![]() ![]() When the relationship between the health profession and government breakdown, everyone suffers. To try and achieve it through a campaign that demoralises and damages a workforce, fractures the relationship between physicians and the state, leads to poorer patient outcomes every day, and will take a generation to repair, is not. What can we learn from this? A desire to improve patient outcomes on weekend is reasonable. It will re-emerge, and the prospect of further strikes, an unwanted contract, a further demoralised medical profession, and an ongoing breakdown of the trust between doctors and government seem likely. The impasse continued, and the debate was sidelined by Brexit. However the junior doctor workforce was not convinced, voting against this in a ballot. Resolution appeared possible by May 2016, with the Junior Doctor Committee accepting a revised government contract. Despite the promise of a 13% basic pay increase, 98% of junior doctors voted to strike, and an escalating strike action occurred from Jan to Apr 2016. (5) Strikes - By the end of 2015 a junior doctor strike was looming, as the Health Minister threatened to impose a new contract. (4) Disengagement with professional development (2) High dropout rates of physicians from medicine throughout different career stages (1) Increased sickness rates among physicians With this background, what happened when the NHS pushed for a contract with increased weekend working and no significant increase in pay for junior doctors? A push characterised by brinkmanship, media manipulation, and attempts to sway public opinion (4) lack of flexibility in working patterns. ![]() (1) substantial and often unmanageable workloads How did it come to this? In brief the government push to increase weekend cover in the face of increased demand and mortality on weekends, without increasing pay, in the setting of a reduced workforce compared to other OECD countries, a 48-hour work week, and flat health funding since 2008 in the face of increased workload, has resulted in This viewpoint describes the demoralising 2-year dispute between the UK government and medical profession, culminating in a workforce at the nadir of poor morale, and the UK Junior Doctors strike. The paper eloquently explains how we arrived at an impasse resulting in the first ever all out strikes by 'junior' doctors in the history of the national health service.ĭr Orford summarises the paper in our journal club as: This week sees the publication in JAMA by Andrew Goddard entitled Lessons to Be Learned From the UK Junior Doctors’ Strike. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |