Atmosphere

The sky… grey, hungover.

You’d never think this is July.

It’s cold. The Petunia and Marigolds are quivering in their boxes. A solitary bee, darting in and out… grazing, hunting for pollen.

I look up from the screen and sure enough, rain is sifting from the south.

The news is as bleak as the morning. All the talk is of the strike.

The system, effectively shut down. The first such strike since goodness knows when. Better pay and conditions. Never before have the two critical professions joined forces.

No… not the doctors…

… the actors union and the Writers’ Guild of America. The last time the Screen Actors’ Guild was on strike was in the 60’s, led by Ronnie Regan.

The junior doctor’s? Dropped out of the news… all the fizz of a wet Guy Fawkes’.

Sunak has honoured the pay-review-bodies’ machinations in full.

He says there’ll be no more talks. The Doctors will get 6%, plus a consolidated lump sum in their banks and probably pause for a think.

BMA’s strike mandate runs out next month. They must re-ballot for more more strikes. I think it is highly likely members’ll pull the plug.

Every day doctors strike they lose pay. No strike pay from the wealthy BMA… they want to stay wealthy.

Their defiant leaders will return to the anonymity of scrubs.

The GMC, who pretend they protect patients… don’t. They report to the Privy Council… an obscure group of senior MPs.

I’m hearing the Health Select Committee might be planning a session with the GMC… to explain how their strike guidance;

‘[doctors must consider]… how the proposed actions will impact continuity of care for existing patients…’

… allows doctors to go on strike…

… when close on a million innocent punters, with a clinical priority, because of the strikes, have been bounced-off waiting lists… into some sort of administrative no-man’s-land, with undiagnosed cancers, longterm conditions, operations and all the rest that are the day-to-day of ‘continuity doctoring’.

Continuity of care? I’m surprised the GMC can spell it. For the luckless patient, the GMC is as useful as the china dog on yer granny’s sideboard.

How will we pay for the increases? We’ll know in the Autumn statement and an announcement from the DH+ about productivity and savings and blah… blah. It looks like it’ll cost NHSE £1bn. I wonder what they’ll stop doing to pay the doctors?

The Confed’s Chief Moros says;

‘… the government must reconsider its decision on funding this pay deal for the NHS. If not, it must be honest about the serious repercussions that this will have on what the NHS will be able to deliver, including… the PM’s pledge to reduce waiting lists…’

NHS Providers said much the same.

No one will take a blind bit of notice. Despite the Confed promising members;

‘… the opportunity to influence and shape the future direction of the NHS.. [and]… national policy-making…’

Fat chance.

Joining the Confed and Providers cost one Trust the best part of £53,000 for a year. Join the ProFed or employ a couple of nurses… Mmmmm.

If these organisations were actors they’d be in Panto. The Ugly sisters crying; ‘Baron Hard-up is a wicked man… something must be done’.

What ‘something’?

NHS industrial relations have been neglected. Deliberately by HMG who have taken advantage of staff-side unions and trade organisations who have been asleep at the wheel for ten years.

Pay-value eroded.

The NHS Staff Council is only responsible for Agenda for Change staff and appears to be in hibernation for most of the year.

DH+ have the responsibility for pay-n-rations and NHSE the operational consequences. The void in the middle is a problem.

Five things to fill it:

1. The workforce-plan commitment, to a biennial review, is good. Make it happen. Nail it in the diary; who, when, how.
2. Enlarge the NHS Staff Council to encompass all groups. The nurses settled early, they’ve come off worse. Consolidated collective bargaining is stronger.
3. Update Agenda-for-Change to reflect new grades and seniorities.
4. Review, PRBs; composition, independence, data they use and the speed they work at.
5. Regular, diarised meetings between ministers, unions and trade organisations. Make a deliberate attempt to build relationships, links, connections, understand ‘which way the wind is blowing’, because…

… politics is like the weather…

… never permanent. All that endures is a mutual interest in a better outlook.

We can’t change the weather but we can avoid the storms and control the atmosphere.

News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.