PeteSpencer wrote:Watching it will pull the scales from your eyes and give the lie to the naysayers who criticised the Junior doctors' strikes of last year.
I suggest that none of what was seen had anything to do with the doctors' strikes? A "work to rule" would have been much more effective than strikes. Nothing in that programme suggested money was an issue? It also didn't suggest that contracted hours were the issue - it was the work beyond contracted hours and the work load during them that were the issues.
It showed what should be happening (doctors working contracted hours, doctors having enough time with their patients, building up of a relationship with a long term patient allowing trust and root cause of the issue to be addressed) when the system was working properly.
It showed that the system only just worked when stretched (after some people didn't turn up to work and a consultant scheduling mistake meant they were understaffed) with dedicated people picking up as best they could, and working beyond their contracted hours.
It showed that the high levels of staff dropout were unsustainable, as the people weren't being replaced by new Junior doctors, requiring employment of foreign doctors (obvious answer is that we should be training more doctors - more doctors means less work for each one means less dropout and those that drop out would be covered by others - who is it that decides how many doctors are to be trained?). It suggested the issue wasn't money but finding enough doctors to fill the spaces.