Doctors' strikes and the NHS
Feb. 11th, 2016 07:59 pmWhile I've read plenty on healthcare systems from the point of view of how they're paid for, I am rather ignorant of what happens inside them. Here in Britain there has just been a junior doctors' strike principally concerning pay and hours. The term
One thing that concerns me is doctors even being permitted to work more than, say, forty-eight hours in any week, let alone encouraged to. I appreciate that their typical working day involves a range of activities, it isn't just non-stop patient treatment, but it is still both physically and intellectually demanding and they should be alert and clear-headed when making decisions that can significantly affect others' lives. Goodness knows![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mst3kmoxie and I have corrected a few slips by doctors but only because we were paying attention and remembered things well. It still seems to be the norm to have doctors work rather longer even though the significant impact of insufficient sleep on one's attention and judgment is well-documented. In considering the government's aim for better 24/7 coverage I suspect that another problem could be variation in shifts: it's difficult to work a few nights after some days of day-working.
Of course one may retort with the valid point that there are only so many doctors available to go around. That raises a couple of other issues:
One is of the required qualifications for performing various procedures. For instance, I don't know if we have some kind of nurse practitioner over here or, alternatively, if psychiatrists have education in everything from diagnosing skin diseases to the anatomy of the foot, but I do wonder if doctors are doing a lot of work for which they are overeducated, whether because that's what the rules require or because medical education simply isn't structured to deliver a more optimal selection of skills.
The other is the NHS' funding and where it goes. Does it simply not get anywhere near enough money or is much of it wasted? To what extent is it managed by people who don't really know what happens on the ground and who fail to actually deliver what's needed to effectively facilitate treatment, so they should be replaced or dispensed with?
I don't know the answers but I figured that laying out some thoughts would help get them out of my head. This journal is good for that purpose.
Update:gerald_duck's mention of public-private partnerships reminds me to wonder about the effects of the increasing use of the private sector in providing NHS healthcare.
junior doctoris perhaps misleading: it includes many well-qualified personnel and such a general strike is a unusual occurrence. While I know few people with recent inside knowledge of the NHS I can't help but speculate about what is wrong and how things should be.
One thing that concerns me is doctors even being permitted to work more than, say, forty-eight hours in any week, let alone encouraged to. I appreciate that their typical working day involves a range of activities, it isn't just non-stop patient treatment, but it is still both physically and intellectually demanding and they should be alert and clear-headed when making decisions that can significantly affect others' lives. Goodness knows
mst3kmoxie and I have corrected a few slips by doctors but only because we were paying attention and remembered things well. It still seems to be the norm to have doctors work rather longer even though the significant impact of insufficient sleep on one's attention and judgment is well-documented. In considering the government's aim for better 24/7 coverage I suspect that another problem could be variation in shifts: it's difficult to work a few nights after some days of day-working.Of course one may retort with the valid point that there are only so many doctors available to go around. That raises a couple of other issues:
One is of the required qualifications for performing various procedures. For instance, I don't know if we have some kind of nurse practitioner over here or, alternatively, if psychiatrists have education in everything from diagnosing skin diseases to the anatomy of the foot, but I do wonder if doctors are doing a lot of work for which they are overeducated, whether because that's what the rules require or because medical education simply isn't structured to deliver a more optimal selection of skills.
The other is the NHS' funding and where it goes. Does it simply not get anywhere near enough money or is much of it wasted? To what extent is it managed by people who don't really know what happens on the ground and who fail to actually deliver what's needed to effectively facilitate treatment, so they should be replaced or dispensed with?
I don't know the answers but I figured that laying out some thoughts would help get them out of my head. This journal is good for that purpose.
Update:
gerald_duck's mention of public-private partnerships reminds me to wonder about the effects of the increasing use of the private sector in providing NHS healthcare.
