7^th January 2013

So the Government is just over half way through its first term as a modern coalition.  In 2010 the people decided that they had had enough of the extremes of government swinging from the right to the left and back again.  Each time either Labour Party or the Conservatives got into power they blamed the other party for the mess and spent the next parliament trying to undo what the previous one had done.  But now we have a real chance of a Parliament that will not have swung so far to the right that at the next election people will not have to vote Labour back in to redress the balance.  In the Coalition there are some good things that have happened, the deficit down by 25%, exports up to growing global markets, the triple lock for pensions and income tax being cut so now 2 million of lowest paid not paying any tax.  There are social and public reforms that will be in place for years to come and should stand the test of time.  However, there are others that one has to question why the politicians took that route.

The NHS is an example of that.  Over the past 30 years politicians have changed some major aspect of the NHS every year bar one, in that year they changed two aspects.  The government says there are 6,500 less managers but the reality is that many held both a clinical and managerial role and have been given new titles without the word manager in them or have been made redundant.  The number of senior managers has not fallen and many have seen their pay rising whilst clinical staff have faced pay freezes and a rise in their pay deductions.  Continually we hear in the media of the bad nursing care but no-one talks about how there are less nurses in the NHS than in 2010 or that bed occupancy has risen, both of which increase workloads on the clinical nurses left.  No-one reports the positive care that 95+% of patients receive from nurses.  It does not sell media space or airtime.  However, if some of the senior managers were got rid of and replaced by clinical nurses then we may well see even more improvements in patient care and this would lead to less opportunity for the media to attack nurses.  During my career I continually pointed that managers needs nurses to do their job but nurses do not need managers to do their job.  Today we hear how in Staffordshire the senior managers failed to monitor what was going on the wards and the results were fatal.  In the days of Matron’s round such situations would not have arisen.

I remember a Chief Executive once saying to me I regularly go around my wards and departments and all my staff know me.  Then one day when he was passing through a ward one of my union members asked me who that was.  I said it was the Chief Executive; “oh” came the reply “I have never seen him before”.  When matron patrolled the wards no nurse would ever have not know who she was.  In hospitals suits are worn by the money people and politicians all clinical staff are designated by their professional uniform from porter to consultant.  The same applies in the police, military, fire brigade even in private companies, take for example Stobarts.

The Secretary of State for Health says “It is tough and often thankless being an NHS manager …” but he misses the point that they are paid in excess of £50,000 a year.  Nurses at the bedside earn half that and are doing and the equally tough and now often thankless task of trying to hold the NHS together.  If the Secretary of State really wants to make a difference he would not have voted for the Health & Social Care Bill last year and would be looking to reduce the wages of senior managers so the money could be used to employ more clinical staff at the bedside.

The Health & Social Care Act has allowed private companies to come in a cream off NHS money for their already trough like boardrooms.  I cannot see how if you are pumping £100billion into the NHS by allowing private companies to get involved it will lead to more money for patient care.  The figures are very simple.  £100 billion of tax payers money goes to NHS.  NHS then provides private company with access to £100 billion.  Private company need profits; around 20%; to feed share holders  so now £100 billion is £80 billion.  The Tories also want a £20billion budget cut in the NHS.  So now the figures read £100bn minus £20bin minus a further £20bn equals £60bn.  So in reality by allowing the private sector in and using the NHS to help offset the bankers greed we have reduced the NHS budget to £60billion and further feathered the nest of the Tory Boardrooms.  Then Ministers say it is the fault of the nurses that the NHS is failing.  But hang on whilst nurses currently make up 70% of the work force the total nurse bill for the NHS is only £7.9bn; or 7.9% of the current NHS budget; so where is the rest going?

The 105 private firms that have gained “any qualified provider” status are not doing this for altruistic reasons and they will be looking to cut corners or make further profits wherever they can.  The likes of Specsavers may slowly increase the price of their products not covered by the NHS but having had an NHS examination you have to purchase.  We already are hearing of problems with Virgin Care GP surgeries where patients cannot get access to a doctor or a nurse or where serves are continually provided by locums.  How is the latter a provision of continuity of care?

I like the idea of coalition government because it stops the extreme swing of the political pendulum but it does require that both parties talk and listen to each other and that the zealots in either party are reigned in by the leaders when they push their crazy extremist ideas.

The National Health Service; providing healthcare to all British citizens free at the point of delivery; is the envy of every country in the world.  Without the NHS the United Kingdom cannot remain fit and healthy ready to work to put the Great back into Great Britain.

6^th January 2013

Sunday’s newspapers headline with the effect Tory cuts in benefits will have on soldiers, nurses and teachers.  Well no real surprise there, it has long been known that the Conservative Party supports business and sees those in the public sectors who protect business, be that directly (soldiers/police), or indirectly through good health (nurses/midwives) or by educating potential and future workforces (teachers) as being easy targets when they need to make cuts.  While boardrooms have been giving themselves pay rises, senior managers in the NHS have done likewise and even the MPs put in for a £30,000 plus pay rise, the working man and woman has been punished.  Today I heard some-one from the private sector suggest that nurses and the like should not suffer under the benefit curbs but that those who are reluctant to work should be just given vouchers for the basics, bread, milk, some gas or electric but not able to spend these on cigarettes, alcohol or in the bookie.  Here here.  This is not the first time I have heard this.  One does have to wonder if such a move would be the best way forward if Britain is to become Great again.  One nurse I was talking to said that if a criminal; on benefits; broke into her house the criminal probably would take pity on her and rather than steal the little she has would give her some money, because she does not have 42” plasma screen TV, Xbox, iphone or any of the other modern gadgets many on benefits appear to have.  Yet she works 40 hours a week looking after frail and vulnerable people for a take home of less than £500 a week.

It is all well and good Tories saying that those on benefits must feel the pain but most nurses, teachers, police officers and the like have been feeling the pain for some years now.  No pay rise for three years and an increase in the deductions from their wages along with a rise in the cost of living has resulted in all staff at the public sector “coalface” suffering a pay cut.  For those who are forced to rely on tax credits and child benefit to maintain any semblance of a decent life after a hard day’s work to have this cut by a government of millionaires and in some case career politicians who do not know what a hard day’s graft is appalling.

It is right that those who do not work should feel the financial pain, arguably they should have felt it last year when they got 5% rise and working people in both public and private sector got nothing or very little.  Any attacks on benefits should be targeted at those who are not working.  But the politicians tend to wield a Long Sword rather than a Rapier to deal with the problems caused by the financial orks.  Brandishing heavy blunder weapons may destroy much of the area it covers but it does not get to the heart of the problem.  If the Government wants to sort out the financial mess then it needs to use a scalpel so as to get to the heart without breaking the ribs.  Then it can perform heart surgery and the body will recover.

What the Government appears to be ignoring is that the financial orks are only a subspecies of the wider Capitalist Roaming Oligopoly Omnivorous Reptilian Sect.  The Crooks; lets call them Greedskins; are a savage, warlike, financially greedy race of androids who are spreading all across the world.  They share many features with other capitalists but will destroy them to achieve their omnipotence.  They are seen by their enemies (pretty much everyone else in the world) as savage, warlike and greedy, but they are the most successful species in the world, outnumbering possibly every other intelligent race, even humans.  However, this massive population of Crooks is split into hundreds of tiny empires, often warring between themselves to gain financial control.  It has been speculated that were the Crooks ever to unite as a single financial entity, they would undoubtedly crush any government that would dare to stand against such a tsunami of greed muscle.  Luckily, the Crooks enjoy killing each other financially every bit as much as they savour stealing the pecuniary blood of the world’s hardworking peoples.

Whilst it may be time that the Greedskins are brought to heel making the hardworking people of the world suffering the process is wrong.  There are plenty of people who contributed to the situation we are in who have to date got off scott free.  If a nurse makes a life threatening error he/she can expect to be in front of their regulator.  Yet for the many in the financial world who cause the financial meltdown they have got off with no punishment and simply passed the buck down the line to an expendable junior and walked away with massive payouts and pensions.  It just goes to show how the morale compass of many of the bank Boardrooms has been broken or lost.  Whilst the Mayan prediction for the 21^st of December 2012 did not come about, it may be that we all misread the runes.  Perhaps it was not the end of the world but we should read their prediction as the end of the world for the Greedskins and the beginning of a new world era for people with a soul and a working morale compass.

Cutting the small amount of extra money paid to soldiers, teachers and nurses to try and stave off a crisis caused by people who earn more in a year than most nurses, teachers and soldiers will earning in their life time is not only wrong but morally unjustifiable, even for millionaire politicians.