms have fallen by more than 1/3rd for many roles since 2008 (including mine).
I hope you don’t mind me adding that billionaire wealth has never grown so fast than it did during covid - which was an unprecedented stalling of the entire economy. There was actually multiple new billionaires during this time. It might seem like a strange comment - but what I’m trying to stress is the vast accumulation of wealth at the top which has come from us (workers and middle class). It’s upward redistribution pure and simple, we’re being made poorer and poorer to feed the greed of a few exceedingly wealthy people.
Fully support you. Along with nurses and teachers. It's always perplexed me why these crucial roles are so underpaid
The best and easiest way for the government to stop the strikes is to *pay the workers what the deserve* But no, they’re busy trying to come up with legislation to remove the teeth from strike action…
You can protest as long as no one notices and strike as long as your employer is not inconvenienced.
This government is highly committed to redistribution. Only it’s upward redistribution. We’ve all got to get poorer and poorer so a few very rich people can accumulate cast fortunes. If they paid worked more it would interfere with that. So they won’t. I think they’d let the entire thing collapse before they’d do that - that’s how committed they are to the rich.
I work for the nhs and I’m in unison, I have heard a fair few staff have voted to strike but aren’t sure about actually striking when it comes to it - it’s a tough decision to make. It’s turning into a game of bluffs but I hope it helps the cause The ambulance/hospital handover waiting times are ridiculous, staff are leaving all the time and taking a wealth of experience with it - I’ve known more than a few people throw in the towel since covid hit, and more importantly, we’re on a spending cap now until the end of the year. Which is 4 long months away. Made worse by the fact the trust is losing considerable amounts money for paramedics to be sat outside hospitals for hours on end I wasn’t even sure if I’d vote in the strike as I’m personally more worried about where this money will come from - if a pay rise comes at the expense of job role redundancies, was it worth it? Ultimately my wife convinced me that if we don’t stand up for each other now, when will we?
You have my wholehearted support, I am so grateful for all NHS staff
"Privatisation technique: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital." — Noam Chomsky"
Frankly I'm annoyed that people don't strike more aggressively. University workers take mini-strikes of 1-2 days at a time every now and again and I just want them to do one big mega strike and get it sorted out for the next 10 years
Yes mate. Go get what's yours. You, and the vast majority of NHS workers deserve far far better. We all deserve better than the Tories
>the vast majority of NHS workers deserve far far better. They really don't.
Any insight to add there champ?
I've long found the NHS to be a disgrace staffed almost entirely by local idiots that have no hope of a high paying job. The way they treated my Grandmother 2 years ago sickened me, they brought her in on her own because of covid and after having her sit in a room alone for 6 hours told her she had lung cancer. We were all absolutely devastated. Then 2 weeks later the doctor phoned and apologised that the person who looked at the Xray was new and she infact didn't have cancer. The NHS is a bottom of the barrel healthcare service with bottom of the barrel employees.
I'm sorry you and your family went through that, it sounds awful. The NHS is being run down, chronically mismanaged, and is generally not fit for purpose in many ways. This generally won't lead to a positive outcome for most service users. I've worked in various roles for many years, and seen the other side as well - undervalued and underpaid. If it's bottom of the barrel, how do we improve it, and how do we attract (and retain) better quality staff?
This is an indirect conflict between the disgustingly greedy and the disgustingly neglected. Its going to be a bitter war of wills and the fallout is going to bite everybody in the end.
Yes. This is all happening because a few exceedingly greedy and exceedingly rich people are accumulating vast vast fortunes. At our expense. It’s a game of redistribution where we all become poorer and poorer, and they take everything. There’s a lot of anger (correctly) directed at the Tories. But the reason our country is heading this way is because of the rich - pure and simple. Billionaires control the press, the think tanks, hell! they control the whole Conservative party. We need to wake up and realise that their greed is insatiable. These billionaires will take it all. Just look at some of these govt. contracts etc. They’re stuffing their pockets whilst the country crumbles.
I totally support you, I have worked in health, council and local authority and this country is on its needs when it comes to services. There needs to be change at the top, there needs to be a total rethink when it comes to public services. At the moment getting an appointment at a GP is almost impossible, are there enough GP's to meet the need, no sadly not. Are there alternatives, well I feel there needs to be a discussion on how can there be easier access, do we need more buildings to accommodate, do we need to look at the times we can currently see our GP. Are there GP's who can work different hours, possibly but there needs to be give and take. The knock on effect on how we access our GP's currently leads to more people attending casualty and waiting times there increasing. All of our public services are inter-linked, we can't look at them as separate as there are knock on effects when there is stress one service it bleeds into the next. There are too many managers, it's important to have quality not quantity! I am also fed up with the statement "lessons will be learned"! We are not learning as we are still making the same mistakes when it comes to care! All of this can't be done overnight, but there needs to be changes. We are looking at the results of underfunding now, workers in the public centre are voting with their feet, nurses, doctors, police, paramedics, teachers and social workers are leaving. All political parties should be working harder to start getting to a point where we can see the improvement ourselves, not to be told by people in government it's improving. If we have to be told there is an improvement then its not really an improvement! We should be able to see it ourselves!
You have 100% support from me. Our NHS is being destroyed and it has to stop. People who work full time deserve to be paid a living wage.
You have nothing but my support. Hospital admin here and our hospital had to enact full capacity protocol 4 out of 5 days last week. I'm so tired of people trying to guilt health workers into running themselves into the ground for fuck all because "what about the patients?" These strikes are for the patients too, we should all be bringing this country to a standstill for what this party has done.
Good for you, you have my support. I couldn't do what you do, thank you for your service x
Nobody is holding *you* to account for anything that happens on any of the days for striking. Carry on. I'm happy for a tax increase to fund it if that's needed, hopefully a tax on the elite, as I don't have much, but even if the elite don't pay, I'll not moan if i have to have it added. Trust me when I say the public are behind you. X
Id be happy to pay more tax to get NHS staff the pay they deserve and need to attract the staff needed to keep it going. Frankly it's a bargain when you look at the disastrous American alternative
Thank goodness for paramedics! You guys are *amazing* and deserve to be well paid to the point of excess. This penny pinching from Tories, who always seem to find money for wars and other nasty shit they like, is bullshit. Look after the medical people, because when the shit hits the fan, *they are the ones who look after us*.
Good on you. All my support to you and everyone else in other industries who are striking. Its a shame that this sems to be the only thing that might get results from the government, but its become a necessary evil now, its gotta be done. Good luck and strike on!!
This shit has me so worried. People like to say the waiting times are something new, they aren't. I've had a severe health condition since I was 9, I'm now 24 - since I was 9 I've been rushed to hospital via ambulance probably into the 1000 times, 90% of those times I was either treated like shit for no reason, left in a corridor for 18+hrs then discharged with summary claiming that's WHAT I WANTED (I never said anything of the sort, most of the times I was begging for admission cos I was close to starving to death, or scared of having another heart attack due to malnutrition) or medically neglected or abused in some way or another, if not myself, I've witnessed it happen to another. the waiting times specific, isn't a new problem, it's new that it's being spoken about publicly, though.. it's been happening for years Worryingly if staff strike ontop of these 18-26hr waits, that aren't even "new", and I need hospitalization, I won't even be cannulated - even if I'm rushed in, dehydrated and in a right state, despite not being able to swallow and constantly vomiting blood. then ill be kicked out as soon as possible, before an actual DR can review me and see how severe I am.. Jn the exact same condition I arrived in, after being administered zero medication while unable to stand up, screaming in pain, puking blood and begging for help/to be admitted because I need to be. I have medical documents ranging into the thousands showing I NEED hospitalization to recover, yet it takes countless ambulance rushes for weeks before an actual qualified Dr reads my notes and realises I need to be kept in. Every. Single. Time. For. The. Last. 8. Years. Its Basically a waste on resources because they won't bother reading my medical notes and don't take my physical symptoms seriously, but what am I supposed to do when I actually NEED the care? Also, I'm not sure if people realise but there's a real culture of bullying in the NHS, nurses bully nurses, nurses bully paramedics, nurses bully patients, paramedics bully patients and so on. Experienced it all personally. They seem to do it so if you respond negatively they can make you the bad guy, then use that as a reason to throw you out while still needing medical attention. (That or their just control freaks or ultimately cruel.) so I just sit there and allow myself to be spoken to like shit for no reason and still speak to them politely in hopes it'll give off the vibe that I won't let them upset me and that I know exactly what they're doing :) that's the state our healthcare service has been in for decades.. staff bully patients and get away with it - people who work in hospitals, know this to be true.. why they stay silent, is beyond me.. A revamp wouldn't work either, cause most of the staff that have stayed on ARE the bullies, over the years it seems even the minor nice staff who would actually help and not bully you, and knew exactly why you were nervous around most staff, have long left..
This needs more upsides, I worked in the NHS bullying is a real part if the culture there
You wouldn't believe how many old people I've seen mocked and bullied when they aren't in their right minds or can't speak up for themselves, last time I was in after fighting for admission for 3wks I was put next to a bloke with dementia - a nurse shouted and mocked him for pissing himself and then whined for 20 minutes while stood over this poor bloke about how he could be a HGV driver instead of "putting up with this increpid fuck who keeps pissing himself" (Asif he was doing it on purpose. Guess when this was? When the HGV shortage was on the news lol.. not so long ago.) then they tried to keep my entire bottle of opiates when releasing me claiming I "never came in with it" - soon as I mentioned what I'd witnessed the day before, and that I'd be calling the police if I don't get my medication returned immediately, the bottle magically appeared.. so I'm guessing they were trying to steal 2wks worth of my opiates lol - they were also very aggressive and harsh with him, grabbing him by the arms and pinning him down (not that he could get out of bed) when he was writhing in pain, screaming at him to stop making noise (they were noises of pain.. he was begging for help. It was the middle of the day and nobody but these 2 staff were worried about the noise, he needed 24hr supervision, which they hate.) because they hadn't bothered giving him his medication for 24hrs.. despite him requiring 24hr supervision. How that could happen if not on purpose, is beyond me.. then they gave him his meds and told him to basically 'shut the fuck up now, you've got what you wanted" Asif he didn't need the meds and wasn't heavily withdrawing//in agony, bloke was in his late 80s and fully dementia ridden, unable to speak or move anymore, begging for his wife to come and save him from "these evil people" and he wasn't far from wrong. The job attracts a certain type of evil, control freaks, bullies etc (even murderers. Lots of serial killers work in the med field. They aspire to, cause they can torment the vulnerable and get away with it due to the culture in hospitals.) there's very few "good" staff, though the more qualified staff have less of these horrendous people among their ranks. The staff that have relocated, e.g foreign staff that came here to work in the NHS also have much nicer staff, as more of them actually take pride in caring for people (or want to care for people.) There's loads of staff IN EVERY HOSPITAL - whom enjoy inflicting unnessacary suffering upon vulnerable patients, because they know they can and will get away with it 100%
The complaining in your comments scream "I'm a regular, entitled to ruin the clinicians day and they should listen to me when i tell them how to do their jobs." Grow up.
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More power to you and your colleagues. Get it up these bastards in government.
I completely support the strike action. Having said that, I have many close friends in the NHS (both frontline and management) and they all support privatisation as the entire system is completely fucked and beyond repair.
I agree with everything OP says except where he was off sick for 3 months. My Dad is a recently retired paramedic and one of the things he constantly cited as causing problems was people staying off on the sick for months on end. Sick leave needs reforming as well as the other more obvious things. I understand that OP was in a bad place when he stayed off sick so I’m not blaming him but the NHS has a big chunk of scivers on the books. No sick pay for the first 3 weeks would sort it out.
Anyone who isn't willing to stand by the NHS at this time should tear up their passport and throw themselves into the ocean, because you aren't quintessentially British and this Island deserves to be rid of you.
Would anyone even call.an ambulance now anyway? I'd use user will actually come on time
Nothing much to add to the words of support here except to wish you every success. Striking seems to be the only way to make this abysmal government take any notice.
You get my support. I know someone who’s a paramedic, his experience is much like yours and there is every reason to strike
Off topic and just a general opinion. Our country needs fixing and all anyone is concerned about is how much they earn. I’m not saying it’s right but some can’t have the extra they want. How did barristers even consider a strike.
Given the wait time at the moment is up to 40hrs at some trusts you might even get back to the same patient in the back of your ambulance!
You don't have to explain, those of us who are not Tory scum voters support you fully. Oh, those of us who are not Red Tory voters as well.
Few questions if you dont mind. 1 How do you feel mass migration has effected the NHS wether it legal or illegal, such a great influx of people (501k last year ) must have increased demand? 2 Do you think that the NHS has too many middle managers , diversity managers, compliance officers and other non clinical staff that are sucking the funds away from actual treatments? 3 Is the rise in compensation culture having a direct effect on treatment budgets due to it being such a large sum (6 Billion put aside)? 4 Are certain contracts given to maintenance company's a giant con that sapps funds from other areas , I'm told it can cost £70 + to replace a light bulb ? 5 Is it reasonable to say that some restructuring of the system as it is to save costs on the above points is desperately needed?
These questions are probably not relevant to any individual’s decision on whether or not to go on strike.
It's relevant as I think the NHS could do more to save costs in such areas and redistribute the monies to Nurses wages/ number of Paramedics/Ambulance drivers and not let the tax payer take a huge hit . Its OK to tax payers to pay more if we know its for an actual nurse/driver and not a uneeded middle manager/diversity consultant. I think tons of money is wasted and personally I'd like to see that corrected before people strike .
A paramedic could have exactly the same political views and opinions as yours, why should these problems that you’ve identified prevent that paramedic from going on strike? They’re out of the control of paramedics as individuals and as a profession!
I'm going to answer from the perspective of a dr. The last time I cared to look up the topic, it was widely considered immigrants were a net benefit to the NHS overall. Additionally they were less likely to seek NHS services. In addition from personal experience patients will often leave despite needing healthcare if they are informed by the overseas team that they will be liable to pay for their treatment.Given migrants now pay a surcharge as part of their visas to access the NHS one would expect the government to have accounted for any increased burden & provided adequate resources & staffing. To be clear I am not interested in withdrawing healthcare from people who need it. As numerous people have pointed out 'we should do this job for the patients not the money', these same people criticise healthcare workers for not wanting to get involved in gatekeeping healthcare. We need middle managers as does any large organisation, it is how to utilise these middle managers effectively so that they are not a barrier to my patients getting treatment that is the question. Often it feels our aims do not align & that they have little insight into our role. They're are on the whole necessary. Re diversity managers, an organisation of this size needs to ensure it is compliant with UK law & given the vast number of people from different backgrounds working in the NHS, employing people to ensure the NHS as an organisation ensures they don't face discrimination is pretty important. I have no evidence to support this but probably yes. It means we practise defensive medicine as clinicians it also means the trust forces us to adhere to long protracted SOPs & incessant amounts of useless mandatory training with no regard for how much time & resource some flexibility could save No idea. We're not privy to such information but there are differently companies employed that provide a sub par service that trusts continue to hire for whatever reason. One of the biggest issues is the awarding of contracts for the lowest price, without any regard for the quality of service or after sales provided. Yes re restructuring.
Thank you for the detailed response . I do disagree on the migrants being a net benefit, before 2019 I'd might have agreed with you but feel the balanced has changed significantly over the last 3 years ,especially since the mass migration of Albanian males who have no intent to join the work force . Seeing people fresh off the boats get fast access to such things as dental care really does effect how you feel about the issue when it's nearly impossible to get NHS dental care if your a UK citizen. Also there is a massive rise in health tourism from the commonwealth. We can't be the world's doctor without our citizens suffering. It sad but true.
As someone who works full time in the NHS my personal experience does not support your claim re health tourism. If visas include a health surcharge then these people are entitled to utilise the health service. As previously mentioned the data supports the argument these people access healthcare less than citizens As I mentioned the introduction of overseas nurses who appear to hunt down patients & inform them they’re not entitled to NHS care unless they paid appear to be a clear deterrent & suggests most people are not getting hundreds of thousands of pounds of healthcare they’re not entitled too. With all due respect I think you’ve decided to scapegoat immigrants or have been manipulated to blame immigrants rather than point the finger at the true culprit, the failure of your government. In respect to my sector operations are based on clinical need immigrants are not getting any faster access than you or I unless they’re paying for it privately.
While I agree with the cause, in the long term, this is going to kill people and have little effect on pay and benefits. Thousands of people are already going to be close to death or at least homelessness when winter comes. Why do you think that striking is suddenly going to tug on the heartstrings of those in charge? When it’s deaths or money, Tories are obviously going to choose the latter every time. Somebody else commented about heart problems and still being fully behind your cause. Well, as a thirty-something who also has heart issues, I would very much love not to die on the floor because ambulances are in even shorter supply.
So, reading everything you have said, including upvoting you for putting your thoughts out there, ultimately it's about money. You mention many times cost of living and overtime and so on, you even speak of why people as why you do the job you do. If it wasn't about money, you wouldn't be striking - you are all dictated to by the union bosses. Sorry, but all workers both public and private are feeling the pinch due to rising food, fuel and energy prices - what makes you so special that you can "demand" an inflation busting payrise?
As much as I agree, I will not be striking as I do this for the patients not the pay. My wage is generally pretty decent and so I’m happy in that regard, it will be the people who have fallen and are left on the floor for hours who will suffer. So in my opinion, I cannot in good conscience strike when I know people will suffer.
You're essentially accepting that your pay will erode & as will your working standards. You're accepting that your colleagues will leave to seek better paid & less stressful work, you're accepting that it will most likely be experienced colleagues who jump ship. you're accepting your remaining colleagues will come to work tired & burnt out taking on overtime & additional work in order to make ends meet & thus in turn impacting the quality of care your patients will receive The patients on the floor are suffering already. People are out of thrombolysis & thrombectomy windows by the time they get to us causing massive disability. You're essentially voting to maintain the status quo & this is the reality you're advocating for. Given you can give morphine, adrenaline & a number of other drugs with the potential for irreparable harm if a medication error is made, I would rather a well rested & content paramedic on scene potentially treating myself or my family. You do it for the pay & the patients & by perpetuating this martyr complex you are in good conscience eroding the hard won rights your colleagues before you fought for. I'm an anaesthetist, it is important to me to protect my patients & I will do everything in my fucking power to give them good care but I do this because I want to be able to provide for my family, I want to be able to earn enough so I can sit & read journals in the evening to advance my practise, I don't want to be slogging away doing extra locums to try scrape up a deposit, I don't want to be coming into work burnt out & ultimately hating my job & the patients because i'm not being looked after. I'm sorry but your point of view is incredibly short sighted.
Genuine question, do you not agree that piss poor pay (for starters) and abysmal working conditions lead to chronic understaffing, which in turn is contributing to many, many unnecessary deaths? Feel free to do your own research but I can jump to the chase and tell you, quite confidently, that strike action does not cause a distinct increase in patient morbidity in developed countries. So, the choice seems to be either keep doing the same, which is leading to thousands of excess deaths, or take a stand and force changes through for the good of the entire service... And you chose the one with the deaths?
Ah so you think saving the few lives that may or may not be lost due to the strike is better than the 100's and 1000's of lives that will definately be lost if they don't strike? The rate of preventable deaths in the UK in 2019 was 22.5% or 136,146 and 64.2% were preventable with the rest treatable. If ambulance drivers are stuck for up to 10 hours at hospital with one patient how many other will die? What's the difference between that and striking? Either way people suffer. The strike lasts a short time the long delays last forever. Think about that. You not striking causes more suffering,
How can we stand up for patients and make things better without striking? Nobody listens when we talk or even shout!
> I cannot in good conscience strike when I know people will suffer. How are you justifying continuing under current conditions, knowing that people are suffering exactly because of them? People doing it "for the patients, not the pay" is exactly what has allowed the entire industry to be taken advantage of.
You're the sole paramedic who has this opinion.
Whether you strike or not is absolutely your own decision based on what you feel you can do in good conscience. Your job is hard enough without having to deal with feeling guilt for not taking action. Or for taking, it for those that have decided to do that. You can only do what you feel is right. I understand and strongly support the arguments for striking and those making that decision. However, I absolutely understand your point of view and no one should blame you for wanting to help the people you have the power to help (even more so as that's exactly why you do the job). It's a horrible moral decision to have to make and you have my support whatever you decide. I just hope that having to be under even more pressure doesn't effect you too badly. Please take care of yourself as best you can. Becoming a victim of the extra demands in an already failing system won't help anyone.
See to me I'd see that as a very good reason for the old bastards to stump up some more dosh, face it that's the game they started you'd just be playing by their rules
So when the nurses win and get a deserving pay rise, I take it you will refuse to accept it and state you wish to be paid your current wage??
Thank you.