Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Traditionally, medicine is not a particularly militant profession.   However, last Saturday, hundreds of doctors and their supporters were angry enough to congregate outside Belfast City Hall, to protest against a new contract for junior doctors, proposed by the government. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is determined to drive through changes he claims are necessary to deliver the ‘seven day NHS’ that Conservatives pledged in their general election manifesto.  The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents doctors across the UK, opposes the new contract, on the grounds that it will compromise patient safety and force its members to work exhaustingly long hours.  Currently junior doctors are paid at a standard rate for working between 7am and 7pm, on weekdays.  They receive a higher rate of pay, or ‘banding’, when they work nights, weekends or beyond 7pm in the evening.  Legally, junior doctors can be asked to work up to 91 hours ...

In a News Letter column I argue that health can't be treated in the same way as other products and services if it is provided for free. Whichever way you spin it, choosing a treatment from a hospital is not the same as choosing a product from a shop. If healthcare is just another part of the market, it is one sphere where the customer is not always right. No-one wants a return to the days of overbearing, uncommunicative doctors, but the philosophy of patient choice can be taken too far, particularly when the taxpayer picks up the tab.  A patient led service, where GPs are under pressure to provide the treatments people want, rather than those that they need, has its pitfalls. Thanks to the internet, we already have a whole generation prepared to second guess the advice of doctors, on the basis of their own spurious researches.  The NHS currently has some protection against the pressure of unscientific opinion and popular campaigning. The National Institute of Health and Cli...

This summer I became vicariously acquainted with the important and responsible work carried out by medical secretaries in the NHS. I have also come to understand that there is a shortage of candidates to fill these positions in Northern Ireland, due to the derisory wages offered. The result is a large backlog of work, inefficiency in delivery of services and public money being wasted by plugging the gap with agency staff. The SDLP’s Thomas Burns raises this issue today in the NI Assembly’s written questions and outlines the disparity between medical secretaries in Northern Ireland and in the other devolved regions: Questions to the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety 1. Mr Thomas Burns ( South Antrim): To ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to provide an explanation of why all medical secretaries in Northern Ireland were matched to Band 3 pay levels, regardless of experience, compared to 70% of medical secretaries in Wales and 80% of medi...