The BritMeds 2007 (9)
For doctors, MMC and MTAS have dominated the week, and this week’s BritMed nominations reflect that. But first, something even more disastrous happened this week to the health service.
Isn’t it nice to be valued by the government? Pay rises below the rate of inflation which are also staggered which effectively means that my standard of living is set to go down.Crap conditions, increasing demands, moronic running of the NHS and increased expectations with no increase of resources. Lies from the government who took money away from the ambulance service that made it’s (worthless) targets. A screwing over of our new members of staff giving them barely liveable wages for years. An expectation to work harder, an expectation to increase our scope of practice and all this leading to increased danger to staff.
The government decided to reduce the pay of nurses, paramedics and others. See expletive deleted by Tom Reynolds
And now, as they say, the rest of the news:
For doctors in the UK, the week has been dominated, as no other, by one topic. MTAS. The layman may not understand the impact and distress this system has caused. After all, it is “only” a computerised system to “match” doctors and jobs. It is, if you like, the Choose and Book of medical careers.
We saw the anguish of Hospital Phoenix and SHP as they awaited the MTAS outcomes. Then we compared the detailed applications from the now well-known Dr Smith and Mr Jones. We shared the distress of a young doctor being forced to chose between family and career. We discovered the secret training manual, hidden away in the Nottingham Deanery, used to “up-skill” (sic) the MTAS selectors; predictably the manual “disappeared” but not before Dr Crippen and others had saved a copy. For those who still have not read it, copies are freely available - full details here.
The original article attracted over three hundred comments, and they are still coming. They put human clothes on the bare bones of MTAS. Take a look here.
In a a particularly moving post we saw how the partners of doctors are coping/not-coping with MTAS
We watched doctors urge David Cameron, the leader of the conservative party, to make a policy statement on MTAS and MMC. Please support those doctors here.
Finally, we watched doctors, normally the most politically inert group of people in the county, start to organise a march, to take place on 17th March. This is being organised by Remedy UK. Please support them.
The still impassive layman would do well to pause and think. If he/she is baffled then take a look at MMC360 a new web-site that explains the whole system in detail.
An excellent review article by Dr Grumble (who points out the video to me) can be found here.
The laymen should watch out. If New Labour’s medical careers IT has caused such turmoil trying to match a few thousand doctors with a few thousand jobs, wait and see what happens when tens of millions of medical problems are “matched” with hospital out patient vacancies in the real Choose and Book system.
As Remedy UK says:
Radical, unvalidated, ideology-driven training reforms imposed at break-neck speed.
That’s New Labour health care policy in a nutshell.
The week was not just MTAS. The upload of patients private medical details to the government central computers begins in a few weeks.
Vicky Ford discusses why “our best young doctors may leave the country”
A characteristically temperate piece on Dr Rant’s site. Take a look at Patricia Hewitt eats babies.
An interesting thought from Robert Sharp:
I have been musing about the MTAS website, and have just put up a post about the idea that if it is SO bad, it might be a case of MALADMINISTRATION. An inaccessible website actually infringes government legislation under the disability discrimination act!The MTAS site would fail even the least demanding of these standards. It is therefore in breach of the governments own legislation in this regard. Disappointed doctors may find that the most effective means of redress may be via the Parliamentary and Heath Service Ombudsman
Full details in Maladministrating medical careers
Why are patients in pain being kept waiting for six months for the procedures they need? Good question, and the answer is here
A disturbing report suggesting that the GMC is racist.
LONDON: Nearly 60 per cent of all doctors disciplined by the General Medical Council (GMC) belong to Britain’s ethnic minority communities and one in three doctors erased from the GMC register are from India (full report here)
Dr Brian Fisher of the Record Access Collaborative , UK has some excellent tips for doctors who are concerned about the downsides of patients being able to read their own medical records. This wisdom is based on years of practical experience ! Full details here
More on “doctor” Gillian McKeith PhD (internet) in “Why five pieces of fruit and veg anyway”
As prescription charges go up in England, they are abolished in Wales. Whatever your views, some one is mad.
Eyes blazing with anger, the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, defends herself against charges that NHS operations are being deliberately delayed to save her political skin. Rather like a child being caught shop lifting, Patricia. See the excellent coverage in the KENT NHS BLOG
And Patricia’s eyes may yet blaze again when she is told what she has done to the nurses in the Birmingham area.
Back to MTAS, and an excellent post on the lunacy of MTAS, written by Dr Grumble, a senior doctor with children who are medical students. In a Stalinist bureaucracy, it is the tiny detail that bogs you down, and brings the system grinding to a halt. Dr Grumble has to give references for six doctors who have worked for him over the last few years. Trouble is, he does not have a secretary any more. Can you imagine a system that does not allow a senior hospital consultant, with all his responsibilities, to have a secretary? The world, or the NHS, has gone mad:
The first problem Dr Grumble had was knowing the dates that the six doctors had worked for him. How can he remember all this? Of course, any really sensible candidate would send their referee a CV - but none has yet (despite Dr Grumble’s attempts to email them and, in one case, a verbal request for a CV). In the old days Dr Grumble had a secretary that kept records of these things but she was lost in one of the rounds of NHS cuts and has been replaced by a typist in India. The typist in India cannot deal with such things; the hospital managers fail again and again to grasp what the most important part of a medical secretary’s job is.
Full report here.
A normally tough young doctor, the Ferret Fancier no less, says I feel like crying.
I am Dr Barry Monk, consultant dermatologist (specialist in diseases of the skin) at Bedford Hospital. I have worked in Bedford since 1987, and I am the leader of the Save Bedford Hospital party, which will be standing in Bedford in the next general election.
Take a look at the vote4barry site
Why is Sir (only a matter of time) Stuart Rose such a good retailer, whereas the ex-(only a matter of time) Secretary of State for Health is such a disaster? It is about experience; all is revealed here in a comparative report.
Which MP is refusing to see people in her constituency who work for the NHS? The answer may surprise you. Full details here.
Emily from Doing it all Again says that “a parenting strategy” is sodding useless without post-natal support in the early years. And where is that NHS support for new young mothers?
I’m a medical student, get me out of here finds the world is crumbling about him.
News has even reached the academic backwaters of Cambridge, where the Cambridge Angry Medic is doing gameshows
The media is driving demand for PSA tests to “prevent prostate cancer” and the doctors do not know know to handle the data
Allegations that patients at a Liverpool hospital had parts of their brains removed for medical research during neurosurgery without consenting to the procedure, can be revealed today.
The fate of a UK whistleblower is discussed in the USA
A grim week for the NHS so Dr Crippen looks abroad for a little light relief and finds it in Mexico, via Dr Helen in the USA.
A new law is being passed in Mexico that would jail men who avoid having sex with their wives
Full details from Dr Helen.
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Those wanting a non-medical slant on the week, should take a look at the week’s Britblogs which are being selected by the irascible Mr Eugenedes. Expect some fireworks amongst his selection of the Best of British Blogging
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Please send your recommendations for next week’s BritMeds to: thebritmedsATnhsblogdoc.wanadoo.co.uk