Friday 9th January 2015

[Willow904]

Tory response to NHS crisis? Cut unsocial hours payments to NHS staff. Yep that'll really help fill those vacancies in A&E for the night shift.


NHS staff ‘unsocial hours’ payments under threat
Department of Health proposes radical cost-cutting changes to shift-patterns of staff in England

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... th-england" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's an awful lot of words to say "we're going to save money by cutting pay and conditions". Because of course there isn't any problem that can't be solved by paying people less, to do more, at increasingly unsocial times (sarcasm alert). I can't remember who it was now, but some medical professional or other said the way to solve the recruitment crisis in A&E was more annual leave to allow personnel who are expected to work all sorts of unsocial hours (and sometimes back to back shifts when it snows) to actually have a life and see their families....nice to see the DofH has taken on board this advice....and decided to do the exact opposite. It's almost as if they want to stuff up the NHS, isn't it?

Excellent as usual, Willow. I posted something below the line on Orr's article. Cameron doesn't understand work. Things just get done in Dave's world. Servants take care of the essential work & Dave has unfortunately wasted five years of life for too many. It's the 21st century. The UK is one of the finest nations in the world - the NHS & the accomplishments made improving the lives of people who'd have starved or fell into a ditch with pneumonia dead before twenty years old otherwise. Dave is oblivious of his unique, advantaged, position attained without ability or talent. Dave's a dissipated throwback. This country has had some fine Edwards in its history.

edited to fix a sentence. I hope it's readable now.

I actually had a conversation quite recently about how employers used to assume that their employees would need to eat. It was just taken as read and so workplaces had canteens and lunchbreaks to use them. But works canteens are fast disappearing and it ties in with the explosion in unsocial shifts and the expectation that people should be available for work 24/7 because it suits employers and so what if someone has to work until 11pm one day and then get up to start work at 10am the next, with barely time to eat and sleep in between? So what if they start at 11am and don't get a lunch break until 5pm? The numbers have been crunched in a computer and it's come up legit according to our inadequate employment laws (that do at least stipulate min hours between shifts) but it so often doesn't make any sense. At least not to our bodies, that like to sleep at night and eat at the same time every day. The reason why night shifts used to be so very well rewarded was in acknowledgment of the fact that regular night shifts can take years off your life (literally). The erosion of the pact between employer and employee that adequately compensated what the employee gave up by working unsociable hours has been broken and I fear it may never be fixed. It certainly won't if the government enters a race to the bottom with the private sector. As the competition from the BBC prevents Sky from getting away with being really rubbish, the comparatively decent pay and conditions in the public sector used to stop pay and conditions in the private sector from becoming even worse than they already are, but not for much longer, I fear. Not unless people start unionizing again and demand to be allowed to work to live, rather than live to work.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Ken
http://labourlist.org/2015/01/the-mansi ... -politics/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

' We were able to make the case for Crossrail and other big investments in London on a progressive basis that included London paying its fair share. London contributes to Britain through its economic dynamism, including to the tax take in the economy, which can then be redistributed within London and to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the other regions of England. In fact we argued for investment in London like Crossrail to make sure London continues to pay its way in the long-term. To sustain its dynamism we need the modern infrastructure to plan for the future. At no point did we argue that London should not pay its way, nor should we. It is not anti-London for London to contribute to Britain. It is fair.'

Perhaps he could also have added:

David Lammy, Tessa Jowell, Dianne Abbot - fuck off and join the Tories you are an embarrassment to the Labour Party.

It's good he didn't. It wouldn't have been appropriate given the topic was about Labour's Mansion Tax proposal & how much London would benefit from this redistributive tax measure. Thanks for the link. I like Ken Livingstone, good article.

Well given Jowell, Abbot and Lammy have attacked Miliband over the mansion tax I rather think that was the point of Ken's article. He just left the punch line unsaid.

[citizenJA]

Perhaps he could also have added:

David Lammy, Tessa Jowell, Dianne Abbot - fuck off and join the Tories you are an embarrassment to the Labour Party.

It's good he didn't. It wouldn't have been appropriate given the topic was about Labour's Mansion Tax proposal & how much London would benefit from this redistributive tax measure. Thanks for the link. I like Ken Livingstone, good article.

Well given Jowell, Abbot and Lammy have attacked Miliband over the mansion tax I rather think that was the point of Ken's article. He just left the punch line unsaid.

I don't know where it would've fit in the article, calling out those MPs. The article stood up on its own - it was positive, factual, it made sense.

[citizenJA]

Good-night my friends. Excellent posts here today especially. Sleep well. I love you.
JA